- 9 hours ago
Grab your Eggos and your playbill! Join us as we explore how the stage prequel reshapes Hawkins lore, from Henry Creel’s origin and Papa’s Papa to the truth about Dimension X, the Upside Down’s possible sentience, and whether Vecna’s rise could have been stopped. We’ll also revisit Joyce and Hopper’s formative years, ask if Hawkins was doomed before the lab, and connect key revelations to what’s coming next.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We know that people have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for this thing.
00:04And I think people are going to lose their minds.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:08And today, we're looking at ways that the play Stranger Things The First Shadow
00:12connects to the Netflix series.
00:14Viewers beware, there are many Stranger Things spoilers ahead.
00:18I'm sorry.
00:20What's wrong? What happened?
00:23I can't find them.
00:26The shockingly long history of interdimensional travel
00:29The First Shadow widens the timeline of Stranger Things in shocking ways.
00:34It traces humanity's first contact with another dimension back to World War II.
00:38The story point is that there's an experiment happening, the Philadelphia Experiment.
00:46A ship, the USS Eldridge, vanishes and jumps to another dimension.
00:50Early U.S. military experiments aboard the USS Eldridge did the impossible.
00:54An entire warship was transported to another world,
00:58a realm later known as Dimension X.
01:00That wartime gamble led to further experimentation over the years.
01:04Eventually, stolen technology ended up hidden inside a remote Nevada cave.
01:08We used to store them underground in these silos, but we haven't used this one in years.
01:12In fact, there's no bomb here at all.
01:15It's just a big old empty space.
01:17In 1959, young Henry Creel stumbled into that site while traveling with his family.
01:23That encounter marked Henry's first contact with Dimension X.
01:27It seems likely that this was the primordial world to which Henry would later be banished by Eleven.
01:32His exposure changed him, altering the trajectory of everything that followed.
01:37But I was still a child.
01:39And I did not yet know my limits.
01:41What was Joyce Byers like as a teenager?
01:44Are you alive?
01:49Are you safe?
01:55Long before her stint as the fearless mother at the center of Stranger Things,
01:59Joyce Byers was already closely tied to Hawkins' darkest secrets.
02:03Joyce Maldonado is a frustrated teen desperate to escape her small town.
02:07But Joyce is dissatisfied, not detached.
02:09She's observant, sharp, and far more aware of the town's undercurrents than most adults.
02:15Don't miss it.
02:15Tickets are only 50 cents.
02:17That's two quarters for you point-dexers.
02:19Joyce!
02:20Is that stupid play of yours?
02:22Better see you there, Harrington.
02:24Friday night?
02:25You wish.
02:26Joyce becomes entangled in the strange events surrounding Henry Creel,
02:30including unsettling animal deaths and unexplained behavior.
02:34She listens, questions, and remembers,
02:36unwilling to dismiss things she sees just because they're strange.
02:39I'm going out of my mind.
02:41Look, boy his age, he's probably just playing hooky.
02:44No, not my will.
02:46He's not like that.
02:47He wouldn't do that.
02:48Those early experiences help explain her instincts later in the series.
02:52Her refusal to accept easy answers, her trust in intuition,
02:56and her willingness to believe the impossible lived within her for years before Will's disappearance.
03:01Joyce, 99 out of 100 times, kid goes missing.
03:04The kid is with a parent or a relative.
03:06What about the other time?
03:08What?
03:09You said 99 out of 100.
03:12What about the other time?
03:13Joyce.
03:13The one.
03:14The one.
03:15How is Hopper shaped by his past?
03:17Stranger Things never hides Jim Hopper's scars.
03:20His service in Vietnam and the death of his daughter leave him emotionally closed off when the series begins.
03:25And what does make roads red?
03:28Well, I don't know, said Matthew.
03:29It just makes me feel glad to be alive.
03:33It's such an interesting world.
03:36Hopper moves through Hawkins in a fog of guilt and anger.
03:39He drinks too much, shuts people out, and struggles to function as sheriff.
03:44Pain shapes nearly every decision he makes.
03:46Sometimes I feel like I'm just some kind of black hole or something.
