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Stranger Things Season 5 starts throwing clues at us from the very first episode, so if you watched the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, things probably clicked a lot faster for you.
The play works like a secret map for the final season, and The First Shadow explains Henry Creel’s earliest memories, the caves that scare him, and the weird experiments that shaped everything we see in Stranger Things Season 5. These pieces come together in a big way, especially with Max and Holly trapped inside Vecna’s mind.
Now, let’s break down exactly how the play sets up the final season in the most detailed way possible.
The biggest Stranger Things Season 5 questions actually start inside Henry Creel’s memories
The craziest thing about Stranger Things Season 5 is that a lot of its biggest answers show up inside Henry Creel’s memories. This is something The First Shadow focuses on a lot, even though the show never expected most fans to see the stage version.
That is why Matt Duffer told Entertainment Weekly,
“A lot of the stuff that’s covered in the Broadway show is covered in the final season as well.”
That is basically the Duffers saying the play works like homework for Stranger Things Season 5 without actually calling it homework.
Season 5 begins with Max stuck in a coma while her mind is trapped inside Vecna’s head. The second we see her wandering through those broken memories, the entire story shifts into something we never got to see in earlier seasons.
Suddenly, she is walking right into the past. She ends up seeing pieces of the 1950s. She watches Henry Creel’s old life at Hawkins High. She even sees a young Joyce Maldonado handing out flyers for her school play. All of this is straight from The First Shadow, which is set in 1959 when Henry first moved to Hawkins.
The show never rushes this either. Instead, it lets Max slowly understand that this weird, broken world is not just some random mindscape. It is Henry’s whole life, including the moments he never wanted anyone to see. He tries to block her from certain memories, but Max figures out which places he avoids.
That is how she discovers the caves that scare him. These caves become her hideout while she is trapped inside his mind. She camps out there because she notices Henry never enters that part of his own memory. That little might just become a massive deal later in Stranger Things Season 5.
The First Shadow explains why Henry avoids these caves. When Henry was eight years old and living in Nevada, he wandered into a cave that secretly held stolen technology from something called the Philadelphia Experiment. The play shows that this experiment accidentally opened a doorway into another dimension.
Henry stepped inside, and that moment changed him forever. This is where he made contact with the cosmic entity that eventually becomes the Mind Flayer. Once you learn that from the play, you understand why Stranger Things Season 5 keeps focusing on his memories and why the caves matter so much. The caves are the root of everything wrong with him.
This is the exact reason why Max uses the caves as a safe zone. The First Shadow basically teaches the audience that Henry’s deepest fear began there, which explains why Max is untouched in that space. Stranger Things Season 5 becomes way clearer once you connect these dots.
Max and Holly’s storyline proves The First Shadow is the backbone of Stranger Things Season 5
One of the coolest surprises in Stranger Things Season 5 is how important Holly Wheeler becomes. At first, it feels small. She reads fantasy books and talks to her imaginary friend. But the reveal hits fast. Her imaginary friend is actually Henry Creel pretending to be someone named Mr. Whatsit.
This twist ties directly into what the play teaches us. Henry has always known how to target kids by slipping into their fears and dreams. The First Shadow shows how young Henry’s powers were messy, emotional, and way too strong for someone his age. Season 5 uses that same idea on Holly.
The moment Holly gets taken by a Demogorgon and dragged into the Upside Down, Stranger Things Season 5 fully connects to The First Shadow. In the play, Henry experiences another massive shift in his life after being dragged into Dimension X during the Nevada Experiment.
In Season 5, Holly is dragged into Henry’s mental world in a very similar way. The Duffers line up these events so old patterns repeat themselves. They use the play’s structure to shape Holly’s story without copying it.
That is why Ross Duffer told Entertainment Weekly,
“There are Easter eggs involving the play, so if you’ve seen it, it’s a fun watch.”
He said this because The First Shadow and Stranger Things Season 5 mirror each other more than fans expected.
Holly is pulled straight into Vecna’s mind and placed into a perfect version of the Creel House. It looks clean and warm and harmless, almost like a trap that smells like a dream. Season 5 uses this to match what the play did with Patty Newby, Bob Newby's sister.
Patty trusted Henry because she did not see the darkness inside him. Holly does the same thing without knowing it. She thinks she is helping her friend. She thinks he is in trouble. She never realizes she is walking right into the middle of his memories.
The turning point happens when Max appears in front of Holly for the first time. Holly thinks she is helping Henry escape. Instead, she is actually following Max into the caves where Max hides. This is where the stories merge.
The First Shadow introduced the caves to explain Henry’s childhood trauma. Stranger Things Season 5 uses them again to show Holly and Max crossing paths in a place Henry hates. The caves become a symbol of everything Henry is scared of. They are also the only place where Max can gather enough strength to keep fighting inside his mind.
Season 5 uses Holly’s innocence and Max’s trauma to highlight how dangerous Henry’s world is. This entire storyline is built on what The First Shadow already laid down. Without the play, Stranger Things Season 5 would feel a lot more confusing.
