#than anything rovickie got this season

[gay-mike-wheeler]

okay look i get that it’s difficult to get new characters involved in the supernatural plot in stranger things since obviously they need to be caught up on everything first. but the fact is eddie and argyle were present all season which. yes eddie was plot relevant and argyle was fun and occasionally helpful but. we don’t see vickie at all.

like okay let me list all the scenes she was in (at least the ones that i remember please lmk if i missed something i’ll edit the post)

robin and steve talk about vickie in the car on the way to the sports event(?)

vickie agrees that tammy thompson sings like a muppet

robin sees vickie and her boyfriend at the weapons store

robin and vickie make sandwiches together

like. the duffers know how to introduce and get people invested in new characters but with vickie they quite literally did not bother. and i guess you have to wonder why that is (we can all deduce the reason why).

[byler-alarmist]

Disclaimer: I am not anti-Vickie by any means. I think Vickie seems very sweet (although there may be something going on with her we don't know) and I will fully support her and Robin if the Duffers can prove to me in S5 why they work together.

That said, I am going to examine the one, glaring issue I have with Rovickie. If you're not put off by that, read on!

So, most of the criticism leveled against Vickie is that we don't know anything about her. That's true; we don't.

However, my main criticism is:

Does Robin know anything about her??

All we hear from Robin in S4 is that Vickie is the girl of her dreams, but we never hear why. In all her gushing/agonizing to Steve, Robin never tells us what about Vickie makes her so special.

Is she smart? Funny? Ambitious? Kind? Is she a pro at playing poker?

Even Tammy Thompson, whose role in S3 was purely offscreen, got a shout out of traits that Robin valued ("she has dreams!").

We can't say the same for Vickie. All we know is:

-she laughed at one of Robin's (Steve's) jokes

-she likes Fast Times

-she talks a lot when nervous

-she possibly likes boobies

And those last two were only figured out by Robin in the final episode of S4.

If Robin's feelings for Vickie are more than mere infatuation based on looks, wouldn't Robin have told us more than the most surface-level things about her?

And if your immediate response to this "well, she just hasn't spent enough one-on-one time with her to know!" .......that's exactly my point.

The writers have shown time and time again that the shallow relationships where tbe couple got into it without really talking or getting to know each other do not last .

I'm reminded of Lucas telling Mike "you're just blind because a girl isn't grossed out by you." 👀

All this in the same season where Robin is spending one-on-one time with Nancy, getting to know her and respect the things that make her "her". Rather than just looks, Robin gets to see Nancy's drive, intellect, leadership and bravery.

She calls her a "genius", says she is "full of surprises", and learns even more about her when Nancy opens up about her relationship inecurities. Robin sees her complexity.

I don't know about you, but to me, this is the core of why Rovickie is not as compelling as a ship. If they are meant to be endgame, why was Robin paired with Nancy all season?

Surely there could've been some plot device to bring Vickie into the fold, just like Max was brought into the Party back in S2.

Vickie could've been trapped with Robin and the older teens after some supernatural things happened at rhe pep rally or other school function and they got separated from the rest, or she could've been related to the Creels and the gang needed to ask her for help. It's a TV show; they can do whatever they want.

Either way, they decided not to involve her in the main plot of the show at all, preventing both Robin and the viewers from getting to know her fully. I believe this was intentional and will have consequences for their relationship in S5.

One final thought- in early S4, Robin tells Steve that she has found the girl of her dreams but can't get the courage to ask her out, whereas Steve goes on a ton of dates but has no idea what he wants.

I think it would be VERY interesting if their roles were actually swapped, i.e. by the end of S4, Robin is the one who doesn't really know what she wants, and Steve is the one who realizes he has found the (person) of his dreams.

[smalltownrobin]

I think the best way for rovickie to be set up for s5, considering the YEAR AND A HALF TIME SKIP, would be if Vickie has been away at college.

(this is so long I'm sorry)

Obviously, where they were left at the end of s4 was very vague but also very telling, my assumption is that Vickie still needs to figure out and come to terms with her sexuality, then the two need to tell each other their feelings, but both seem to be AWARE there is something between them. Going straight from that to a year and a half later would make their story jankier than it already is, a lot of people (including myself) have thought there's a chance they're already together and we're just totally skipping over all the good ship stuff, or they would have been doing this subtle friends but gay and eyeing each other thing for over a year. Neither is a good option storytelling wise.

