All signs point to Stranger Things Season 5 being an incredibly eventful chapter for the beloved Netflix show, which makes sense given it’ll close out this series amid the 2025 TV schedule. There’s a lot of emotional baggage at play and, coming out of the fourth season, many of the heroes of Hawkins, Indiana are going through a lot. That’s especially true for fan-favorite couple Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield, who’s in a coma. Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas, opened up about his character’s mental state.
SFX Magazine on CinemaBlend has Stranger Things fans covered with coverage for Season 5 this month. As part of that, Caleb McLaughlin took part in a wide-ranging interview, during which he was asked about what lies ahead for his character. Early footage indicates that Lucas is going to be protecting beloved character Max (played by Sadie Sink) as she remains comatose. As McLaughlin explained, though, it isn’t going to be easy for Lucas to handle the situation involving his girlfriend:
It affects Lucas a lot this season. In season four, when all that stuff happened to Max, he thinks it’s his fault because he could have helped her. I mean, he helped her – he saved her, in a way – but I feel like he has some internal guilt that he could have stopped it, or he could have helped her more.
Season 4 saw Max isolate herself due to the death of her stepbrother, Billy, and it was her PTSD that made her a prime target of Vecna. Lucas, Dustin and more managed to save Max the first time Vecna tried to kill her, though she wasn’t unscathed during her second encounter with the lord of the Upside Down. In the season finale, Vecna killed Max, who was soon revived by Eleven, but she ultimately remained in the coma. While Lucas tried to protect his girlfriend, McLaughlin stressed that Sinclair feels responsible for her condition:
There’s a lot of trauma for him in that way. Someone that he loves and cares about, it was his task to look after her, and now she’s in the situation that she’s in. So that definitely affects him going into the new season.
Based on the Stranger Things Season 5 trailers, Lucas is going to go above and beyond for Max this season. At first glance, he appears to be regularly visiting Max at the hospital as hinted at during the conclusion of Season 4. However, based on teaser clips, Lucas must also transport Max’s body amid some kind of attack on the hospital. Like so many, I was already worried for Max and Lucas, but that’s true now more than ever.
Of course, the threat of the villainous Vecna affects all of the residents of Hawkins, as he seeks to take over the world. What’s standing between him and total domination, of course, is fans’ favorite ragtag team of Demogorgon fighters, led by Eleven, who’s now more powerful than she’s ever been. Action is sure to be plentiful, yet it’s the character moments that make this show so endearing. So I’m eager to see how these complex individuals grow, and that certainly includes Caleb McLaughlin’s Lucas.
See what lies ahead for Lucas, Max and the rest of the Hawkins crew when Stranger Things Season 5 drops Volume 1 for Netflix subscription holders on November 26. Volume 2 will follow on December 25, while the finale is set to debut on December 31.
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