Stranger Things: The First Shadow Review

Continuity? Never Heard of Her

Let’s Start by Showing Y’all the Trailers, Shall We?

Before we begin, I need to make something extremely clear about this review: I did not personally see Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway. Unlike a movie or Netflix series that I can simply turn on at home, this is a stage production that has only been available in specific locations, and I never had the opportunity to attend it. Instead, I watched roughly ten different detailed breakdown videos covering the production, story, spoilers, ending, and the numerous discussions surrounding what this play adds to and changes about the established Stranger Things mythology. I also looked into official information surrounding the production and its connection to the television series.

Because of that, I’m approaching this review a little differently. I’m not going to pretend that I can tell you what sitting in the theater and experiencing these effects firsthand is like. What I can review extensively is the story itself, the characters, the additions to the mythology, and especially what happens when you declare this thing official canon.

And oh boy.

We’re going to talk about that.

The First Shadow was originally announced as a stage prequel to Stranger Things, set decades before the original series and revolving primarily around a teenage Henry Creel. The marketing immediately leaned heavily into the idea that we were about to discover another side of Henry and learn secrets about Hawkins that predated Eleven, Will Byers, and everything we originally thought started this story.

The trailers themselves? They’re pretty damn good. They’re atmospheric, theatrical, creepy, and appropriately mysterious. From everything I’ve seen of the actual production, the visual presentation is phenomenal. This thing looks expensive as hell, and the practical theatrical tricks used to recreate the supernatural elements of Stranger Things on a stage are genuinely impressive.

Then the story starts explaining what all of this means.

And that’s when I start slowly rubbing my forehead.

Because The First Shadow isn’t merely some fun theatrical side adventure.

The Duffer Brothers have made it clear that this story is canon.

That’s important.

Because if this were an alternate interpretation of Henry Creel, I’d have considerably fewer problems with it.

Instead, this is officially supposed to be the backstory of the same Henry Creel we met in Season 4.

And I have questions.

A LOT of questions.

—

Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Stranger Things: The First Shadow takes us back to Hawkins in 1959, decades before Will Byers disappears.

Victor Creel moves into Hawkins with his wife Virginia and their children, Alice and Henry. Henry is struggling with strange abilities and disturbing supernatural experiences that neither he nor his family fully understands.

Meanwhile, several familiar faces from Stranger Things are considerably younger.

Joyce Maldonado—our future Joyce Byers—is attending Hawkins High School alongside Jim Hopper Jr. and Bob Newby. Their lives eventually become intertwined with Henry as increasingly bizarre events begin occurring throughout Hawkins.

Henry also meets Patty Newby, Bob’s adopted sister.

Patty is an outsider herself, and she quickly develops a connection with Henry. Unlike most people around him, Patty doesn’t immediately see Henry as something dangerous or broken. She believes there is something good inside him and encourages him to believe that his abilities don’t necessarily have to make him a monster.

And yes.

Henry Creel has a girlfriend.

That sentence alone took some adjustment.

As Henry’s powers become increasingly unstable, Dr. Martin Brenner enters the story, and we begin learning significantly more about his obsession with supernatural phenomena, Dimension X, and Henry himself.

The play ultimately attempts to explain how this frightened, conflicted teenager eventually becomes Subject 001 and, much later, Vecna.

As a standalone premise?

That’s actually not terrible.

My problems begin when I remember:

I’ve watched Season 4.

—

Character Rundown

Henry Creel

Let’s start with the obvious one.

Henry is the main character of The First Shadow, and this is simultaneously one of the most interesting and most frustrating decisions the production makes.

Louis McCartney’s performance as young Henry has received enormous praise, and from everything I’ve been able to see, I understand why. He has the difficult job of taking a character audiences already know becomes an absolute monster and portraying him as a frightened, vulnerable teenager without simply doing an impression of Jamie Campbell Bower.

As a performance?

Excellent.

As an interpretation of Henry Creel?

I hate it.

Season 4’s Henry fascinated me because he was a sadist.

There wasn’t some enormous tragic explanation underneath him. He didn’t need somebody else whispering evil thoughts into his ear. Henry looked at humanity, decided he despised its rules and artificial structures, and developed his own completely warped philosophy about existence.

He murdered his mother and sister.

He manipulated Eleven.

He massacred children.