03:55The first shadow pushes that understanding further into his past.
03:59A younger Hopper, the son of the town sheriff,
04:02shoulders responsibility early amid a strained relationship with his father.
04:06His first investigation into strange animal deaths linked to Henry tests his instincts and resolve.
04:12Even then, Jim represses his emotions rather than confronting them.
04:16That habit later defines how he handles trauma, including his daughter's death.
04:21After that, I was just...
04:23I just hid myself in drugs and alcohol.
04:29And then people started coming into my life.
04:32Was Hawkins unstable before Eleven opened the gate?
04:36For years, Stranger Things framed Hawkins' supernatural menace as an accident.
04:40One girl, one lab, one torn barrier, and a town full of nightmares.
04:46It's happening.
04:50The first shadow challenges that idea outright.
04:53The play suggests Hawkins was already a weak point long before Eleven ever opened a gate.
04:58Strange disturbances, psychic experiments, and early contact with other dimensions predate Eleven.
05:05Henry's childhood experiences point to Hawkins as a place that attracts supernatural pressure rather than creates it.
05:11I know you think you're bad.
05:13You can fight it!
05:15It's not real.
05:17That pattern continues across the series.
05:20With portals, creatures, and possessions repeatedly centered there,
05:24Hawkins isn't unlucky so much as it appears to be a weak spot between worlds.
05:28You don't have to do this.
05:31You can still stop this.
05:33It is over eleven.
05:37Your friends have lost.
05:41How did Henry's childhood shape Vecna?
05:43From an early age, the world hits Henry Creel hard.
05:46Sadly, he is ill-equipped to deal with his psychic powers.
05:49Like you, I didn't fit in with the other children.
05:54Something was wrong with me.
05:56Emotions feel louder.
05:58Cruelty cuts deeper.
05:59The play gives us a child who feels too much without the tools to understand or regulate his emotions.
06:05His parents recognize something is wrong, but they lean into fear and denial.
06:09She called the doctor an expert.
06:12She wanted him to lock me away, to fix me.
06:16Even though it wasn't I who was broken, it was them.
06:20Henry learns early on that his abilities are dangerous.
06:23He feels ashamed of them, so secrecy becomes his coping mechanism.
06:26Instead of trying to connect with people, Henry becomes an alien outside observer of the human experience.
06:33Over time, that constant self-containment curdles into resentment and control.
06:37By not participating in the world, Henry's loneliness slowly transforms into disgust for humanity.
06:43You must never, under any circumstance, go out into the woods. Do you understand?
06:50Is that where the monsters live?
06:53But they won't find you.
06:55Papa's Papa and the History of Experiments
06:58What if we told you Brenner wasn't the first Papa?
07:01Let us work together again.
07:04You and I.
07:06Daughter.
07:08And Papa.
07:09It turns out earlier authority figures shaped Brenner's methods.
07:13Hawkins was only the final chapter in the story of Cold War experimentation,
07:17predating Eleven by decades.
07:19We are introduced to Brenner's father, a naval captain aboard a ship that was transported briefly to another dimension.
07:26His life's work was to repeat that achievement.
07:28His crusade taught his son the value of control, secrecy, and results.
07:33You chose to trust me once.
07:36I'm asking you to trust me again.
07:40Journey with me into the past one last time.
07:43The abuse, secrecy, and immoral shortcuts were already baked into the cake.
07:48By tracing this chain upward, the play reframes the lab as a tool of generational trauma.
07:54Papa was just the next link in a long, horrifying chain of events.
07:57My friends need me.
08:01I've stopped him once and I will again.
08:03I'm sorry, you can't.
08:05It's impossible.
08:07Is the Upside Down sentient?
08:08The Upside Down has always felt less like a place and more like a living malevolence.
08:13Joseph?
08:18Joyce, come on.
08:20The first shadow leans into that vibe, hard.
08:23It's not merely an alternate dimension one can travel to.
08:25The play suggests it's reactive to the people who touch it,
08:29especially those who are emotionally vulnerable.
08:32You can't outrun the shadow, Henry.
08:35It's not real.
