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Yet again a plotline they know how to write but didn't:
"Mike spends time with El that sparks platonic jealousy of her from a friend of his"
Season 1 Lucas vs Season 4 Will. Lucas is platonically jealous. Will is romantically jealous.
Lucas is jealous because Mike is spending more time with El, which he perceives romantically.
Will is jealous because Mike is spending more time with El, which he perceives romantically.
The romantic nature of the relationship they're jealous isn't what differentiates the nature of the jealousy. Both watch a romantic interaction between them from afar upset - Will in 4x02 at the roller rink and Lucas in 1x03 for the "I understand" scene. So why, then, is Lucas' jealousy platonic but Will's romantic. It isn't. They're identical. Except for one key detail I have strategically omitted.
Mike. Lucas and Will behave near identically. They are sad, gazing from afar, and irritable about the topic, fighting with both Mike and one other friend on the topic (Dustin, El).
But Mike only behaves abnormally in one scenario: Will's. Season 1 is a miscommunication - Lucas thinks Mike is prioritizing El over Will but really, he's just prioritizing Will through El. But season 4 is not that. In season 4, he committedly ignores Will without explanation for a full day before defending that any two friends who didn't see each other for 8 months wouldn't keep in touch during that time.
It isn't romantic of Will to be jealous of El. It wasn't romantic of Lucas and we knew that. Mike is the one who made it out to be romantic because that's the conclusion he jumped to (defend) out of fear. It's just that we, trained by the writers like good little viewers to equate straight relationship to straight, listened to him.
Will acted with Mike exactly like Lucas did and that played as platonic. What happened wasn't that Will behaved differently. What happened was we noticed that something in their relationship was more romantic. We turned to where it was coming from, to see: Mike ..........frantically pointing us to Will.
In season 4 when he defended not keeping in touch, in season 3 when he brought up queerness in defense of an accusation towards Mike and Lucas on Dustin's behalf,
Mike set off our alarm bells. And Mike redirected us. (And ironically, that is what told on him.)