And when he finally explained himself, he didn’t behave like someone desperately fighting against an outside force.

He behaved like someone who genuinely believed every word coming out of his mouth.

That was terrifying.

The First Shadow instead asks:

«But what if Henry wasn’t always like that?»

And my answer is:

I don’t care.

Not every villain needs to secretly have been a sweet misunderstood kid.

Here, Henry is considerably more compassionate. He cares about Patty. He struggles against his darker impulses. He’s frightened by what’s happening to him. There are moments where he actively tries to do the right thing.

That’s a completely valid interpretation for a tragic villain.

I just don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as the Henry we were introduced to in Season 4.

Worse, once the play starts introducing the Mind Flayer’s influence over Henry, it fundamentally changes how I interpret him.

Season 4 gave me:

Henry is the monster.

The First Shadow gives me:

Something helped make Henry the monster.

Those are two very different characters.

Patty Newby

Patty Newby is Bob Newby’s adopted sister and Henry’s primary emotional connection throughout the story.

Again, taken completely by itself, this relationship isn’t terrible.

Patty sees something in Henry that other people don’t. She believes he can be better. Henry genuinely cares about her, and their relationship gives him something worth fighting for when the darkness surrounding him becomes stronger.

But knowing where Henry ends up makes this feel bizarre to me.

You’re telling me the Henry Creel from Season 4:

had a high-school girlfriend?

Really?

Okay.

Whatever you say.

The problem isn’t simply that Henry experienced romance. The problem is that Patty is extremely important to his emotional development, yet Season 4 gives absolutely no impression that someone like this ever existed.

It feels like classic prequel writing:

«”Here’s the most important person you’ve never heard about!”»

Joyce Maldonado

Isabella Pappas as young Joyce was a great casting choice.

Yes, this is the same Isabella Pappas who played Amy in Disney Channel’s The Villains of Valley View, which makes the casting even funnier to me.

But she works.

She captures enough of Joyce’s stubbornness, curiosity, and willingness to pursue something bizarre when everyone else would rather ignore it that I can believe this character eventually becomes Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers.

My problems with Joyce aren’t really with Isabella Pappas.

They’re with the fact that Joyce is involved in another gigantic supernatural incident decades before Season 1.

Because apparently Hawkins has been doing this crap forever.

Jim Hopper Jr.

Young Hopper is another familiar face inserted into Henry’s story.

Again, as a standalone prequel concept, I understand why.

If you’re setting a story in 1959 Hawkins and you know Hopper grew up there, naturally you’re going to be tempted to use him.

But putting young Hopper, Joyce, Bob, and Henry together makes Hawkins increasingly feel like the smallest town in human history.

Everybody knew everybody.

Everybody’s parents knew everybody.

Everybody secretly participated in some gigantic event that nobody thought was worth bringing up again.

Prequels absolutely LOVE doing this.

Bob Newby

Seeing younger Bob is fun, especially knowing what eventually happens to him.

His involvement also provides the connection to Patty, who is his adopted sister.

Like Joyce and Hopper, though, his presence contributes to my feeling that The First Shadow desperately wants every recognizable piece of Stranger Things mythology to have secretly been connected before Season 1 even happened.

Dr. Martin Brenner

Brenner gets an enormous expansion here.

The play doesn’t merely give us younger Brenner.

It expands the mythology surrounding his experiments and connects his obsession with Dimension X to events involving his own father and the USS Eldridge.

On its own, I actually find some of this interesting.

But it also contributes to something that eventually becomes exhausting about The First Shadow:

Everything needs an origin.

Everything needs another explanation.

Everything needs another connection.

Sometimes mystery is allowed to remain mystery.

—

Pacing / Episode Flow

Obviously, this isn’t a television season, so there’s no traditional episode structure to discuss. Instead, the story unfolds as a multi-act theatrical production.

From the numerous breakdowns I watched, I think the overall structure sounds reasonably well organized.

The first portion establishes 1959 Hawkins, introduces the younger versions of familiar characters, establishes Henry and Patty’s relationship, and gradually introduces the supernatural mystery.

The story then becomes increasingly focused on Henry, Brenner, Dimension X, and the force influencing Henry.

Where I think things become overloaded is the sheer amount of mythology the play attempts to cram into one prequel.

