Each Max and Lucas undergo some troublesome experiences over the course of the present’s run. They spend swaths of the collection aside or at odds, barely talking, in several buddy teams, and/or trapped in a hell-like dimension inside a psychopath’s thoughts. However even when issues appear bleakest, the 2 of them by no means hand over on each other, whether or not they’re technically collectively romantically and even sharing the identical airplane of existence. Positive, the present makes an enormous deal over Kate Bush’s “Working Up That Hill” being the important thing to bringing Max residence — we actually hear it sufficient! — however the ultimate season makes it clear that it’s Lucas who’s her true anchor, the boy who by no means stopped believing that she’d discover her manner again to him.
It makes a specific amount of sense that the Stranger Issues finale not solely provides these two the comfortable ending they earned way back, but in addition makes use of their relationship as an example how they, and their compatriots, are shifting into a brand new stage of their lives. And it’s one which’s decidedly extra grown-up. Max and Lucas lastly get to go on their long-promised film date, bringing issues again full circle to the trail they’d began on earlier than she was taken by Vecna. However what makes it so particular is that whereas neither is identical particular person they might have been again then, it’s not an erasure of what they’ve been via, however a promise that they’re going to get previous it. To make issues even higher, in line with the Duffer Brothers, the film they’re seeing is outwardly Ghost, full with Patrick Swayze and attractive pottery. However quite than give attention to that little bit of nostalgia (for as soon as, the movie isn’t revealed onscreen), Max and Lucas’s personal love story supercedes the one which’s taking part in in theaters.
Their commencement day scene not solely establishes that they’re completely that top college couple that’s staying collectively and doubtless going to be oh so obnoxious about it, however confirms that their relationship has entered some new territory. Lucas calls Max attractive — in what I’m pretty sure is the primary time anybody has ever uttered that phrase on this present — and pulls her into the form of embrace that undoubtedly implies issues have gone effectively previous PG-13 between them.
Regardless of the apocalypse, near-death experiences, and heartbreaking goodbyes which have taken place all through this episode, it’s this second that in some way attracts a line between the world that was and the one they’re coming into now. It’s romantic in each sense of the phrase, totally grown-up in a manner that the collection has largely needed to keep away from up till this level, and so, so earned. As a result of if anyone deserves an opportunity to search out real peace with each other, it has to be these two, who’ve been there as Stranger Issues’ quiet coronary heart all alongside.