However, with the way things are between them by the end of s4, I think a great way to sort of keep it in that place, progress it slightly, AND give a natural explanation as for what's been happening between them during the time skip, is for them to basically not have seen each other the whole time, hence Vickie going off to college.

I can see it like their friendship got somewhat closer after their conversation at the relief centre, and they continued on that trajectory until graduation (since the education system seems to stay up and running despite gaping gates to an alternate dimension splitting the town in half), where Vickie did the typical thing and went to college, while Robin, most probably not able to afford it and wanting to stay and help with the upside down stuff, stayed in Hawkins.

While Vickie is at college, it's entirely possible that she had the time and space to figure out her sexuality (not so much "experimenting" in the derogatory sense, just being in a more open environment and meeting new people not from a small red state town), whether she entirely accepts herself or simply becomes more open to the possibility of being queer, I think either works. Of course, she would also have her lingering feelings for Robin to deal with, which would most likely be the main factor in her even considering the possibility of liking girls.

Another crucial detail is that Vickie appears to be a candy striper volunteer at Hawkins memorial hospital, along with Nancy (not technically confirmed, but we've seen Vickie at the hospital both weeks they were filming there, and someone who looked an awful lot like her stunt double in the uniform, plus my own Vickie intuition that's totally what she'd do). Since it's a year and a half break, unless Hawkins is under a strict quarantine (there seems to be something enforced but quarantine I'm ignoring for the sake of this idea), Vickie would of course be able to come home for holidays, where she'd most likely choose to spend her time away from college volunteering (this being the girl that ignored her bf to spend spring break at the relief centre, remember) (I'm doing too many brackets aren't I, my apologies). She could have some kind of workplace friendship with Nancy because of this, which doesn't add much to anything, I just like the idea of them being friends cos they'd get along spectacularly, but anyway, this would work for s5 which seems to be set around thanksgiving 1987, so of course Vickie would be home for the holiday, doing her volunteering, and that's how she ends up involved this season.

I think something that could be cute here is if Vickie comes back to Hawkins every so often (christmas, thanksgiving, spring break, summer, etc.), and every single time she wants to call Robin, or go to her house, and hang out with her, but every single time she never quite has the guts to. If she's been away thinking about the way she feels about this girl, realising that she may actually be queer, then as much as she likes talking to someone who gets her and is like her, that could just about hold her back from willing herself to see her again.

Now, ROBIN'S SIDE OF THINGS. Obviously, girlie would be staying in Hawkins doing... whatever, idk, her and Steve don't seem to be employed anymore, maybe they've just been chilling looking for Vecna, but from Robin's perspective, when Vickie left for college, she left for good. Hawkins is a fucked up and dangerous place, she wouldn't have thought there'd be any reason for her to come back, and even if she did, she wouldn't want to meet up with Robin. So, Robin's probably spent a year and a half trying to not think about her or what they could have been, because Vickie's safer away from this place, and doesn't need her.

AND SO... when Robin goes to the hospital early in the season (for a reason I still don't know), it could be where her and Vickie run into each other, see each other for the first time in a year and a half, and all of that is behind that moment. It keeps them somewhat in the place they were left at the end of s4, but it has even more weight to it, and it accounts for the time that's passed.

From here I could get into how I think they talk at the hospital and arrange to meet up (hence why Robin's done her hair all cute with that bow), and then they don't for whatever reason and bla bla bla, but then I'd just be spewing s5 theories and it's 2am I don't have the energy for that. This was just what I wanted to share, and it took me way too many paragraphs to do so, but there you go.

TL;DR: s5 would be cool if Vickie figured out her sexuality at college and popped back into town occasionally to volunteer at the hospital and Robin thought she left for good and is glad she's safe while sad thinking what they could have been, they don't see each other during the year and a half time skip until they run into each other at the hospital (during thanksgiving break) and from there that's how Vickie gets involved with the upside down.