We’re dealing with:

– Henry’s childhood.
– The Creel family.
– Patty.
– Joyce.
– Hopper.
– Bob.
– Brenner.
– Brenner’s father.
– The USS Eldridge.
– Dimension X.
– Henry’s powers.
– The Mind Flayer.
– The origins of Brenner’s experiments.
– The Creel murders.
– The eventual connection to Eleven.

That’s a lot.

And because this story has been declared canon, every single one of those additions has implications for the television series.

As a stage spectacle, I’m sure the momentum makes much of this easier to swallow.

As somebody sitting afterward and thinking about the continuity?

My brain hurts.

—

Pros

The production itself looks absolutely incredible.

The theatrical effects deserve enormous praise. Translating something as visually elaborate as Stranger Things onto a stage isn’t easy, and the production appears to pull off things that genuinely make you wonder how the hell they’re doing them live.

The cast also deserves credit.

Louis McCartney has the incredibly difficult task of portraying young Henry while knowing the audience already understands his ultimate fate.

Isabella Pappas works very well as young Joyce.

The younger versions of familiar characters generally seem cast with the goal of capturing their personalities rather than simply finding people who vaguely resemble the television actors.

And then there’s one particularly awesome production moment:

Jamie Campbell Bower himself appeared as older Henry during a special Broadway performance.

That is freaking cool.

Whatever problems I have with the story, physically bridging Louis McCartney’s Henry with Jamie Campbell Bower’s version is exactly the sort of theatrical surprise that must have been incredible for the audience who happened to attend that night.

This is why I’m going to be unusually generous when rating the production.

My problems aren’t with the performers.

My problems aren’t with the stage crew.

My problems aren’t with the people figuring out how to make supernatural horror happen live in front of an audience.

My problems are with the canon.

And BOY do I have problems with the canon.

—

Cons

The biggest problem is simple:

This did not need to be canon.

That’s it.

That’s the fatal mistake.

You could have made The First Shadow an alternate interpretation of Henry Creel.

You could have made it a theatrical adaptation inspired by Stranger Things.

You could have allowed it to play around with established characters without demanding that every viewer incorporate these events into their understanding of the television series.

Instead:

Nope. It’s canon.

Okay.

Then I’m judging it as canon.

And that’s where the entire thing starts collapsing for me.

The sympathetic reinterpretation of Henry doesn’t improve Season 4’s characterization for me.

The Mind Flayer’s influence complicates what Season 4 told us.

Patty feels like an enormous retroactive addition to Henry’s life.

Joyce, Hopper and Bob being involved creates another gigantic Hawkins incident that nobody discusses later.

The Brenner material keeps adding more explanations to mythology that didn’t necessarily need them.

And once Season 5 starts incorporating ideas that line up with this interpretation of Henry, the Broadway production stops feeling like an optional side story and starts retroactively changing the way I have to interpret Season 4.

That’s when I stopped having fun.

—

Final Thoughts

Stranger Things: The First Shadow is one of the strangest things I’ve ever had to rate.

Because visually?

It looks phenomenal.

The cast?

Excellent.

The theatrical effects?

Some of the most impressive stage work I’ve seen footage of.

The ambition?

Absolutely enormous.

But then there’s the story.

And as an addition to Stranger Things canon?

I genuinely dislike almost everything it does to Henry Creel.

Season 4 introduced Henry as a terrifying human monster whose worldview was disturbing precisely because it appeared to belong to him.

The First Shadow wants me to sympathize with him.

It wants me to see the frightened teenager.

It wants me to care about his relationship with Patty.

It wants me to understand that an outside supernatural force played an enormous role in what he eventually became.

And then Season 5 builds upon that interpretation.

For me, that doesn’t deepen Henry.

It weakens him.

The funniest thing is that I can simultaneously look at this production and say:

«”This looks incredible.”»

and:

«”I wish none of this were canon.”»

Those aren’t contradictory opinions.

They’re exactly why this review needs two ratings.

—

Rating

As a theatrical production: 10/10

Based on the extensive footage, behind-the-scenes material, trailers, reviews, and breakdowns I’ve watched, the production itself looks phenomenal. Again, I did not personally attend the Broadway show, so this rating reflects what I’ve been able to see and research rather than firsthand experience inside the theater.

As a canonical Stranger Things story: 2/10

I don’t like what this does to Henry.

