Lucas Gottesman

"It's the tip of the iceberg, with more under the surface."

- Lucas Gottesman

Lucas Gottesman is on the yearbook committee and a friend of Hanna, though he likes her as more than a friend. When Alison was alive, he was viciously taunted by Alison and called a hermaphrodite. Mona picks up where Alison left off when she becomes Queen Bee and taunts Lucas in exactly the same way, using Alison's insults. Lucas was the one who trashed Ali's memorial. He also kissed Hanna when he thought she was asleep. He brought Caleb back to Rosewood, and Caleb is currently crashing in Lucas' bedroom. Lucas is currently dating Danielle.

Season 1
In There's No Place Like Homecoming, when Hanna joins Sean's abstinence club at school, "Real Love Waits," she finds a surprising ally in the equally reluctant Lucas. The members are asked to role play situations in which they would be pressured to have sex. After Sean and Amber pair off, Hanna is called to take a turn - with Lucas. Unenthusiastic, she pretends to ask Lucas to make out, and after initially refusing to play along, he then says "yes," making Hanna finally smile and Sean see red.

As yearbook editor in charge of photos, Lucas attends Homecoming solely to photograph the event. At the dance, Mona and Hanna get into a heated argument when Mona makes nasty comments to Lucas. Hanna greets him warmly, but Mona shoos him away. After he leaves, the two argue over whether popularity is more important than befriending nerds.

Later, he gives Hanna a ride to the therapist's office unaware of her intension of stealing Jenna's file. She keeps Lucas in the dark as to what she is doing, but he is happy to be hanging out with her. He confesses that besides for taking pictures, he had gone to Homecoming in order to elect Hanna Homecoming Queen.

The next day, he takes multiple shots of the homecoming king and queen, eventually frustrating the homecoming king with his suggestions, such as having Hanna sit on his lap. Later, Lucas and Hanna have fun looking at online videos together, whereas Sean thinks the videos are stupid, proving how much more Lucas and Hanna have in common than her current boyfriend, Sean.

When Hanna decides to help out with the Marins' financial situation, she agrees to put up a lot of her old clothes and handbags up for auction online with the help of her new ally, Lucas, who gives her the idea in the first place.

Hanna and Lucas grow closer, as Lucas continues to score Hanna big bucks selling her lesser used accessories on the internet. But, Mona is not enthusiastic about this new relationship development and mercilessly taunts Lucas for not being manly enough. Later, fed up, Hanna pulls Mona aside and calls her a hypocrite for treating someone of lesser social status so heartlessly when they used to be on that same strata themselves! Later, Lucas thanks her for Mona’s improved treatment of him.

At the hospital after Hanna's accident, an attentive Lucas gives Hanna a sweet kiss as she sleeps, but feels brutally rebuffed when she tells him – in truth, that she sees him much more as a friend. He wishes that she would lie, rather than be so brutally disappointing.

At Hanna’s homecoming party, Lucas drinks too much. He’s still upset from Hanna refusing to be more than friends and makes a big scene. Later, he confesses to trashing Alison's memorial, though Hanna forgives him and promises to keep his secret under tabs. He was upset by the memories of Alison's terrible treatment of them all this time and finds it hard to understand why Hanna could ever be friends with such a mean person.

At the Dance-A-Thon, "A" instructs Hanna to repeatedly dance with Lucas and then break his heart, in exchange for her mother's money back. Sean is unforgiving of Hanna's unceremonious treatment of him after several dances with Lucas, leaving her to slow dance with him. At the end of the night, Lucas also feels rejected when Hanna turns down his offer to give her a ride home.

Lucas is suspicious of Mona and what she had to do with Caleb leaving town. Mona tries to intimidate Lucas to forget about it, tempting him with the prospect of obtaining Hanna, but Lucas clearly doesn't take the bait, as later we see Lucas and Caleb in a car together! Lucas is driving Caleb back to Rosewood, Pennsylvania (from Arizona?).

Season 2
When Lucas and Caleb arrive in Rosewood, Lucas protectively warns Caleb not to hurt Hanna again. Lucas and his family have Caleb stay in Lucas' bedroom for the time being.

