Luz Hendriks (Arcadia)

Luz Hendriks is a main character in the Belgian-Dutch science-fiction series Arcadia.

Character creation
Actress Lynn Van Royen spoke with parents of autistic people to prepare for the role. She specifically chose parents instead of autistic people themselves because parents are considered to be observers who know exactly how their child acts. For autistic people themselves, their behaviour is a self-evident thing that is difficult to place and articulate.

Synopsis
Set in the near future, Arcadia is a utopian society where everybody has a score that determines which jobs, housing, medical care, etc. they get. The series focuses on the blended family consisting of Pieter Hendriks and his daughters Milly and Luz Hendriks, and Cato Christiaens and her daughters Alex and Hanna Jans. Pieter has committed fraud to keep Luz and Hanna's scores sufficiently high. When this gets discovered, Pieter gets exiled to the hostile Outer Area, and the other family members have their scores reduced by 2 points. As they adapt to their new lives with a lower score, a complex web of lies and fraud that reaches into the highest levels of society unfolds around the family.

Autism
Luz is never stated to be autistic within the series itself, though she does explicitly label herself as different. It's unclear whether or not autism as a diagnosis exists within the universe of Arcadia. The actress also states that Luz is on the autism spectrum.

She does not really care about having a high score, and her autism makes her particularly vulnerable to having points docked for "maladjusted behavior".

Future development
The first season does not conclude the story, and a second season had already been ordered before the first one aired.