Should I see the Stranger Things theatre show before season 5 comes to Netflix?

Stranger Things has been on hiatus, but that hasn't stopped the Upside Down reaching its sickly tentacles into theatres across the globe.

The play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow arrived at the West End and Broadway in 2023 and has remained firmly rooted since, winning Tony and Olivier Awards and plenty of positive reviews (including a four-star rating from RadioTimes.com).

Written by series creators the Duffer Brothers, the production acts as an official prequel to the Netflix series, taking place 24 years before season 1. Fans will recognise a slew of familiar characters including Joyce Byers, Jim Hopper and Bob Newby – all in their high school years – and the villain of the latest series Henry Creel, AKA Vecna... AKA One.

Jamie Campbell Bower's notorious character is the centre of this stage version, providing plenty of context and backstory to the Hawkins gang's biggest threat.

So, considering he's about to return in Season 5 (starting this November) you might be wondering how much of the play you ought to know. Let's take a look.

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What is the plot of Stranger Things: The First Shadow?

Stranger Things: The First Shadow follows a young Henry Creel, who we meet in season 4 of the Netflix show. He's just moved to Hawkins with his family, and has started at Hawkins High, alongside a mix of classmates like Joyce Maldonado (future Byers), James 'Jim' Hopper Jr, Bob Newby and more, plus new character Patty Newby, Bob's adopted sister.

Henry begins to get close to Patty, with the pair bonding over their shared outsider status – Patty has no idea who her mother is and Henry, we later learn, got kicked out of his old school for hurting another student. As his love for her grows so do his incredible powers, which also coincide with a series of pet killings in the area.

Eager to find the criminal, Joyce, Jim and Bob suspect Henry's father Victor Creel – a World War II veteran with PTSD who we see in the iconic Dear Billy episode of Stranger Things Season 4. However, as you can guess, Henry is responsible, although it's not clear how much of that is his own will and how much is him being controlled by the Upside Down.

As we learn, Henry gained his powers when he disappeared for 12 hours in the Nevada desert as a child. He was pulled into the Upside Down (or Dimension X) where his blood was altered by the powerful forces there including the Mind Flayer.

Throughout the show, Henry's mother Virginia grows fearful of her son and calls on a mysterious Dr Brenner to take him away. This then this culminates in a witch hunt of Brenner searching for Henry, and Joyce's crew searching for Victor on the same night Patty performs in the school play.

Read on below for ending spoilers

What is the Stranger Things: The First Shadow ending?

The play ends when Henry, enraged by his mother's attempt to section him, kills her and his sister. His father, however, escapes through music – the antidote we see used in the series – but is convicted of his family's murders.

He then heads for the school but, hounded by Brenner, inadvertently causes an accident that badly injures Patty.

The play then flashes forwards to months later where we see that Patty has survived and found her mother, and Henry has been kept in Dr Brenner's lab to assist him with experimenting on child subjects, including Eleven. Which is exactly where Stranger Things Season 4 picks up.

Does Stranger Things: The First Shadow link in with the Stranger Things series?

Yes, the plot of Stranger Things: The First Shadow fills out all the colour and backstory that takes place before Stranger Things.

As we learn in season 4, Henry Creel is One, the first child experiment to be held in Dr Brenner's lab. He manipulates Eleven into freeing him of his restraints and goes on to murder all the other child experiments. He is then stopped by Eleven, who sends him back to the Upside Down, where he is badly scarred and transformed into Vecna.

The stage show merely fills in the gaps before then.

Should I see Stranger Things: The First Shadow before Stranger Things season 5?

Well, there are a few questions still left open by the play and it will be interesting to see if season 5 addresses them. For one, Joyce and Hopper had their own separate subplot in season 4, and so we never got to see if they remembered Henry Creel. In the play, they never found out he was responsible for the Hawkins animal killings but it remains to be seen if they will acknowledge their shared past.

For another, the play implies that Henry is being controlled by the Mind Flayer (the spider-like villain of season 2 and 3), however, the series suggested Henry was the one in charge. Is he the real villain here? Or did the Mind Flayer take him over?

Overall though, the stage show leaves very little threads loose and slots in very nicely to the tale the Netflix series weaves. You can watch them both together and enjoy the way continuity is preserved, or you can just stick to the Netflix series as they'll surely wrap everything up this coming season.

What do you need to know before seeing Stranger Things: The First Shadow?

While you don't need the play to watch the Netflix series, it's best you watch the series before seeing the show. The play is relatively easy to follow, but without knowing the source material, you'll probably miss a lot of the emotional beats and the significance of certain references.

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Make sure you read our chat with Tom Fletcher on the Paddington Musical.