The play does not just hint at things. It fills in the emotional and supernatural logic behind why Henry acts the way he does. That is why Max and Holly’s journey fits perfectly inside the final season.
The First Shadow builds the bigger world that Stranger Things Season 5 finally pays off
Stranger Things has always loved teasing mysterious science experiments, but The First Shadow is the first time the franchise actually shows where all of it came from. The play opens with the Philadelphia Experiment from the 1940s. That experiment was meant to make a ship invisible.
Instead, the ship traveled to another dimension, i.e., dimension X. The only survivor returned with a different blood type. The show later reveals this survivor is Dr. Brenner’s father. Stranger Things Season 5 keeps bringing up blood types and weird dimensional rules because of this exact plot point.
The play then jumps to the 1950s and the Nevada Experiment. This is the moment where a scientist runs away with stolen technology and hides it in a cave. That cave is the same one Henry finds as a kid. The First Shadow is the first time fans see the origin of Henry Creel's powers.
This is why Season 5 keeps tying everything back to the caves. The Duffers never explain it in one long scene. Instead, they let the memories show it piece by piece. The story is shaped around the same events the play introduced, just seen from new angles.
Stranger Things Season 5 also brings in younger versions of characters we know. The play includes Joyce Maldonado, Patty Newby, Hopper as a teenager, and even the Wheelers. Season 5 uses this part to set up even more backstory. It shows us Hawkins in a way we never saw before.
Matt Duffer told Entertainment Weekly,
“Nobody from the cast of the play is returning, although Louis is absolutely incredible. We’re very careful with the play to make sure season 5 functions entirely on its own.”
That is why the show uses new actors but still keeps the same history. The play and the show connect like two pieces of the same puzzle, but each one stands alone.
What makes this connection feel stronger is the way Stranger Things Season 5 uses Henry’s past to shape its final battles. Henry always believed he was going to lose control. The play shows him killing animals, seeing monsters, and struggling to hold back the darkness from Dimension X.
Season 5 uses those memories to explain why he becomes Vecna. The play plants the seeds, and Season 5 lets the seeds grow right in front of us.
The First Shadow is the blueprint for the supernatural logic of Stranger Things Season 5. It explains the dimensional rules, the experiments, the caves, Henry’s trauma, and the beginning of the Mind Flayer connection. Stranger Things Season 5 becomes much easier to understand once you see how much of it was built on top of what the play created.
How both stories connect Max, Henry, and the final battle in Stranger Things Season 5
The final season keeps circling back to Max for a reason. The moment she ended up in a coma in Season 4, the Duffers were already planning how The First Shadow would help explain what happened to her.
Max spends almost a year and a half inside Vecna’s memories while her physical body stays in Hawkins. She tells Holly that she almost escaped once by following the sound of “Running Up That Hill.” But every time she got close, the world shifted again.
The play teaches us why this happens. Henry’s memories are not stable. His mind was messed up the moment he returned from Dimension X. That is why his mindscape never stays still.
The First Shadow spends a lot of time showing Henry losing control of his powers. He could not handle the visions, the pain, or the darkness that followed him home. In the play, he almost kills Patty’s father during a psychic overload.
Stranger Things Season 5 connects to this by letting Max walk through the same unstable memories. Every memory she passes through is like a broken version of the past. Nothing stays the same because Henry cannot hold anything in place.
Max eventually figures out that the caves are the safest spot. She sees that Henry never goes there. She figures out he cannot look at those memories. These caves are where Henry first stepped into the other dimension.
They were the beginning of everything that ruined his life. Max understands that this fear can be used against him. That is why she hides there. That is why she builds her entire survival around this one weakness.
Stranger Things Season 5 slowly uses the play’s timeline to build a huge emotional link between Max and Henry. Max sees Henry’s childhood beliefs, his early friendships, his guilt, and the moment he became something darker. The First Shadow is the only story that truly shows these moments. The show uses Max as the character who walks through that history.
The play ends with Henry agreeing to join Dr. Brenner. It is a moment where he gives up the last part of himself. Season 5 mirrors that energy by showing Max fighting not to lose herself while trapped in his memories. Both stories deal with what happens when the mind becomes a prison. Stranger Things Season 5 builds this final battle on top of everything The First Shadow already revealed.
Stranger Things Season 5 makes way more sense once you understand and factor in everything that The First Shadow set up. The play gives the full picture of Henry’s past, the caves in Nevada, the experiments that opened the door to other dimensions, and the early lives of characters who shaped Hawkins.
The final season uses those pieces to build Max’s storyline, Holly’s twist, and Henry’s entire mindscape. Matt and Ross Duffer made sure the play and the show connect, even though the show still works on its own. If you put both stories together, Season 5 becomes a much deeper and richer finale.
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Also read: Stranger Things Season 5: Why Henry Creel’s fear of Max's cave is the “First Shadow” clue to the monster lurking in the woods?
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