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It's Too Late For Stranger Things To Tell Lucas' Missing Story

July 11, 2022

Warning: Spoilers for Stranger Things season 4!

While Stranger Things has provided dramatic story arcs for most of its characters, the show has noticeably left Lucas without one of his own. For someone who has been around since the very beginning of the series, Lucas's role has seemingly gotten smaller, making way for new characters or bigger action pieces for the show’s heroes, like Eleven and Hopper. But more importantly, the show has ignored an integral aspect of his life — and it doesn’t have the time to fix that.

Lucas has been mostly a supporting character when it comes to Stranger Things’ original foursome. Season 1 focuses on Mike as he leads the kids’ search for Will and integrates the superpowered Eleven into their group. Season 2 of Stranger Things is about Will’s PTSD after escaping the Upside Down, as well as his possession by the Mind Flayer. While that season introduces Lucas’s love interest, Max, he has little to do on his own. In season 3, the group confronts a Mind Flayer-created hive mind, with Lucas’s sister Erica and newcomer Robin joining the ride. It’s in season 4 that Lucas finally gets his own arc when he joins the basketball team, creating a rift between him and his friends. However, this proves to be in service of the season’s Hawkins-side drama, wherein the town — spurred by Jason, the basketball team captain — gets swept up in the real Satanic Panic that surfaced in the ‘80s.

Related: Why Stranger Things 4’s Satanic Panic Subplot Is So Annoying

What makes this lack of a strong Lucas story stand out is the fact that there is such an obvious well to dip into: small-town racism in the ‘80s. Despite Lucas being one of a handful of Black characters who receive prominent screen time in Stranger Things, this topic is never really touched on. It wouldn’t be uncharacteristic of the vibe, as the show has taken on serious issues before. There have been stories about mental health, familial abuse, and the implications of the Cold War. Currently, the show is building a story around Will Byers’s sexuality. The reality of prejudice should’ve been something that the Duffer Brothers actively explored. But with only one season left for the show, it’s far too late to bring this topic to the forefront.

There were certainly moments where it seemed like the Duffer Brothers knew to acknowledge race. In the very first Stranger Things episode, a pair of bullies harass Lucas, Mike, and Dustin. In that scene, the bullies refer to Lucas as “Midnight,” an obvious reference to his skin tone. But this kind of racially charged confrontation never happens again in that season. With the season 2 introduction of Max came her abusive stepbrother, Billy. In one scene, Billy tells Max to stay away from Lucas because he’s a “certain type” of person. Understandably, audiences took this as Billy being a racist, though this is never made explicit. In fact, Billy’s actor, Dacre Montgomery, rejected a line in the script that would’ve made Billy’s prejudices much more obvious.

But even if the Duffer Brothers needed to tone down that kind of story in Stranger Things season 2 — and of course, there was no space for it in season 3 — they had a great opportunity to centralize it in Lucas’s season 4 arc. When he joins the basketball team, there’s one other Black player. These characters could’ve discussed the pressures of being minorities in a predominantly white town. Instead, they hardly interact. Moreover, once Jason turns against Lucas in the end, the racial dynamics of their relationship could have surfaced. After all, Jason pulling a gun on an unarmed Lucas is a charged moment for Black viewers who might have expected such a turn. But the show never touches the optics of that, and it's a decision that really puts the final nail in the coffin of a poignant look at ‘80s racism.

Though ultimately a show about children facing off against supernatural terrors, Stranger Things is also about those kids growing up and dealing with regular adolescent stuff — first love, popularity, and discovering who you are. For a Black boy like Lucas, his race would’ve been something he contended with on a near-daily basis. But by burying this topic for four seasons, the Duffer Brothers built an unrealistic world that they can’t rewrite in an authentic way for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things.

Next: Erm, About That Stranger Things Season 5 Time Jump...?!



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