In their following debrief about Will catching Robin kissing Vickie, Robin seems to clock Will’s massive, perhaps one-sided crush on Mike. In a rousing monologue, Robin describes the freedom she felt when she first accepted her own queerness through a story of her past crush on classmate Tammy Thompson. She had fantasised about accepting herself entirely once Tammy fell for her, but then Tammy dated Steve instead. As she began to spiral into despair, she found an old film reel of her younger self in her family’s basement that brought her a revelation.
“That little me, I could hardly recognise her,” she tells Will. “She was so carefree and fearless… She just loved every part of herself.” Robin remembers realising at that moment that it was never about whether Tammy liked her back, at all.
“I was looking for answers in somebody else, but I had all the answers,” she says as they both tear up. “I just needed to stop being so goddamn scared… of who I really was. Once I did that, I felt so free.”
It’s a lovely testament to the power of self-acceptance and inner child work that could very well be to Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z what Jennifer Garner’s Love, Simon “You get to exhale now” monologue was to legions of sniffling audiences in 2018. Already, fans are debating online about whether or not Robin’s speech means that any possibility of a romance between Mike and Will — dubbed “Byler” by the fandom — has been dashed because Mike is Will’s Tammy Thompson. I can’t speak to what the Duffers have planned, but the scene is bound to keep AO3 chugging along at full steam until the next drop of episodes on Christmas. It also does a hell of a job teeing up the first volume of season five’s explosive cliffhanger bringing back Robin’s monologue.
During a climactic battle at the local military base in episode four, titled “Sorcerer,” Vecna decides to make his grand return, brand-new slutty little waist and all. After dragging a writhing Will to face him, he launches into a villain monologue about his plans to use the town of Hawkins, Indiana’s children to remake the world as he sees fit.
“Do you know why I chose them to reshape the world? It’s because they are weak… in body and mind,” he declares. He says Will’s mind broke “so easily” back in season one and that showed Vecna what he could achieve usurping more children. (Baby Will could definitely benefit from an “It Gets Better” campaign, but that’s a pretty harsh way to put it!)
“Some minds, it turns out, simply do not belong in this world,” he concludes. “They belong in mine.”
As Vecna strides away, he leaves his Demogorgons to finish the job of devouring Will’s friends. When all hope seems lost, the sound cuts out and Will closes his eyes, remembering Robin’s words to him. As we hear her speech once again in voiceover, the episode cuts to a film montage of some of young Will’s happiest moments. He befriends Mike on the playground, then presents drawings to his mum, then builds his “Castle Byers” fort in the backyard with his brother Jonathan. Before Will became gripped by fear of his own queerness he, like Robin, was free.
Back in the present, the Demogorgons moving in on their prey are suddenly frozen in mid-air thanks to Will, who, in this Robin-inspired revelatory self-acceptance, conjures Eleven-like telekinetic powers. Right before the episode cuts to black, he even wipes a trademark nosebleed with his sleeve.
This certainly isn’t the first time that a fantasy protagonist has gained supernatural abilities through the power of self-actualisation (see: countless anime). Directly relating Will’s unlocked powers with his gay identity feels distinctly X-Men, too (I hope he enjoys X2’s mutant “coming out” scene in the future, should he survive his final showdown with Vecna).