I don’t like how much additional mythology it retroactively inserts.

I don’t like how heavily it recontextualizes Season 4.

And most importantly:

I don’t think this needed to be canon.

—

SPOILER WARNING

Everything below contains major spoilers for Stranger Things: The First Shadow, including Henry Creel’s complete backstory, Patty Newby’s fate, Dr. Brenner’s experiments, the Mind Flayer, Dimension X, the Creel murders, and the ending connecting directly into the television series.

If you’re planning on seeing the production and don’t want its biggest reveals spoiled:

STOP READING HERE.

Because now we’re going into the part where I start asking:

«Continuity? Never heard of her?»

—

SPOILERS

The USS Eldridge and Dimension X

The First Shadow begins considerably earlier than I expected.

In 1943, the USS Eldridge becomes involved in an experiment that results in the ship being transported into another dimension.

The crew encounters horrific creatures, most of them die, and one of the survivors is Dr. Brenner’s father.

This event eventually becomes part of Martin Brenner’s obsession with other dimensions.

And already we’re doing the prequel thing where:

«”Remember this mysterious character?”»

«”Well, here’s the secret reason behind EVERYTHING!”»

I don’t necessarily hate the Eldridge material in isolation. It’s actually an interesting idea.

But it contributes to the increasingly complicated mythology surrounding Dimension X and the Upside Down.

The original show was once:

«There’s another dimension.»

That’s terrifying.

Now I feel like I need a corkboard, twenty-seven photographs and red string.

Henry’s Original Encounter With the Darkness

The play reveals that Henry encountered this supernatural realm before the events we knew about from Season 4.

While living near Rachel, Nevada, Henry comes across stolen experimental technology and is transported into another realm.

He eventually returns changed.

And this is where the Mind Flayer becomes extremely important.

The supernatural shadow associated with the Mind Flayer begins influencing Henry.

This is the part that drives me insane.

Because remember Season 4?

Season 4’s enormous revelation was that Henry was essentially the architect behind everything.

Eleven banished him.

Henry encountered the strange cloud of particles.

He shaped those particles into the spider-like form that we recognize as the Mind Flayer.

The implication was:

Vecna was behind everything.

And now?

Apparently the Mind Flayer had already been influencing Henry when he was a child.

So I have one question.

WHO IS IN CHARGE!?

Is Henry controlling the Mind Flayer?

Is the Mind Flayer controlling Henry?

Are they partners?

Is Henry the puppet?

Is the Mind Flayer the puppet?

Who is the puppet master!?

Season 4 made this revelation unnecessarily complicated by insisting that Vecna was secretly behind everything.

Then The First Shadow comes along and effectively says:

«”Welllllllll…”»

And Season 5 further embraces the idea that Henry himself had been manipulated.

At this point, I give up.

Henry and Patty

Then we get Patty Newby.

Henry and Patty become close.

They fall in love.

She sees goodness in him.

She encourages him.

Henry cares deeply about her.

And this relationship becomes one of the most important emotional relationships of Henry’s entire young life.

Again:

Season 4 Henry had a high-school sweetheart.

Okay.

Sure.

The relationship itself isn’t badly written from what I’ve researched.

My problem is what it does to Henry.

Patty gives Henry hope.

She gives him someone to care about.

She helps him resist the darkness.

This version of Henry doesn’t want to become Vecna.

And that is fundamentally less interesting to me than Season 4’s Henry.

I don’t need Henry Creel to be misunderstood.

I don’t need:

«”There was good in him once!”»

Sometimes an evil character can just be an evil character.

Joyce, Hopper and Bob

And yes, Joyce, Hopper and Bob are all around for this.

Because apparently everybody important in Hawkins has been running into supernatural nonsense since high school.

This doesn’t necessarily create an impossible contradiction.

But it absolutely creates what I call:

Prequel Syndrome.

Everybody knew everybody.

Everybody was secretly connected.

Every important event somehow involved another character you already recognize.

Eventually it makes the fictional world feel smaller rather than larger.

The Creel Murders

And here’s where I really start having problems.

Season 4 shows Henry discussing what happened to his family.

He discovered things about his parents.

He despised them.

He tortured them psychologically.

He murdered his mother and sister.

He framed Victor.

The entire sequence is presented as evidence that Henry was deeply disturbed even as a child.

