Lucas’ Glow-Up
Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) breaks away from his friends as he turns to healthier coping strategies to deal with trauma and the heartbreak after Max ends their budding romance. Friends growing apart is a really relatable theme, but while Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) try to stay in the safety of what they know, Lucas takes up something new to learn more about himself. I love that we get to see more of who he is outside of his friends, and McLaughlin is able to show Lucas’ complexity as the most mature of the gang. In earlier seasons, the character felt underdeveloped, but it’s a much meatier role this time around. Through his becoming one of the popular jocks, we get a perspective on how everyone else in Hawkins isn’t ready to handle the horrors he and his friends have fought throughout their childhood.
