What To Know
- Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a stage prequel detailing the backstory of Henry Creel, a.k.a Vecna, and how he got his powers.
- The play may explain why Henry looked ‘terrified’ at the cave in Volume 1.
- The show is considered canon and provides further insights into Henry’s past, which could be referenced in upcoming episodes.
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1.]
It turns out the unshakeable ruler of the Upside Down does have a weakness, but it may not be what you think.
Stranger Things has introduced some shocking revelations in Season 5 Volume 1, including the fate of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink). After being attacked by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in the Season 4 finale, Max was forced to navigate a maze of his memories before being chased by the series’ villain. In an attempt to escape him, she ran through the woods and into a cave as he trailed behind her.
Max was just feet away from Vecna, a.k.a Henry Creel, but he didn’t follow her. Instead, he froze just before the cave’s entrance and wore an expression we’d never seen him carry before: fear.
We haven’t yet learned why Henry looked so terrified and didn’t continue chasing Max, but the answer may lie in the franchise’s Broadway play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
The show is a prequel to the Netflix series and is set in 1959 Hawkins, Indiana, 24 years before the events of Season 1. It follows a teenage Henry Creel and reveals not only how he rose to power, but also how he first received his psychokinetic abilities.
Before moving to Hawkins, the Creel family lived in Nevada near a military base conducting top-secret experiments dealing with parallel universes. Young Henry wandered into a cave near this base while playing and was accidentally teleported to Dimension X: the Upside-Down-esque alternate dimension he’s later banished to by Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), as seen in Season 4. Henry was missing for roughly 12 hours, and it was during this time that he gained his powers.
The play reveals that Dimension X is where he first encountered the Mind Flayer, and, contrary to what the series’ characters believe, Henry did not create the monster. Instead, the Mind Flayer existed well before him, and Henry was one of its first victims. During the 12 hours he was missing, the Mind Flayer tormented and possessed Henry, giving him psychokinetic powers that were rooted in evil.
Henry spends the majority of The First Shadow terrified of the creature and its growing power over him. He initially resists its ill-intentioned influences, but by the time he murders his family and joins Dr. Brenner at the Hawkins Lab, he’s succumbed to the dark forces.
Knowing the traumatic origin of his powers and his attempts to resist the Mind Flayer, his terrified expression at the cave’s entrance shows that some aspect of that fear still exists, whether it’s of the Mind Flayer or of what happened in Dimension X.
The play, which is currently running on Broadway and London’s West End, was developed from an original story by the Duffer Brothers and was written by Kate Trefry, who also wrote for the television show. Stranger Things: The First Shadow is completely canon to the Stranger Things universe and may hold more answers to Henry’s past.
However, if there’s one thing about the Duffer Brothers, it’s that they don’t include details on the accident. Even if the answer doesn’t live within the play, we’re likely to get the explanation for his reaction sometime in Volume 2.
Stranger Things, Season 5 Volume 2, December 25, 8/7c, Netflix
Stranger Things, Season 5 Finale, December 31, 8/7c, Netflix