Then The First Shadow reframes the circumstances around those murders through Henry’s struggle with this supernatural influence.

Technically, Henry still kills them.

That’s important.

I’m not going to falsely claim the play says Henry had absolutely nothing to do with their deaths.

But context matters.

Season 4:

«Henry murdered his family because Henry was horrifying.»

The First Shadow:

«Henry murdered his family while being increasingly corrupted and influenced by this supernatural darkness.»

That’s a gigantic difference.

It shifts responsibility.

It changes how we understand his childhood.

It changes how we understand his Season 4 monologue.

And personally?

I think it’s worse.

Brenner and Henry

Dr. Brenner eventually takes control of Henry and begins experimenting on him.

The play also substantially expands the origins of Brenner’s program, eventually connecting Henry’s altered blood to experiments involving other children.

This ultimately creates the pathway toward the numbered subjects we know from Hawkins Lab.

Again:

Does everything need to be connected?

Apparently yes.

Brenner’s father.

The Eldridge.

Dimension X.

Henry.

Henry’s blood.

The numbered children.

Eleven.

Everything becomes one giant chain.

There’s something satisfying about interconnected mythology when it feels organic.

When absolutely everything connects to everything else, though, it starts feeling artificial.

Patty’s “Death”

Eventually Brenner realizes Patty is Henry’s emotional weakness.

Henry loses control and Patty is thrown from the theater rafters.

For a while, Henry believes she’s dead.

Except…

Nope!

Patty survived.

Henry eventually discovers through the Void that she’s alive and recovering.

And honestly, I almost laughed when I learned this.

Not because Patty surviving is inherently ridiculous.

But because Stranger Things really loves:

«”THEY’RE DEAD!”»

followed by:

«”…Actually.”»

Apparently death itself needs an asterisk in this franchise.

The Mind Flayer Problem

This is ultimately the biggest issue.

Season 4 told me one story.

The First Shadow gave me another interpretation.

Season 5 then leaned into that newer interpretation.

That’s why, in hindsight, I like Season 4 considerably less than I did when it originally released.

When Season 4 first came out, I loved Vecna.

I thought Jamie Campbell Bower was fantastic.

I thought Henry being revealed as 001 and then Vecna was a great twist.

But after Season 5 and after learning everything The First Shadow adds?

I started looking backward.

And suddenly I realized:

This is where the mythology started going off the rails.

Vecna was introduced in the second-to-last season and immediately declared the secret architect behind a story we’d already been following for three seasons.

Then the expanded material turned around and complicated that revelation.

That’s not satisfying escalation to me.

That’s mythology being rewritten as the franchise goes along.

Connecting to Eleven

Eventually the story starts positioning Henry directly toward his future at Hawkins Lab.

Brenner’s experiments continue.

The other numbered children become part of the picture.

And Henry is ultimately connected to a young Eleven, bringing everything toward the events we already know from Season 4.

As a theatrical ending, I understand it.

You’re watching a prequel.

Eventually you need to reach:

«”And now we’re approaching the story you recognize.”»

But by this point, I was less interested in how everything connected and more frustrated by how much had been inserted retroactively.

Jamie Campbell Bower’s Appearance

And finally, something I unequivocally love.

During a special Broadway performance, Jamie Campbell Bower appeared as the older Henry Creel.

That is awesome.

No complaints.

Having Louis McCartney portray this younger version of Henry and then physically bringing in the actor who plays adult Henry/Vecna is exactly the kind of theatrical surprise I would have lost my mind over if I’d been sitting in that audience.

And it perfectly summarizes my entire review.

Production?

Fantastic.

Cast?

Fantastic.

Effects?

Fantastic.

Jamie Campbell Bower appearing?

Fantastic.

Story as official canon?

Please stop.

Because after The First Shadow, Season 4 and Season 5, I keep coming back to the exact same question:

«Who was actually controlling whom?»

And when your supposedly carefully constructed mythology has me asking who the Mind Flayer’s manager is, something has gone terribly wrong.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow looks like an incredible theatrical achievement.

I just wish it had remained exactly that:

A theatrical interpretation of Stranger Things.

The moment you told me it was canon?

Well…

Continuity? Never heard of her.

Final Ratings

Theatrical Production: 10/10

Canonical Stranger Things Story: 2/10