Does anyone else find it a huge missed opportunity that the character of Lucas, the son of Bobby and Jenna, was never introduced on the show?
Yes, that was one of several missed opportunities, there was much that could have been done with the character of Lucas.
The kind of man we all knew Bobby to be, I find it impossible to believe he had no contact with Lucas over the years, his own natural son. And I’m assuming he had no contact with him since he was never mentioned. If Ray married Jenna and adopted Lucas, neither Jenna nor Lucas were even mentioned whenever Ray returned to the ranch. Was Lucas raised to believe Ray was his real father? We’ll never know.
Generally, I would imagine that Bobby would care about the well-being of Lucas, and yes he would have had some contact over the years, but I could totally see him just going along with the lie that he was simply Lucas' uncle, and letting Lucas believe that Ray was his father, if he saw that Ray was a good dad and that he and Jenna were happy together as a family. So I could see every trying to keep the truth a secret. The only problem is that I believe that most of the family knew the truth, including Christopher. And so "realistically" it's a little hard to believe that at some point over the next 20 years the truth wouldn't have still come out somehow. A stray comment at some family gathering (remember Christopher found out because Charlie just blabbed it to him when he was boy, you think she would have kept her mouth shut all those years?), or eventually Lucas looking into the family past, learning about how Jenna was once living with an engaged to Uncle Bobby but then called it off and she ended up with Ray, and then maybe he does the math of the date he was born compared to when his "parents" got married, and is like
"what a minute...."
What I would have loved to see happen was Lucas returning to the ranch—let’s say he discovered Bobby was his natural father, and wanting his piece of the pie. Christopher was always insecure about being adopted, and the presence of Lucas as a new rival (natural son vs adopted son) would have been more than interesting, since the John Ross vs Christopher feud was predictable and tired and ran its course.
A storyline I had in mind at the end of Season 2, since the idea behind "J.R.'s Masterpiece" was that it supposedly united the main family, is that season 3 should have focused on John Ross and Christopher as allies now, running the business together, and then you bring in these new interlopers, including Lucas and possibly Cally's son, as rivals for both of them.
What would Lucas have been like? Angry and resentful that he wasn’t raised a Ewing, never being acknowledged by his real father?
That's the beauty of the character, he was a virtual blank-slate, since he had no real history on the original series, he could be writing in many different ways, depending on the story on you want to tell, without worrying that he's portrayed "out of character."
Or what if, in the wake of Christopher’s death, Bobby finally sought out Lucas and he became a new rival for John Ross.
Nah, to me the real appeal of Lucas was in seeing how his appearance would affect the relationship between Christopher and Bobby. That's where the real potential drama and conflict is. Having him show up after Christopher's "dead," and basically trying to have him take his place in the family like wouldn't have felt as natural to me. John Ross and Christopher's relationship, good and bad, worked better because of the history that we saw of them together as children, and as the designated heirs of their fathers. That added more emotional weight to their story. Lucas wouldn't have that. John Ross would have no reason to like or dislike him, nor to consider him any type of rival.
- she was last seen at his funeral where everyone acted like they liked each other and no one mentioned the child.
Well, remember, as far as we know, nobody in the family knew about Cally's child. Only James even knew that she was pregnant when she left town. And then J.R. eventually tracked her down, and saw that she had a son, but then made the decision to leave her alone when he saw them happy with another man. I don't recall him ever telling anyone else about that. So presuming that he stayed out of their life in all the years since, and she never came forward, there's no reason anyone there would ask about her child. And, while it would be dramatic for soap opera purposes, I can see why, if she was inclined to say anything, she wouldn't have felt that the funeral was the proper moment to do so. My only regret with Cally's appearance at the funeral is we didn't get a scene of her talking to John Ross, or at least trying to, since we know he liked her as a stepmother.
Now I do think there was opportunity to bring her son onto the show later, in season 3. After some months pass, you could say that Cally started feeling guilty that she never gave her son a chance to know his biological father, and was sorry that now it was too late, so she finally told him the truth so he could at least go and get to know his biological family, if wanted to. That son, like Lucas, would have been early 20's by that point. That's the perfect age-range to join the show and interact with the younger cast, which is what the show should have focused on in the wake of Larry's death.