Stranger Things fans rage as Robin’s sapphic romance comes to abrupt end: ‘This messy show’

The Stranger Things fandom has a handful of burning questions following on from the show’s dramatic end, and one of the major ones is: what happened to Vickie Dunne?

Spoiler alert: this article contains spoilers for the final episode of Stranger Things.

Introduced in season four, Vickie Dunne – played by Amybeth McNulty – became a fairly huge part of Robin Buckley’s (Maya Hawke) storyline, playing her lesbian love interest. 

Between season four and season five, Vickie and Robin confirmed their relationship, and Robin spends a fair amount of time in the final season promising to take Vickie out on a proper date and shielding her from the fact that Hawkins is facing impending doom.

In season five volume two, Robin finally shares the truth about Vecna’s deadly plot with Vickie, but Vickie assumes Robin is on drugs and needs help – that is, until a bunch of Demogorgons break into Hawkins Memorial Hospital, where Vickie works as nurse, forcing her to believe that everything Robin has said is true. 

From then on, Vickie joins the rest of the clan in their plan to stop Vecna and destroy the Mind Flayer, before she and Max (Sadie Sink) are whisked away by the US Military. 

And that, Stranger Things fans were dismayed to learn, is the last we see of Vickie.

At the end of the show’s last ever episode, episode eight, all of the major characters were part of the epilogue, detailing how the next few years of their lives play out and how their relationships change and develop.

That is, apart from Robin and Vickie. The only hint we get as to what happened to the adored duo is an off the cuff comment from Robin, in the final scene between her and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton), Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) and Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer).

Robin has gone off to Smith College to study feminism theory, and she laments about how much she misses the foursome together. They all agree to meet up with each other, no excuses, with Steve saying that nothing will ever keep them apart. At that moment, Robin adds: “Including overbearing significant others.”

It was a very vague allusion to Robin and Vickie breaking up due to Vickie being “overbearing” but far from a solid conclusion to the couple.

On social media, fans of Netflix’s sci-fi smash aren’t quite buying it.

“They included Vickie [in] the plan… in the last moment and couldn’t include her in the epilogue,” wrote one fan on X, formerly Twitter. “Where did she go?? Wtf [showrunners] Duffer Brothers.”

“Am I the only one left wondering what [the f**k] happened to Vickie at the end of Stranger Things,” questioned a second fan on X, to which another fan replied: “She literally vanished and nobody said anything about her, not even Robin.”

Considering Robin and Vickie brought the bulk of Stranger Things’ queer representation pre Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) coming out, LGBTQ+ fans had hallmarked the nurse as one of the show’s most important characters. 

“‘Cause how did they just write off Vickie,” one fan raged on X. “What the hell THIS MESSY UNFINISHED ASS SHOW IM MAD.”

“Love the part in the Stranger Things finale where we see what happened to Vickie,” another viewer joked.

Posting on Instagram last week, McNulty shared a number of behind the scenes images from the show, writing in the caption: “My people, always.”

View this post on Instagram

However, the actress is yet to post anything related to the show’s conclusion, with fans jumping into the comments of her most recent post to question what happened to the character.

“Why weren’t you in the epilogue. Vickie’s my favorite. What the heck,” one wrote.

A second added: “Girl why did they not bring you up in the ending hello????”

Considering Stranger Things has now ended forever, it seems unlikely that fans will ever get to the truth behind what happened to cause Robin and Vickie’s demise.

Stranger Things is streaming now on Netflix.

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