Stranger Things slips into its final stretch with season 5, and the show drops a tiny scene between Robin and Will that quietly carries the weight of a lifetime. The new volume arrives with all the noise one expects from a global hit, but tucked inside the action, and the supernatural swings is a moment many viewers glide past without noticing its power.
Will’s Breakthrough That Sets Up His Big Episode 4 Moment
Amid the rush of monsters, mysteries, and the race to stop Vecna, the season gives most of its characters at least a single spark of spotlight. Jonathan stays in the background again, but his younger brother Will steps into the best arc he has had since the beginning. His growing friendship with Robin becomes the emotional anchor of his journey, offering him a rare space to speak openly about her sexuality and, without saying too much, untangle his own feelings along the way.
This pays off in the sharpest way at the end of episode 4, when Will gathers every inch of courage he has and snaps Vecna’s taunts in half. He thinks back to the moments that shaped him and then uses his mind to take down three Demogorgons at once. It lands like a thunderbolt, but the show has been building toward it through the quiet, steady talks he shares with Robin about self-acceptance.
Putting Robin and Will together was honestly the smartest thing the writers have ever done. pic.twitter.com/QIMmnS9yWB
— Stranger News (@StrangerNews11) November 30, 2025
The Enigma Machine Line That Holds A Bigger Meaning
You see, before all this, Robin and Will talk about Vickie, which is tender, but the real spark hides inside one simple line. Robin grins and says that the Enigma machine won the war, all while trying to push Will into seeing himself as the key to Vecna’s patterns. It sounds playful, but it hits something deeper for him.
Back in season 4, Will’s school project centered on Alan Turing and the Enigma machine, where the students were told to choose a personal hero. Eleven picked Hopper and paid for it with Angela’s cruelty, and Will picked Turing, the mathematician whose brilliance helped the Allies decode German naval ciphers. Stranger Things never shows his presentation, but the choice says everything.
Now, season 5 never names Turing outright, yet the Enigma reference sits there as a quiet tribute. If you are not a history buff but have seen Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game, then you would probably know by now that Turing shaped early computing, built the foundations of logic systems, and explored ideas that became modern machines. His part in breaking Germany’s codes changed the course of World War II.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game pic.twitter.com/ECKXEn0nc8
— best of benedict (@picsbenedict) July 30, 2021
Turning’s life, however, was crushed by the UK government. In 1953, he was prosecuted for homosexual acts and forced into chemical castration instead of prison. He died soon after, long before the world understood the scale of his contributions. The Official Secrets Act kept his most important work hidden for decades.
Alan Turing’s Legacy Echoes Through Will’s Journey
Stranger Things folds this history into its story with simple references that carry weight. It sits beneath the sci-fi battles, the fantasy elements, the creature fights, and the supernatural storms. It reminds viewers that the world’s real heroes sometimes lived their lives in silence and pain.
Robin and Will feel the echo of that story, two young outcasts finding some version of themselves in a town that rarely knows how to accept differences. They move through Hawkins with their small fears and big secrets, yet Will still steps up to save the place that failed him more than once. By the end of volume 1, that quiet nod to Turing becomes more than a detail, and it becomes a thread tying Will’s past, his identity, and most importantly, his courage into one powerful moment that changes the tide of the battle.
WILL. BYERS. pic.twitter.com/S1pIqTusf2
— sƃuᴉɥʇ ɹǝƃuɐɹʇs (@Stranger_Things) December 3, 2025
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