How 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' Informs Vecna's World
Image Source: Zoom TV
Warning: Spoilers for Stranger Things 5, Volume 2, and potential spoilers for the finale
The hit Netflix series Stranger Things, created by the Duffer Brothers, has launched a variety of spin-offs and collaborations, most recently a Hawkins Chicken burger at KFC’s in the U.K. and an Upside-Down Burger at Burger Kings in France. But, perhaps, the strangest of these spin-offs is a Broadway musical. This musical isn’t a mere retelling of the first season of Stranger Things. Instead, Stranger Things: The First Shadow focuses on the origins of Vecna, who started life as a rather innocent young boy named Henry.
During a recent episode of the TV series, Max and Holly try to escape from the prison of Vecna’s mind through their traumatic memories. When that fails, and they retreat to a cave that Vecna won’t enter for any reason, Holly figures out that the way out is through Vecna/Henry’s traumatic memories. These memories are real but not dangerous. They’re simply echoes of the past. Holly and Max observe a young Henry encountering a man with a briefcase in the mines. The man immediately shoots Henry’s hand. Henry responds by grabbing a rock and beating the man to death. Holly watches as Henry starts to open the briefcase, but the camera cuts away as Max grabs Holly to escape.
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Image Source: Nerdist
Home audiences have to wait for the final episode to learn what’s in that briefcase. However, those who have seen The First Shadow know exactly what’s in it. Before exploring the insides of the briefcase, it’s necessary to outline the nature of the Upside Down. For most of the series, the characters have viewed it as an alternate world under their own. It mirrors Hawkins but is covered with weird spores and vine-like tentacles. When Dustin discovers Brenner’s journal in the Upside Down version of Hawkins ’ lab, he discovers that everything they’ve assumed about that dimension has been dead wrong.
The Upside Down is not an alternate dimension but merely a portal to one. It is an interdimensional bridge, or wormhole, connecting Hawkins to Vecna’s world, which Dustin has coined The Abyss. In fact, the source of the Upside Down is not Vecna but Eleven. After she banished Henry to the Abyss, Brenner made her find him. That remote contact connected the two worlds, creating the Upside Down. That bridge between realities is highly unstable and held together by exotic matter. The Abyss was first discovered by researchers in 1953, who named it Dimension X.
Image Source: Nerdist
The above explanation might lead you to believe that Henry only encountered the Abyss after meeting Eleven, but the truth is, he first encountered it in that mine shaft years ago when he opened the briefcase. The man was later discovered to be a Russian spy, and the briefcase contained particles from the Abyss. When Henry opened that briefcase, he was pulled into the Abyss for a period of twelve hours. When he returned, the other world had changed his DNA, giving him his supernatural powers. Dr. Brenner sums up the events for Henry and the audience’s benefit, “Your mother tells me that you went missing after your eighth birthday for about…12 hours nearby a military base in Lincoln County, Nevada. You were found outside a cave system with a wound on your left hand. No memory of what happened.” He continues, “At the military base. That’s where I work, Henry. Where, a few years back, right around your eighth birthday, actually, one of the doctors working with the captain was revealed to be a Russian spy. He escaped the facility. The Russian’s body was found two days later in a cave system. Right outside Lincoln County… This doctor had taken something… Something a bored child might be curious about. Something… from beyond our world.”
The briefcase was a remnant from a 1943 Navy Experiment dubbed Project Rainbow. In an attempt to cloak the USS Elridge, the technology sent the ship into the Abyss instead. The only survivor of that incident was Dr. Brenner’s father. The suitcase was a piece of rift-opening technology that gave Henry the first bit of human contact with the Mindflayer. Given that the Duffer brothers have worked closely with the stage production and that the series shows the moments of Henry receiving the wound on his left hand, it’s reasonable to conclude that the show is canon. While First Shadow attendees will have this bit of extra knowledge going into the finale, it’s not required viewing. The Duffer Brothers promised that the finale will answer all your briefcase questions.
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Source(s): ComicBook.com, Nerdist, Variety
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