In season 5 of Stranger Things, the team is singularly determined to track down and defeat Vecna — the monstrous identity of One, Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower). The Duffer Brothers used season 4 to peel back the layers of Vecna’s origin and the long shadow he’s cast over Hawkins, but his full backstory stretches beyond the Netflix series and into live theater.
Premiering in London in 2023 and arriving on Broadway in 2025, Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a prequel set in 1959 that follows a young Henry Creel (Louis McCartney) shortly after his family moves to Hawkins. The showrunners have said the play isn’t essential viewing for the TV audience, but certain moments in season 5 gain extra weight if you’ve seen the stage production.
Ed. note: Major spoilers ahead for Stranger Things season 5 and Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
In the fourth episode of season 5, “Sorcerer,” Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) and Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) become trapped inside Henry’s memories. Max is forced to relive the Hawkins National Lab massacre and Vecna’s psychic assault, but one striking sequence transports her back to 1959, when a teenage Joyce is promoting a one-night production of Oklahoma! with Henry Creel attached to the bill.
Henry Creel in The First Shadow (left) and Vecna in Stranger Things season 4.
That high‑school production is central to the stage play’s narrative: in The First Shadow, Joyce stages the tragic fantasy Dark of the Moon, and Henry doesn’t play Curly — he’s cast as the witch boy, John. The play‑within‑a‑play structure mirrors Henry’s inner turmoil: he’s discovering terrifying psychic gifts while craving acceptance in Hawkins and falling for his co‑star, Patty Newby.
The First Shadow casts Henry in a more sympathetic light than the TV series. He isn’t presented as irredeemably monstrous but as a child slowly consumed by the Mind Flayer’s corrupting presence — a force that magnifies his powers and nudges him toward violence. The musical frames a tug‑of‑war for Henry’s soul between Patty, who urges him to use his abilities compassionately, and Dr. Martin Brenner, who sees Henry as a subject for military exploitation.
One of Max’s revelations in “Sorcerer” is Henry’s persistent fear of a cave in the desert — a place he uses as a psychological refuge. That detail links directly to the play’s backstory: Henry’s psychic awakening occurs at age eight after he explores a Nevada cave and comes under the Mind Flayer’s influence. He drops a spyglass during that outing, and Brenner later locates the boy because of that lost object, recruiting him into his experiments.
After that cave encounter, Henry’s physiology and temperament shift. The Mind Flayer’s touch remolds him, and he eventually gives in to darkness — culminating in the murder of his family. The play also reframes the series’ mythology: rather than being the “first” only because Brenner experimented on him first, Henry is the genetic source for the program — other children, including Eleven, receive their powers through transfusions derived from Henry’s blood.
Henry’s refusal to enter the cave may be plain childhood trauma, but it also suggests a tangled relationship with the Mind Flayer. He was familiar with that entity long before Eleven sent him into the Upside Down in 1979; their alliance predates the events shown on TV. While Henry has used the hive mind to marshal Demogorgons as his agents, his aims may not perfectly overlap with the Mind Flayer’s. Deciphering that uneasy partnership could be crucial to dismantling both threats and saving Hawkins — and ideally the series will explain that complexity on screen rather than assuming viewers have seen the stage version and paid for theater tickets to fill in the gaps.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5 are available to stream on Netflix now; three additional episodes arrive on Christmas, with the season finale scheduled for New Year’s Eve.
Source: Polygon
