Analysis: Mike Jumping Off A Cliff In S1

Analysis: Mike Jumping Off a Cliff in S1

Because it’s all I’ve thought about for the past few months.

TW: suicide mention

(Sorry if everything I’m about to say has already been said.)

Mike jumps off a cliff in episode six. At this point in the story, the majority of the town thinks that Will died by falling from the quarry, and it’s possibly been implied that Hopper originally thought Will jumped rather than fell.

Mike, however, knows Will is actually alive, and he’s dedicating all his time to finding him. He even befriended El solely because he thought she could help him find Will.

Then he got into a fight with Lucas, and their argument, at its core, was about Lucas thinking that Mike isn’t doing enough to help Will. Now, Lucas won’t talk to him.

After that fight, Mike got mad at Eleven and yelled at her, which drove her away. This means he currently has no way of saving Will, and on top of that, El, whom he’s made it his job to protect, is now wandering around, by herself, while people are trying to hunt her down and kill her. It’s likely that he feels he’s failed two of his friends, and to make matters worse, someone else he cares about even blames him for one of these “failures.”

When Troy tells Mike to either jump off the cliff or watch him hurt Dustin, Mike is at a point where he feels that he has no one else he’s capable of protecting. From his perspective, Dustin is the only person whom he can actually help, and keeping others safe is his one purpose. If he can’t save Will or El, he has nothing to live for, but if he can save Dustin by jumping off that cliff, he has something to die for.

Mike also doesn’t even try to negotiate with Troy; he makes no objections. It takes him less than nine seconds to decide to go along with it. Then, he walks slowly toward the edge of the cliff but doesn’t come to a stop until he’s on the edge, and he waits there for twenty seconds before jumping. Based on his body language, I think he hesitates not because he’s still deciding whether he’s going to jump but rather, because he’s scared. I also think the fact that he didn’t try to come up with an alternative to himself dying is a sign that at least part of him actually wanted to die — that he wasn’t just doing it because he felt he had to.

Now, the fact that this scene takes place at the quarry, of all places, is obviously significant. It could have happened anywhere in any way — Mike didn’t have to jump off the same cliff everyone thought Will fell/jumped from, toward the same water they’d found Will’s “body” in. But the writers wanted it to be clear that Mike jumped primarily because he felt guilty for not saving Will and that while other characters tried to make it seem like Will’s “death” was an accident, Mike’s own death would have been on purpose — a suicide. Hopper’s lines to Joyce, “Our working theory right now is that Will…crashed his bike. He…made his way to the quarry, and, uh…accidentally fell in,” were designed to contrast Mike’s purposeful jumping from the cliff. The audience is supposed to wonder why a twelve year old boy was so willing to kill himself.

Speaking of the police’s theory of how Will died — if it had been correct, and if Mike had died too, the boys’ deaths would have almost completely matched up. Both Mike and Will would have abandoned their respective bikes in the woods to run from a posed threat; both of them would have gone straight to the quarry afterward; both of them would have fallen/jumped from the edge, and both of their bodies would have been found in the water below. These parallels would not exist if they weren’t important.

Bonus: the camera shots after Will and Mike (and Dustin) leave their respective bikes parallel each other:

Additionally, in season two, episode one, Ted says to Mike, “So, if your friend jumps off a cliff, you’re gonna jump too?” He’s paraphrasing a common expression because he has no actual fatherly wisdom to give, as per usual, so I initially thought this was a throwaway line only meant to remind the audience how useless he is. However, while the line does serve that purpose, it’s not a throwaway from the writers; it has a point to it.

Mike knew, when he jumped off the quarry, that Will himself hadn’t actually jumped or fallen from it, but regardless, it’s plausible that, at the time, he was thinking about Will and the fact that Will’s fake body had been found there. And if Mike had died that day, the town likely would have assumed he did it because he wanted to “join” his friend by dying in the same way he did.

“So, if your friend jumps off a cliff, you’re gonna jump too?” is intended to remind the audience that Mike has some major issues, which have yet to be resolved.