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This article contains major spoilers for the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
While fans have patiently waited for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things to arrive on Netflix in 2025 (fingers crossed), diehards over in the United Kingdom have at least gotten the opportunity to engage in a prequel story on stage, Stranger Things: The First Shadow. The play is directed by Stephen Daldry, written by Kate Trefry, and adapted from material by the show’s creators, The Duffer Brothers. Even casuals have at least heard about it, most likely because it may hold clues to the end of Stranger Things on television.
For American viewers, Reddit has served as a one-stop shop for updates, summaries, and analysis of the play. Londoners who have visited the show have kindly given their opinions about the story and even tried to connect the play to season 5. The First Shadow will premiere in the United States on Broadway in 2025, but we’ve decided it’s always a good time for curious speculation. This is everything we think we can glean from Stranger Things’ climax after poking into the details of Stranger Things: The First Shadow!
Who Are the Characters in Stranger Things: The First Shadow?
The story picks up approximately 24 years before the disappearance of Will Byers. The First Shadow is set in Hawkins in 1959, while the first season of Stranger Things begins in 1983. This two-decade-plus gap means that characters such as Joyce, Hopper, and Henry Creel are in their formative years and early adulthood. Dr. Brenner is also featured heavily in the play, and it is this intersecting relationship between Brenner and Henry that we want to focus on here. These two play such a vital role in unearthing the meaning behind the Upside Down and Hawkins’ future.
What Motivates Dr. Brenner?
In the TV series, Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) is the one pulling the strings behind all of the experiments with Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). It is revealed in The First Shadow that Brenner’s motivations come from a thirst to avenge his father’s death that was caused by a trip to Dimension X (the alternate dimension pre-Upside Down that originated the Mind Flayer, the Demogorgon, and the rest of the creatures that invade Hawkins in the TV series). Brenner’s father and a crew of sailors on a ship called the SS Aldgate are revealed to be canonically the first in-universe characters to visit this alternate dimension. Brenner’s obsession with Dimension X leads him to start researching the dimension in Nevada. This is where Henry Creel comes into the equation.
Henry Creel’s Backstory
Vecna wasn’t always the monster he turned into in Stranger Things. He starts out as a typical 12-year-old boy whose life is forever altered after a trip to Dimension X. The First Shadow discusses the first time Henry disappeared into the alternate dimension, as he went missing in Nevada around the same time Brenner was conducting studies on this reality. Henry returns after 12 hours in the void with his powers that will eventually have him kill his mother and leave his father in prison for the crime.
Much like how Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) was entrapped in the Mind Flayer’s grasp in the show, Henry is infiltrated by the same monster in the stage play. When his powers and behavior that is influenced by his trip to Dimension X start wreaking havoc on those around him, Henry’s mother forces a move to Hawkins where the rest of The First Shadow takes place.
Henry’s relationship with a girl named Patty Newby (the sister of Bob Newby from season 2 of the show) spurs much of the plot of the play. Patty and the Mind Flayer tug Henry in both directions, a fight for his morals and inner psyche. The Mind Flayer eventually wins that battle, resulting in Henry accidentally killing Patty. This is Henry’s last real connection to his humanity, and he is taken hostage by Hawkins National Lab and Brenner.
Who is The Real Main Antagonist of Stranger Things?
The First Shadow reaffirms the Mind Flayer as potentially a bigger threat to Hawkins than even Vecna. If the Mind Flayer was the monster controlling Henry, poisoning his inner dialogue and motivations, and eventually leading to him killing the only person he loved, perhaps the residents of Hawkins need to be more wary of Will’s season 2 opponent than we imagined before. The show leads viewers to believe that Vecna is now at the top of the villain hierarchy, but Dustin gives a small hint at that order being reversed when he says that Vecna might be the Mind Flayer’s “five-star general.”
Stranger Things: The First Shadow reveals that there are many more layers to Henry Creel’s story than the show had time to explain. We still don’t know why Henry was taken into Dimension X or why the Mind Flayer used him in his childhood, but we do now know that Henry was not born with the powers he possesses. A trip into the alternate dimension and a stranglehold that the Mind Flayer places over him afterward reorients the story and potentially allows for a Vecna redemption arc.
On the other hand, Vecna proudly assumes the mantle as the commander of the Upside Down and all of the atrocities it elicits. He may have been taken over by the Mind Flayer as a child, but he is now fully entrenched in its ways and desires unadulterated power and destruction. Some fans believe the best power struggle in season 5 could be one between the Mind Flayer and Vecna. Now that we know the Mind Flayer was the original sin of the universe, we get a battle for villain supremacy!
And how does Eleven feature in all of this? If she has two antagonists to destroy, the job of saving Hawkins becomes more arduous. The Duffer Brothers and Noah Schnapp have mentioned that Will is a key to potentially saving the town and its residents. Since Will is the Mind Flayer’s victim in the TV series and Henry was its victim in the stage play, this ties Will and Henry together and propels Will into the spotlight the writers and actors keep claiming he’ll be in.
Whoever is truly in charge of the madness, it looks like Hawkins will need every hero it has to bring both the Mind Flayer and Vecna down, no matter which one is 1A and 1B in Stranger Things’ villain lore!
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