There are a lot of really fantastic characters in Stranger Things. Obviously, there's Eleven, the show's superhero. There are the boys, Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas, all of whom bring their own unique qualities and charms to the show. There's Joyce Byers, the always-frazzled mother who is played by Winona Ryder, who has enough classic movies under her belt that at point she probably filled her own section at Blockbuster. There's Chief Hopper, who might just be the best TV cop of the decade. But none of these are the best character on the show.

The best character on the show is a jerk-turned-legend with Jean-Ralphio hair-a jock who decides to embrace his role as a reluctant babysitter. No character undergoes a bigger transformation in such a short period of time as Steve Harrington, and it makes him stand apart from the rest of the bunch.

Steve Harrington is not great at first.

When we're first introduced to Steve, it's because we've found out that Mike's sister, Nancy, has begun to date him. He's clearly built something of a neighborhood reputation, because the younger boys-Lucas and Dustin, along with Nancy's brother, Mike-have established opinions of him.

In the early parts of season one, Steve isn't a total jerk, but when he climbs through Nancy's window to "study," everyone knows what he's really after. His worst offenses involve the way he treats Jonathan in the first half of the season. When he discovers that Jonathan was snapping photos of his yard-and Nancy-he drops his camera on the ground, shattering it.

Steve also provokes Jonathan into a fight in an alley, leading to Jonathan getting arrested by Officer Callahan and taken into the police station. After this point, Steve makes a hard left turn towards no longer being a dick, and instead being a legend.

But Steve's also not as bad as you might remember!

Those few moments aside, Steve really isn't thaaaaat much of a dick in season one, though the framing certainly sets him up as an '80s teen/adventure movie bully. While he does seem to be thinking where his pants come together most of the time, Steve does really care about Nancy, which continues into the second season.

Much of the negativity of Steve's character comes from the people with whom he surrounds himself. Tommy and Carol, who at first appear to be Steve's two little sidekicks, are actually just grade-A pieces of trash. Not only are they constantly provoking Steve, but they also write an incredibly rude message about Nancy on the movie theater marquee (which Steve immediately recognizes as wrong, and later helps to clean off). Not to mention that Tommy jumps ship on Steve almost immediately, and joins Billy-a kid he barely knows-in picking on Steve in season two. I digress.

Steve really starts to change at the end of season one.

After his fight with Jonathan, Steve realizes that he's been something of a jerk. He goes to clean up the mess that Tommy and Carol made on the movie theater marquee, and then goes over to the Byers' house to attempt to apologize to Jonathan. This is where Steve gets involved in the greater, supernatural world of Stranger Things.

When Steve shows up to the Byers residence, he has no clue what's going on, but he sees Nancy and Jonathan gearing up to fight...something. Eventually, the demogorgon arrives, and Steve grabs what will become his signature weapon-a bat studded with nails-and uses it to save the other two. Joe Keery plays this sequence so brilliantly, totally unaware of what the hell is going on, and it only further cements his character's transformation.

He also does a good deed that slips under the radar at the end of season one. When Jonathan is leaving the Wheeler home, having just picked up Will from the Dungeons and Dragons game downstairs, Nancy hands him a box-and inside is a new camera. We're led to believe that it's a gift from Nancy to Jonathan, but when a shot shows Steve sitting next to Nancy, he asks her, "Did you give it to him?" insinuating that the camera was from him, replacing the one he broke.

By the time season two comes around, Steve is great.

When we enter the second season, Steve is worried about college, and Nancy is helping him clean up a messy admissions essay. Steve is eager to have fun, and really seems to be treating Nancy well, but Nancy isn't feeling the same way anymore. After a very drunk Halloween party, the two go their separate ways. Nancy goes toward Jonathan, and Steve goes toward a rivalry with the new kid in town, Billy.

Introducing Steve, the Babysitter:

Steve has a few run-ins with Billy that leave him somewhat rattled. As we, the audience, grow to respect Steve, Stranger Things makes it clear that the kids at school don't share the sentiment. Billy says that people "used to " call him King Steve, before he "went soft."

If Steve is soft, well, then, that's fine. Because once the "soft" Steve meets up with Dustin, the season really hits overdrive. The Steve/Dustin scenes almost play out like a lost sequence from Freaks and Geeks-the cool guy uniting with the nerdy kid, and the two of them getting along better than they could've possibly expected. Eventually, Steve hits it off with the other kids, too.

Steve gets two major confrontations in season two, and they're among the best scenes in the show.

In Episode Six, "The Spy," Steve and Dustin create a trap to lure the Demo-dogs to the old junkyard, and Steve decides to take the dogs on with his signature weapon-yup, that spiky baseball bat.

(NOTE: Let's just talk for a second about how Steve Harrington is the only character in the whole show who has a signature weapon, and it's something as cool as a Louisville Slugger with rusty nails sticking out of it? That's Evil Dead level cool if you ask me.)

When the dogs arrive, he more than holds his own, smacking them around a bit before they retreat.

His confrontation in the finale doesn't go quite as well. When Billy comes over full of rage, he picks a fight with Lucas, his sister, and just about everyone else. Steve steps in and cements his legend status, punching Billy a few times before getting, to be honest, the absolute crap beaten out of him.

As season two continues, Steve becomes more and more of a legend.

Steve eventually recovers from Billy's beating (once Max sedates Billy), and leads the kids down to the tunnels, where they rig a trap to burn up the vines that entrenched Hopper earlier. Steve leads these kids despite his injuries, and really establishes himself as an important part of the gang.

In the season's aftermath, we see that Steve and Dustin's bromance has continued on; Steve drives a very coiffed Dustin to the Snow Ball, where he gives him a little pep talk on how to be as smooth as possible with the ladies inside.

Steve looks like he's picking up right where he left off in season three.

We don't have a ton to go on of for Season 3 of Stranger Things, but we know that Steve is going to be working in some sort of nautical-themed ice cream shop, Scoops Ahoy, in the town mall, and has to wear a funny little outfit as a result. He'll also be working with a new character played by Maya Hawke (daughter of acting royalty, Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman); they're seen together in the season's very first teaser, which debuted last summer.

There are also a few shots of him with the kids again in the final trailer , so, quite frankly, we're all in to see how the show's best character can keep it going again.