The ‘Stranger Issues’ play completely unlocks ‘Stranger Issues’ Season 5, Vol. 2

The next incorporates spoilers for Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2.

Watching Stranger Issues: The First Shadow on Broadway after watching Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 1 was a surreal expertise.

Not solely had been viewers members handled to the play’s spectacular particular results — critically, you may really feel such as you’re in an episode of Stranger Issues — however we additionally obtained to see how the play linked to Season 5.

Mentions of Henry Creel’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) childhood in Nevada made viewers members gasp as they recalled the mysterious Nevada cave system in Henry’s mindscape. Elsewhere, younger Joyce’s manufacturing of Oklahoma! in The First Shadow tied to Henry’s reminiscences of his time at Hawkins Excessive, by which Max navigates in Quantity 1. You even catch a glimpse of the flyer within the collection, which reveals that Henry himself is starring in it.

However after watching Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2, it turns on the market are much more connections between the play and the present, every serving to the opposite create a clearer portrait of Henry/Vecna’s origin story. From Henry’s fateful time in Nevada to some enlightening details about Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) personal powers, this is how Stranger Issues: The First Shadow illuminates the mysteries of Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2.

Stranger Issues: The First Shadow reveals why Henry is so afraid of the caves in his mindscape.

One of many greatest questions I had about Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 1 was why Henry was too scared to comply with Max into the cave system in his reminiscences. Lo and behold, Stranger Issues: The First Shadow had the reply the entire time.

The play reveals that the cave system was the place Henry first ventured to Dimension X — now dubbed “The Abyss” in Stranger Issues. That is the alternate dimension the place the Thoughts Flayer and Demogorgons are from, versus the Upside Down, which Quantity 2 reveals is a bridge connecting the Abyss to our world.

In keeping with Stranger Issues: The First Shadow, the Nevada caves in Henry’s reminiscence had been dwelling to experiments Dr. Brenner (Michael Modine) was working with the intention to be taught extra about Dimension X. His personal father briefly vanished there throughout a World Battle II-era experiment on the usEldridge battleship. Nevertheless, one of many scientists on his staff defected to the Soviets. He stole some tools from the labs and fled. Throughout his escape, he crossed paths with Henry, at which level the stolen tools transported them each to the Abyss.

Naturally, that dimension-hopping expertise was traumatizing for Henry, explaining why he will not revisit these caves or reminiscences in his mindscape. However whereas all of that is relayed by a speech from Dr. Brenner in Stranger Issues: The First Shadow, Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2 really offers us a sneak peek at what occurred to younger Henry out in Nevada.

In episode 6, “Escape from Camazotz,” Max and Holly (Nell Fisher) watch Henry’s encounter with the defecting scientist. Initially, Henry needs to assist the wounded defector, who’s carrying a mysterious briefcase. However when the scientist shoots him within the hand — leaving a wound that Dr. Brenner mentions in Stranger Issues: The First Shadow, however doesn’t clarify — Henry goes into fight-or-flight mode. He brains the scientist with a rock, the motion beginning as a survival intuition however shortly rising extra bloodthirsty. Then, he goes to open the briefcase.

All we see of the case’s contents is a rolling fog earlier than Max and Holly proceed on their method. However due to Stranger Issues: The First Shadow, we all know that no matter’s contained in the briefcase will carry Henry to Dimension X, the place he’ll come nose to nose with the Thoughts Flayer.

Do not anticipate that reveal to stay play-only data, although. There is not any method the Duffer Brothers would tease the significance of the Nevada reminiscence with out following by.

Stranger Issues: The First Shadow explains why Henry and Eleven’s blood is completely different.

Jamie Campbell Bower in “Stranger Issues.”
Credit score: Netflix

Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2 drops a fairly large bombshell about Eleven’s powers. All through the present, she’s believed she has her talents due to her pregnant mom’s involvement within the MKUltra program, which uncovered Eleven to mind-altering medication within the womb. Nevertheless, it seems her powers actually stemmed from transfusions of Henry’s blood.

In Stranger Issues: The First Shadow, Dr. Brenner tells Henry that when his father reappeared from the Abyss, he had a unique blood kind. The identical actual factor occurred to Henry following his publicity to the Abyss and the Thoughts Flayer.

The play options scenes of Dr. Brenner drawing Henry’s blood, and we later be taught why: It is to offer to all the children getting used within the Hawkins lab experiments. The transfusions impart Henry’s powers to the youngsters, all with out exposing them to the Abyss themselves.

In Stranger Issues Season 5, Quantity 2, the U.S. authorities is trying to recreate the success of these preliminary transfusions, this time forcing transfusions of Kali’s (Linnea Berthelsen) blood into unconscious pregnant ladies. In the event that they seize Eleven, they’d drain her blood as properly. As Kali causes, the federal government’s insistence on seeing this program by implies that neither she nor Eleven will ever be protected.

Stranger Issues: The First Shadow‘s revelation that publicity to the Thoughts Flayer and the Abyss adjustments your blood kind — and due to this fact doubtless offers you powers — provides a brand new wrinkle to Holly’s plight. She, Derek (Jake Connelly), and the opposite kidnapped youngsters have all been trapped throughout the Abyss, with Henry hoping to make use of them as vessels for his powers with the intention to be a part of our world along with his. Nevertheless, in the event that they do handle to flee this complete state of affairs alive, will their powers stay? And can the federal government hunt them down in the way in which they did Kali and Eleven?

Sadly, that is not a query Stranger Issues: The First Shadow can reply. Solely the finale can try this.

Volumes 1 and a couple of of Stranger Issues Season 5 are actually streaming on Netflix. The collection finale premieres Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix and in theaters.

Stranger Issues: The First Shadow is now enjoying on Broadway and within the West Finish.