08:38You are the shadow!
08:40Henry's earliest encounters imply that it was aware of him.
08:44It was no passive observer either,
08:46but nudging him along a dark path to shape him into a conduit.
08:50Whether given form by Vecna's will or existing outside of it,
08:53the Upside Down adapts.
08:55Across the series, it targets trauma, fear, and despair,
08:59becoming more dangerous every season.
09:17Could Vecna's rise have been prevented?
09:20Across Stranger Things,
09:21the cruelty of small-minded people is a recurring motif.
09:24Tormentors shape the lives of nearly every kid in Hawkins.
09:27The difference comes down to who faces them with friends and who doesn't.
09:31Remember that time my sister kicked her ball so hard,
09:34you limp for a week?
09:36Yeah, if you touch Dustin again,
09:38I'll kick him so hard, they'll pop like water balloons.
09:41Henry navigates his powers, fear, and anger in isolation,
09:45with little guidance or empathy.
09:46Eleven's path looks strikingly different.
09:49She endures abuse and experimentation,
09:52but she also finds a chosen family.
09:54Friends anchor her when her powers spiral.
09:56That's super important, because friends,
09:59they tell each other things.
10:02Things that parents don't know.
10:04Henry never gets that counterweight.
10:06The play highlights several moments where compassion,
10:09intervention, or simple understanding
10:11might have altered his trajectory.
10:12Again and again, those chances slip away.
10:16Vecna's rise feels less like destiny
10:18and more like a series of missed opportunities at human connection.
10:22If you start to get upset,
10:24just take a deep breath and say to yourself...
10:29Which came first, Vecna or the Mind Flayer?
10:32The first shadow reopens one of Stranger Things' biggest questions,
10:36who's really in charge?
10:38In the series, Dustin suggests Vecna is only a general serving a greater force.
10:42The Mind Flayer.
10:44Who do we know that wants to take over the world?
10:46The Mind Flayer.
10:47So if the Demogorgon was just his foot soldier,
10:50Vecna's his five-star general.
10:52A five-star general with the power to open gates.
10:56Meanwhile, Vecna insists to Eleven
10:58that he gave the Mind Flayer shape in the first place.
11:00The play complicates all of this.
11:03It reveals that Henry first encountered an alien influence as a child
11:06after stumbling into a Nevada cave containing stolen technology.
11:09It transported him to Dimension X,
11:12potentially connected to the Upside Down.
11:14Don't you see?
11:16All this time, we've been building it.
11:20We've been building it for you.
11:24That exposure changed him long before Hawkins' lab.
11:27In Season 5, that same cave reappears within Henry's mindscape.
11:31Max hides there because Henry is too scared to enter.
11:34The place represents the source of his corruption, not his power.
11:38Even after all this time,
11:41he hadn't given up on me.
11:43If you follow this music,
11:46then what?
11:48Then it would lead me out of here.
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12:06Is Henry Creel a tragic villain or a born monster?
12:10The first shadow pushes hard against the idea
12:12that Henry Creel was evil from the start.
12:14This version of Henry is a deeply isolated child,
12:17overwhelmed by emotions he doesn't understand.
12:20I'm Henry Creel.
12:24I'm normal.
12:25He's surrounded by adults who are ill-equipped to help him.
12:29Henry struggles with loneliness, anger,
12:31and a sense of being fundamentally different.
12:34This all unfolds long before his violent tendencies enter the picture.
12:37If you come with me for the first time in your life,
12:41you will be free.
12:45Imagine what we could do together.
12:47Between the emotional torment of his psychic powers
12:50and the forces that later exploit them.
12:53Henry's path is shaped by suffering.
12:55None of this absolves him of what he becomes,
12:57but it does flesh him out.
12:59It makes him feel more human.
13:01Vecna is a cautionary figure,
13:03showing how isolation can twist unbridled potential
13:06into something terrifying.
13:07Did the first shadow change
13:16how you see the world of Stranger Things?
13:18What's the relationship between Dimension X and the Upside Down?
13:21Can Henry be redeemed?
13:23Let us know your theories in the comments below.
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