When Hanna is no longer allowed to see her friends, she decides to help Lucas with the yearbook. At first, Lucas wonders why Hanna is being so nice to him, worried that she has ulterior motives—but Hanna insists that people can change. She even gets a pretty girl named Danielle that Lucas is so obviously crushing on to agree to a date with Lucas. Lucas worries about his upcoming date with Danielle, so he asks Hanna to double with him and tells her to bring Caleb. Unfortunately it backfires. Danielle thinks that Hanna is interested in Lucas! To convince Danielle that there is no longer anything between her and Lucas, Hanna and Caleb pretend to be on a real date. It works, and Danielle reaches for Lucas' hand. Lucas thanks Hanna later for helping him with Danielle and acting so un-Alison like.

In "I Must Confess," Lucas makes a small appearance while Dr. Sullivan is giving her lecture about cyber-bullying.

In the prequel episode, "The First Secret," Mona is insulted by Alison after trying unsuccessfully to sit with her and the other Pretty Little Liars in the school cafeteria. Rebuffed, Mona goes next to Lucas' table.

Later in the school hallways, Lucas bumps into Alison, accidentally dumping his drink on her. Angry, Alison rejects Lucas' apologies, mercilessly calling him "Hermie" and publicly suggesting that he's really a hermaphrodite. When Alison walks away, Lucas growls that she will get what's coming to her, and Mona nods uncomfortably in silent agreement.

At Noel's halloween bash, after Alison learns that Noel had not been the one who attacked her in The Haunted House, a guy in an identical costume as the one who had been rough with her brushes past her and mutters "bitch." Alison looks offended, and the guy takes off his mask as he walks away, revealing that he is Lucas.

In "Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares," Lucas helps Hanna by taking down the pictures of her doing community service from the internet. He acts very on-edge, and very suspicious when questioned by either Hanna or Caleb.

In "A Hot Piece of A," Lucas acts even stranger around Hanna. When Emily and Spencer are doing community service working phones at the crisis hotline, a caller comes in. The woman taking the call tells them to listen in, as it was the same person who called the night "A's" helper dropped their phone. Both Emily and Spencer recognize it to be Lucas' voice. The night of Caleb's surprise party, Emily gets a call on the crisis hotline from Lucas, who still believes he is speaking to the woman he spoke to the last few times.

At the party, when Emily tells him not to do anything he would later regret, Lucas realizes he was speaking to Emily. Lucas then takes the rowboat and goes with Hanna to the pier under the guise of them having to set up the fireworks. Lucas then stops rowing abruptly. Hanna realizes something is wrong, and becomes scared. As Lucas gets up to throw the fireworks overboard, Hanna throws Lucas overboard using one of the oars. Hanna swims back to shore, but Lucas is still nowhere to be found. "A" is seen fishing Lucas' shoe out of the water.

Later, it's revealed that he is alive and well. He has just been laying low outside of Rosewood. He goes to Hanna's house and tells her why he has been acting strange: He gambled away his and Caleb's money and was scared that Hanna and Caleb would never forgive him. Caleb says that they'll find a way to work it out, but Hanna feels betrayed.

Lucas is seen in "UnmAsked" at the Costume Masquerade speaking with Jenna and the Black Swan

Season 3
In "It Happened 'That Night'", the girls, on the way back to Spencer's house from Alison's grave, see Lucas drive off somewhere in the middle of the night. Then during senior registration, Aria, Spencer and Hanna notice Lucas talking to a skinny brunette who resembles the Black Swan.

In " Kingdom of the Blind" Lucas is revealed to be visiting Mona which further implies that he could be the new or is working with the new a-team. This is also backed up when he is talking to Caleb as he hints towards the fact he knows about there being a bigger and badder A.

Trivia

 * In the books his name is Lucas Beattie.
 * His character is also quite different; in the books, he was popular in seventh grade until a (true) rumour spread that he had a crush on a then chubby Hanna, and a jealous Alison spread the second rumour that he is a hermaphrodite. Whereas in the tv series, while Lucas had a crush on Hanna, he was never popular.


 * In the books, Hanna and Lucas both like each other. But because of Hanna's obsession with popularity, their relationship doesn't work out. It is suspected in the television series that Hanna has some minor romantic feelings for Lucas, but if this is so, then they are very minor. In the series hannah is not at all interested in popularity. She dates caleb, who is not in the least bit popular and is very devoted to him. In the books their relationship goes deeper. So far, Hanna has firmly established that she only considers Lucas a friend.
 * In the last episode of season 2, he was seen at the dance talking to Jenna and the "Mysterious" girl in the Black Swan costume, by Aria, Hanna, and Emily. Later is season 3, the black swan was discovered to be Melissa Hastings supposidly distracitng Jenna due to blackmail from A. What lucas was discussing with Jenna is currently unknown