Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: stranger things

Stranger Things Showrunners on "First Shadow"/Final Season Spoilers

Stranger Things showrunners Ross and Matt Duffer discuss how "The First Shadow" expands Henry Creel's story without spoiling Season 5.

As Stranger Things emerged as a pop culture sensation, the Duffers explored other avenues for audiences to enjoy the franchise, but did what they could to steer clear of the direct path of their Netflix series for their Broadway show, The First Shadow. The stage show, directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Kate Trefry, acts as a prequel to the Matt and Ross Duffer-created series and focuses on a young Henry Creel in 1959 as he arrives in Hawkins, Indiana, with his family, long before he became the TV series antagonist, the Vecna. The Duffers spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how they were careful with the Broadway show to expand Henry's story, but not spoil the first and final season, which looks to put the final pieces of his story together.

The Duffers on How Stranger Things: The First Shadow Broadway Show Doesn't Interfere with Netflix's Stranger Things

"We really dive into Henry's backstory before he arrived at Hawkins lab," Matt said. "We definitely explore more about Henry because so much of the show does revolve around Vecna and his relationship with Will [Noah Schnapp's character]." Ross adds, "In this season, we go back even prior to that, and so the Broadway show sort of becomes this little connective tissue between the seasons itself."

Henry was introduced in the Netflix series played by Raphael Luce as the younger incarnation in season four, and his adult counterpart by Jamie Campbell Bower, who also plays his more demonic counterpart, the Vecna. Matt clarifies that the stage show is not mandatory viewing. "A lot of the stuff that's covered in the Broadway show is covered in the final season, as well," he says. "Actually, we had to block the Broadway show producers a lot from putting in too much material that we were gonna have in season five because we did not want it to be too spoilery."

The First Shadow has won five Tonys, with Louis McCartney starring as Henry in both the West End and Broadway runs, alongside other younger incarnations of characters from the show, including Joyce Byers (née Maldonado), Jim Hopper, Bob Newby, Dr. Brenner, and Victor Creel. Stranger Things season five will pick up a year after the events of the season four finale, set in the fall of 1987. Hawkins has been under military occupation due to the rifts that emerged. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is back in hiding from the government, and the gang is determined to find and destroy Vecna since the big bad seems to have gone off the grid.

Part one of the final season of Stranger Things, which also stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Cara Buono, Sadie Sink, Priah Ferguson, and Maya Hawke, will premiere on November 26th on Netflix, with part two on Christmas, and the two-hour finale in select theaters and on the platform on New Year's Eve.

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