Gaten Matarazzo’s curly hair was impossible to miss buried in the chaos of The Adults Season 2 trailer, and it took viewers about half a second to place him. Forever known as Dustin Henderson, Matarazzo is joining the FX comedy just months after closing the book on Stranger Things for good. Season 2 is out today, giving audiences their first full look at how he fits into the show’s world.
The casting news broke back in June, but the premiere is the first real confirmation of what Matarazzo looks like inside Adults. The show follows Samir, Billie, Paul Baker, Issa, and Anton as they stumble through their twenties in a shared Queens apartment. This season leans even harder into the specific humiliations of growing older while still feeling stuck in place.
What Role Is Gaten Matarazzo Playing in Adults Season 2?
According to comments from co-creator Ben Kronengold, Matarazzo will play the twenty-year-old who inherited Samir’s old fake ID. It is a small detail with a lot of comedic weight behind it, since the entire premise of Adults runs on exactly this kind of generational whiplash.
The season’s synopsis frames it directly, asking what happens when the twenty-year-old who inherited your fake ID turns out to be cooler than you ever were, and younger than you will ever be again.
Matarazzo’s character becomes the physical embodiment of that anxiety for Samir, a walking reminder that someone else is now living the version of young adulthood he thought belonged to him.
It is a sharp swerve from the sci-fi horror that made Matarazzo famous, and that is exactly the point. Adults has built a reputation on stunt casting that plays against type, and dropping Dustin Henderson into a mundane, painfully relatable New York apartment comedy fits that pattern perfectly.
Related: Why Is Anton’s Sister Suddenly in the Picture in Adults Season 2? Raven-Symoné’s Role Explained
From Hawkins to Queens: Gaten Matarazzo’s Post-Stranger Things Era
Stranger Things wrapped its fifth and final season in late 2025, closing out a role Matarazzo had played since he was twelve years old. Rather than taking a breather, he moved almost immediately into a run of adult-oriented projects, including the animated Animal Farm and the stoner comedy Pizza Movie, which he also executive produced.
Adults slots neatly into that transition. The guest cast around him is stacked too, with Zosia Mamet, Jake Shane, Raven-Symoné, Isaac Powell, Susie Essman, and Ben Marshall all confirmed for Season 2, though their specific roles remain unannounced ahead of premiere day.
Matarazzo is the only one whose character has been detailed this clearly in advance, which suggests FX wants the Dustin Henderson connection front and center in the marketing push.
For Matarazzo, it is also a chance to prove his comic timing translates outside of Hawkins, Indiana. Adults built its whole identity on fast, anxious, overlapping dialogue, a very different rhythm from the earnest exposition dumps he delivered across five seasons of Stranger Things.
The stakes here are less about plot and more about tone. If Matarazzo’s cameo lands, it opens the door for more Stranger Things alumni to show up in unexpected comedic spaces once the show fully wraps its press cycle. If it does not, it is still a low-risk swing for a season that has clearly built its guest list around surprise over logic.
Adults Season 2 premieres Thursday, August 27, 2026, on FXX and Hulu, with all eight episodes available immediately.
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