New episodes of Stranger Things finally arrived on November 26 and the first four episodes of season 5 leave fans with a lot to process. If you’re still processing, or perhaps still watching the season, allow this to serve as an official spoiler warning as spoilers are ahead!
As the season’s big bad, Vecna remains central to the first four episodes of the final season. Because of this, he’s also at the heart of many of the season’s biggest mysteries.
There are many questions that have emerged after the first part of the season, including questions stemming from a conversation between two unexpected characters in one of the season’s equally unexpected pairings.
Max is trapped in Vecna’s memories
After Holly is taken by a Demogorgon, she ends up at the Creel House with Henry, who is putting on a facade. In this world, everything seems peaceful and serene, but there is a mystery about where Holly is, given that we know she was dragged into the Upside Down by a Demogorgon and brought to Vecna.
Eventually, after following a map found in the mailbox of Creel House, Holly ends up encountering Max. We learn that Max had left the map for Holly to find in hopes that it would bring her out past the woods to the cave where Max has been hiding out.
Max explains to Holly that they’re currently trapped within a memory that exists within a world of thousands of memories. It’s essentially a prison of Henry’s making, and it’s almost as though the pair are trapped within his mind. In talking Holly through how she came to find herself trapped here, Max recalls how she almost found a way out before Vecna reappeared and found her. Max took off and kept running until she ended up at the cave.
To her surprise, Henry didn’t follow her inside the cave. She was shocked to discover that Henry was more than just scared, he was terrified. Something about the cave scared him so much, he refused to enter it. Knowing this, Max used it to her advantage and turned the cave into her sanctuary and home.
The First Shadow holds the key to explaining why Henry is afraid of the cave
Max does not provide further information as to why Henry is scared of the cave, but it’s a mystery that leaves fans wondering what happened in that cave that is so bad Henry refuses to go inside. The show is likely to explain the reasoning behind Henry’s fear in the second part of the season; however, fans can find answers in the Broadway play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
The play transports audiences back to 1959 as the Creel family arrive in Hawkins seeking a new beginning. It’s essentially an origin story for Henry, further exploring his past in ways the show had not done.
Like in the show, Henry comes to be a patient of Dr. Brenner, but the play offers up details previously unestablished in the series. Having seen the play before the final episodes, the reference made in the context of the play went over my head; however, after viewing the fourth episode of season 5, it all became clear.
In the play, we learn that Henry went missing after his eighth birthday for about 12 hours near a military base in Lincoln County, Nevada. Henry was eventually found outside a cave system in the area with a wound on his hand and no memory of what had happened. Later in the play, we learn that right around the same time Henry went missing, a Russian spy who had been working at the military base was found dead in a cave system in that very area, with a hint that this spy had been taken to a world beyond theirs.
The play doesn’t directly get into details, but it's implied that Henry was perhaps taken into the Upside Down via this cave system in Nevada and/or encountered the Mind Flayer, a character who plays a key role in the Broadway play.
Knowing that The First Shadow is canon to the series and the show has established that Henry has a fear of the cave Max has taken cover in, all signs point to Henry’s fear stemming from his childhood memory of being taken into the Upside Down and encountering the Mind Flayer for the first time in that very cave. That would certainly explain Henry’s terror and why he refuses to enter the cave, and it’s a plot line that will likely serve as a major revelation in the final episodes of Stranger Things!