Summary
- Stranger Things Season 5 is meant to be a stand-alone from the Broadway show spinoff.
- Stranger Things writer said fans may appreciate Season 5 more if they watch the play.
- The writer said Henry’s story in Stranger Things Season 5 was a direct result of his development from the Broadway show.
Stranger Things Season 5 is expected to be released later this year. While fans wait for its official release, one of the writers revealed how the final season has some ties to the Broadway show, Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror series created by the Duffer Brothers for Netflix. The show is set in the 1980s, where a group of kids from Hawkins, Indiana, encounter supernatural forces linked to a parallel dimension called the Upside Down. The series is a massive hit, with the audience drawn to it due to its mystery, horror elements, dread, suspense, and psychological terror. Many also love the cast as they witness them grow up from kids to adults. Stranger Things stars Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), and Joe Keery (Steve Harrington). One of the writers gave an update about the show and how it ties to its Broadway show spinoff.
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Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry, who wrote the Broadway and Netflix series, spoke about the two projects. According to her, the play and the TV series were meant to be stand-alone. They didn’t want to force fans to watch the Broadway show to enjoy the Netflix series. “We had to make the play both a stand-alone thing and the TV show a stand-alone thing, just because it’s not fair to demand people go see the play in order to understand the fifth season,” she told Polygon. However, the playwright admitted that if fans take the time to watch the play, they will appreciate the final season even more because it “complicate[s]” the latter. She explained:
I definitely think the fifth season is much more satisfying if you make your way to the play — because it does complicate it.
She doubled down on her take by talking about Jamie Campbell Bower’s character in the show — Henry Creel aka Vecna. Per Trefry, when they were in the writer’s room drafting Vecna’s character, they had a lot of ideas about whether he would look like Jason from Friday the 13th or Michael from Halloween. They were figuring out whether Vecna was just corrupted from the Darkness or born evil. However, when she worked on the play, which features the same character, it gave her the opportunity to “explore his backstory.” Trefry already had a “backstory” about the character, but the Broadway show paved the way for her to revisit the writer’s room and examine Vecna’s history deeper. She reflected on the character’s mental battle with the Mind Flyer and how much of him was being controlled by it. She added it was fun to “sort out a bad guy.” Eventually, she was able to lay everything needed for the character’s development and it somewhat connected the show and the final season. Trefry teased:
What happens, what’s revealed about Henry in season 5, is a direct result of the work I was doing on the play.
It’s understandable to link The First Shadow to the TV series because the two projects have common ground despite being set in different timelines. The Broadway show serves as the prequel to the Netflix series. Also, they feature the same characters, so there will likely be an overlap. However, while this excites the writer, this might turn off some fans. Trefry acknowledged that the Netflix series and Broadway show were meant to be independent of each other and that the audience need not watch the play to understand Stranger Things Season 5. However, she also said that the Broadway complicates the final season, which could leave some fans wondering why.
Skipping the play could make some fans feel left behind or out of the loop. However, not everyone can watch the play since Stranger Things streams in multiple countries with Netflix and the Broadway show is only available in New York City. Hopefully, whatever is in the Broadway show that makes Season 5 complicated will also be addressed in the series to satisfy everyone. Fans should not feel something is “lacking” when they watch Stranger Things Season 5 without watching The First Shadow.
Stranger Things Season 5 is expected to premiere in October on Netflix.
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Source: Polygon