Warning: Spoilers for Stranger Things season 3 are ahead.
Stranger Things season three gets another much-needed additional dose of Girl Power in the form of Steve's friend Robin, Maya Hawke’s (yes, daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) cool, code-cracking band geek spending her summer scooping ice cream with everyone’s favourite head of hair.
Remember how working a summer job would often bring you closer to classmates you didn’t really know during the school year and then also, you'd have to battle the Russians? That’s what happens with Robin, as she accidentally gets mixed up in everything Upside Down and soon finds herself along for the ride with Steve (Joe Keery), and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Erica (Priah Ferguson).
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From what it appears, Robin and Steve are literally the only two people working at Scoops Ahoy, the ice cream parlour, in the Starcourt Mall. This means that the two are forced to spend long hours together, slinging ice cream for tweens and teens who want extra whipped cream and sprinkles.
Robin is a little wary of the fact that Steve is friends with so many different children in Hawkins, but when Dustin returns from summer camp, he clearly wins her over as she’s more than eager to help when a strange Russian communication turns up. As she tells the boys, she spent many hours in the Hawkins band so she’s got an ear for things like different languages, and even speaks multiple ones herself. When Dustin comes to Steve looking for help cracking the Russian message, it’s actually Robin who does so. And then she deciphers it and figures out what the code means so the group can track the Russians.
Warning — this is where the spoilers get really real.
This sends Robin, Steve, Dustin, and Erica down into the depths of Hawkins and into the underground Russian facility to figure out what they’re doing, and also how they can escape from the Russians. During this, Robin and Steve grow closer together, with her actually admitting that during high school she was obsessed with him — we can all see where this is going.
But then, there’s a twist! Now that Steve knows Robin has feelings for him after the two get high via some Russian drugs, Steve tells Robin that he’s falling for her. This takes Robin by surprise, as she’s now got to confess something: The only reason she was obsessed with him in high school was because he took the attention of all the girls in their class, including the ones Robin had a crush on herself. Without outright saying it, Robin confirms her sexuality for us and Steve.
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Without any sexual tension standing in the way, the season ends with Robin and Steve as the best of friends. And now, you might even say she’s babysitting him as she’s able to snag a job for him at the video store (because neither one of them wants to go back to Scoops Ahoy, and like, we get it). In a roundabout way, Robin’s taken on the role of the level-headed straight man keeping Steve (and Dustin) as grounded as can be. She’s a new voice of reason something everyone desperately needs in this town.
The character of Robin also slowly started to evolve to fit better with Hawke, as she told WWD, “[The writers] kind of tapped into [my energy] and then started to write the character more along those lines. I came into it thinking, ‘OK, sarcastic, bored with her life, down to earth, Madonna wannabe, cool girl from school but that no one notices.’ And then throughout the season, she became more and more like me.”
Now that Robin’s a part of the group and Steve’s new best friend, she's better stick around for Stranger Things season 4.