Stranger Things season 4 spoilers: What did Will paint?

When we first saw Will in Stranger Things season 4, Eleven was writing a letter to Mike updating him on their new life in California. During her updates, she revealed that Will is painting a lot but won’t show her what he’s working on — suggesting maybe it was for someone he likes.

Although it seemed like a throwaway moment used just to let the audience know what Will had been up to, this is Stranger Things and nothing is down unintentionally. In fact, the show continued to double down on the mystery of Will’s painting across Stranger Things season 4 part 1 when he brought it to the airport to pick up Mike and made sure to grab it when fleeing the house during the shootout.

Oddly, the show chose not to reveal what Will painted within the first part of season 4; however, we finally got the answer to our burning question in part 2!

In episode 8, fans finally got the chance to see what Will painted earlier in the season and we have to confess it wasn’t what we imagined the painting would be of! While Will’s past paintings have typically been connected to the season’s villain, this particular painting has no connection to Vecna — rather it’s a more personal painting that Will uses to inspire Mike.

When Mike begins spiraling over whether Eleven needs him any longer, Will gives Mike an impassioned speech about their connection as he works to reassure him that Eleven indeed needs Mike, even if it might not seem like it at the moment. It’s at this time he pulls out the painting and shows it to Mike.

In the painting, Will has painted himself, Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Eleven in a medieval setting as knights and wizards preparing to do battle with a three-headed dragon. As he tells Mike, he painted him as the Knight with a shield featuring a coat of arms with a heart design to symbolize Mike’s standing as the heart of the group. As Will tells him, “That’s what holds this part together. Heart. Because without heart, we’d all fall apart.”

So mystery solved! The painting was of Will and his friends battling a three-headed dragon, not of Vecna or anything related to his attacks. Now that was a twist we didn’t see coming!

Stranger Things season 4 is streaming now on Netflix.