It’s officially 2025, which means any day now, we should be getting news from Netflix on when and how they plan to release the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. With filming officially wrapping in December 2024, all that’s left is the post-production phase, where the final episodes will really take shape. Based on the BTS photos the Duffer Brothers and others have shared, I have high hopes that the hit Netflix series is going to have one of the best endings in TV history. However, there is a small part of me that is worried they might fall victim to one, unfortunately, common trope: “bury your gays.”
For those that may not be familiar, “bury your gays” is a literary trope that has been around for over a century and, in the simplest terms, means that one of the lovers in an LGBTQ+ relationship must die, typically shortly after confessing their feelings. The trope was originally established to allow LGBTQ+ writers to tell their stories without facing backlash for breaking laws prohibiting the “promotion” of homosexuality. Even though many of those laws no longer exist, at least in the United States, the trope continues to be used heavily, often for unnecessary shock value, especially when it comes to lesbian and bisexual characters.
It’s no secret that the Duffers Brothers are a fan of incorporating tropes, especially ones dominant in horror genres, into each season. The series also has a habit of making audiences care about characters only to have them brutally die when they’re on the verge of success — Bob in Season 2, Alexie in Season 3, and Eddie in Season 4, just to name a few. So it’s not totally absurd for me to wonder if the Duffer Brothers would fall prey to the ‘bury your gays’ trope.
After all, Stranger Things does feature two openly LGTBQ+ characters on the show, Will and Robin, and both could easily fall victim to the unfortunate trope.
Take Will, for instance; it’s no secret that he’s been harboring a crush on his best friend, Mike, since the beginning. A scene where he confesses his love for him only to be pulled back into the Upside Down by Demogorgons for good this time, basically writes itself.
And then there’s Robin. While she’s become a fan-favorite after her touching coming-out scene, she isn’t considered a main character since she wasn’t around in the early seasons. So, she might not be safe since the Duffer Brothers only seem to kill off non-main characters. Add that to the fact that at the end of Season 4, it looks like she has a shot with her crush, Vickie, and Robin is one bad move away from becoming another unnecessary lesbian casualty in the media.
For a show set in the 1980s that regularly features characters dying, it’s pretty impressive that the only two canonically LGBTQ+ characters have managed to survive this long. That alone is a reason to applaud the Duffer Brothers and their team of writers for managing to chase the ‘bury your gays’ trope. However, with Season 5 being the last season and so many people begging them to start killing off the main characters, my anxiety surrounding Robin and Will’s survival has reached an all-time high.
In my opinion, it would be a huge disservice for them to backtrack all the positive progress they’ve made by killing off Robin and Will — especially if the death comes moments after they’ve gotten to share their true selves with the people they love. There are plenty of other characters that could be killed off to create the high-stakes drama fans are clearly after — like Steve, who many already believe isn’t making it out of Hawkins alive.
Besides, keeping Will and Robin alive could set a precedent and finally end the unnecessary “bury your gays” trope once and for all. And isn’t Stranger Things all about defeating evil for the greater good?
Unfortunately, it seems I’ll be sitting with this anxiety for some time since we still don’t know when Season 5 will premiere on the 2025 TV schedule. In the meantime, I’ll be streaming all four seasons of Stranger Things with my Netflix subscription and keeping my eyes open for any new information about Season 5 and the fates of these two beloved characters.
