This is honestly unfair. Stranger Things: The First Shadow explained Henry Creel’s powers, the true beginning of the Upside Down, the connection to Eleven, and everything that shaped Hawkins long before Season 1. It literally reveals the entire foundation of the story, yet it was never broadcasted anywhere. No recording, no digital release, nothing. Most of the fanbase has zero access to the biggest lore drop in the whole series, and now we’re supposed to watch Season 5 Part 2 without even having the full picture. Fans deserve this story, not second hand summaries or leaks.

The Duffer brothers say that they had to ask the play’s producers to withhold details so as not to spoil the final season.

Left, the cast of Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway; right, Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in Stranger Things Season 4. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Netflix, Netflix)

The first installment of Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 5 drops on Nov. 26, marking the beginning of the end of the interdimensional drama plaguing the town of Hawkins. But if watching the past four seasons of the streaming series isn’t enough for your Upside Down fix, the theatrical production, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, is here to provide even more context.

The First Shadow, written by Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry and developed from an original story that she created along with Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer and playwright Jack Thorne, debuted on London’s West End in 2023 and headed to Broadway in 2025. The production, celebrated for its special effects, is a prequel to the series and features high school versions of characters like Joyce (played by Winona Ryder in the series), Hopper (David Harbour), and even the late Bob Newby (Sean Astin). But the play’s focus is the tragic origin story of Henry Creel, known in the Stranger Things universe as Vecna or “One.” Played by Jamie Campbell Bower in the series, The First Shadow explores how Henry’s psychic abilities made him a dangerous outsider in Hawkins, ultimately leading him to be confined in the lab where Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) escaped from in Season 1.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter about the play, Trefry said that the events of the show are “totally canon.”

“It’s totally tied into the series with Seasons 1 through 4, but also reaching into the future with Season 5,” she explained. “It had to be this missing puzzle piece that connects all of these different things.”

She added that she was working on Season 5 at the time, and called the upcoming final season and the play “two sides of a coin,” noting she’s “excited for people to be able to take in the full story and see how these two things across different mediums are in kind of a dialog with each other.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, creators Matt and Ross Duffer explained how the play ties into the new season, with Matt saying the upcoming season will “dive into Henry’s backstory before he arrived at Hawkins lab.”

“We definitely explore more about Henry because so much of the show does revolve around Vecna and his relationship with Will [Noah Schnapp’s character],” he added. Ross called the show “connective tissue between the seasons itself.”

In fact, Matt said that the Stranger Things producers asked the creators behind the play to hold back, explaining that what is “covered in the Broadway show is covered in the final season, as well” and they did not want the play to be “too spoilery.”

What happens in The First Shadow to young Vecna? 

The story opens with the Creel family moving to Hawkins, and Henry starting at Hawkins High School. Henry is a loner at school until he meets Patty, the kind daughter of the principal, who befriends him.

Henry’s mind is dangerous. Throughout the play, he is taken over by a force outside of his control, which causes him to do terrible things, like kill people’s pets. His violent behavior, which can’t be traced back to him, inadvertently ignites a panic in the town of Hawkins, and Joyce, Bob (who is Patty’s brother) and Hopper begin investigating.

Then, when Patty asks Henry to help her find her birth mother using his psychic abilities, the plan goes awry and leaves Patty’s father blinded, further fueling the fear that something bad is happening in Hawkins.

Dr. Brenner (played by Matthew Modine in the TV series) tracks Henry down and reveals that the reason for Henry’s psychic abilities stems back to a childhood accident in the Nevada desert, when Henry stumbled onto stolen government technology that pulled him into a different dimension and exposed him to a powerful, otherworldly entity that Stranger Things fans will recognize as the Mind Flayer. His brief contact with the Mind Flayer left Henry permanently connected to the other dimension.

In the lab, Brenner says he plans to weaponize Henry, but Henry escapes — and Brenner deduces that Henry’s love for Patty is what causes him to break out of the other dimension’s control.

However, when Henry returns to the Creel house, he uses his psychic powers to see that his mother wants to hand him back over to Brenner. The Mind Flayer’s control forces Henry to kill his mother and sister.

Disoriented, Henry wanders to Hawkins High, driven only by the instinct to protect Patty from Brenner. But when Brenner confronts them atop the rafters in the school auditorium where Joyce is putting on a musical, the entity takes control of Henry once more, forcing him to throw Patty from the rafters. She survives, but Brenner drags Henry back to the lab, where he remains for years. Henry’s father is left to take the blame for the murders his son committed under supernatural control.

In the epilogue, an older Henry — restrained inside Hawkins lab — uses his psychic abilities to peek into Patty’s life and sees that she has finally reunited with her birth mother in Las Vegas. Brenner frees Henry just long enough to introduce him to a young Eleven, tying the timeline of the play into that of the Netflix series.