Jonathon and Nancy are now split up and you have to ask can they survive as a couple? Jonathon is under more pressure to help his mother and brother. What does that do to him?They'll be starting out somewhere new regardless of where and that takes all sorts of support away from someone like Joyce, even if what we might consider major, there were people Joyce knew for her whole life that she could lean on. Now, more than ever she needs Jonathon. But what's that do for Jonathon's hopes and dreams for himself? How can he make time for Nancy?
Nancy is left in Hawkins and she still has her family, well off with connections, to help her. But now she's in a strange place where she may be wondering if staying there is worth it. Or maybe with Jonathon gone this could lead to wanting something or someone else? People can say they are alright with a decison but time changes things. Will she feel abandoned by Jonathon at some point, feeling he chose his mother and brother over her? It's a human reaction. And something that does indeed often come into play in relationships between men and women.
Eleven and Mike are now also separated. Can Eleven handle that well? The poor girl has had far few moments of normalcy. Now her adopted father is gone and she's separated from her first love. We've seen in the past that she's maybe not as emotionally equipped to deal with complex circumstances in reasonable ways. She lacks a fully developed sense of these things culturally so she has tended take big dramatic actions. Is she growing up more now or will she revert to that again? And I know... Lots are on the "Will is DEFINITELY GAY" train right now. I'm more than open to that... But I also feel that (since like a lot of the personal arcs of season 3 a lot of things got cut short or just dropped altogether once the monster plot started kicking into gear) there was nothing really definitive on that front either. What Mike said and Will's actions in season 3 easily can be seen as a commentary on how Will isn't moving forward into young adulthood at the pace the others are. That he's, maybe after Eleven, the most scarred of the kids, and as such he's fighting the inevitable death of childhood. That moment in Castle Byers was not a moment that had to do with his sexuality I think. It's as I said, him feeling self loathing that his friends are growing out of childhood and he isn't proceeding at the same pace as them, probably again, because he's been emotionally damaged due to his experiences. Now, I bring that up because, well... What's Murray say all the time? "Shared Trauma"? Well... Eleven will be sharing a house with Will now. I can think of no better grist for the mill of drama than those two now seeing each other regularly developing something. (I can already hear the cries of "BUT I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY CLICHE' LOVE TRIANGLES!" To which my answer is... If tropes and cliche's are an issue for you then why the hell are you watching this show?)
On a similar note, if one has paid attention, Steve's story has kinda hit a wall. Yes, his adventure with Erica, Dustin and Robin was fun, but it didn't do what his stories in season one and two did. Those arcs moved him further away from the person we met at the start of season one and integrated him into the core group as well as reveal his innate heroic nature. The problme is Steve's heroism hasn't profitted him in any way. And now he's got a wonderful future as a... Video stor clerk? Yeah, that'll be great for him handing with Dustin and Robin late nights on Fri. and Sat. but where are they going with Steve? And... I'm sorry, but again... Love triangle cliche's might be in his future. He says he's not in love with Nancy but... Well Jonathon isn't in Hawkins anymore. And it might not even be him that initiates it. Nancy might look at the way Steve has reformed and fall for him all over again, or she could take pity on him seeing how none of his good deeds has really given him any rewards... In any case it could go that way is what I'm saying.
I also think that, sure, we know the Upside Down isn't done with our heroes. The question becomes how this enters their lives again. Also now, we have not one but TWO government powers to contend with. By all accounts Dr. Owens is a stand up dude, but one has to wonder how the U.S. government will respond to Joyce now being the person who not only has a son that had been to the other dimension and lived to tell the tale, but came back, was possessed and now has some kind of Upside Down sixth sense.... AAAAAND... She's now also the caretaker of the psychic/psychokinetic child produced from Hawkins Labs.
This doesn't even touch on Dustin's or Lucas' or Max's possible stories and arcs.
As much as it hurt... Man, Hopper's death really did have this ripple on almost everything on the show, and the next season can go into all kinds of directions it couldn't when it was in a more or less similar status quo to the first season.
