Even more than the occasional flashbacks in the series, The First Shadow shows how Henry was a normal kid who began to change after finding abandoned technology in a Nevada cave. Left there by Russian spies, who were stealing from the Nevada Project established by Dr. Brenner (portrayed by Matthew Modine on the show), the technology sends the young Henry to what the U.S. government called Dimension X, but what we know as the Upside Down.
Gifted with psychic powers, but disturbed by his interactions with the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down, Henry tries to live a normal life when he moves with his family to Hawkins. There, he manages to befriend Bob’s sister Patty, and even gets a part in the production of The Dark Side of the Moon that Joyce stages. But he’s constantly under attack by the Mind Flayer and pursued by Brenner, whose own father was changed after a visit to Dimension X in World War II.
By the end of the play, Henry has killed his mother and sister—murders blamed on his father Victor—and is taken to Brenner’s lab. From there, Brenner transfers Henry’s blood into young test subjects, most notably the girl known as Eleven.
But the real focus of The First Shadow is on the way Henry is treated. Despite the monster that he’ll become, Henry is not pure evil. He was a troubled kid who had some bad things happen to him, things made worse by the way people feared and judged him. Max’s trip through these memories only touches on the events that shaped Henry, but they may be enough to help her, an oft-misunderstood kid herself, escape his fate.
The same may not be true of Max’s friend Will, the boy at the center of the entire show. “Sorcerer” ends with Will standing up to Vecna and taking control of the demogorgons attacking Hawkins. Voiceover replaying Robin’s monologue about coming out frames Will’s control as a good thing, as if he’s finally becoming the person he’s supposed to be. But the actual imagery—Will’s eyes glazing over with white and the strange contortions he makes with his body—suggest something more sinister.
Is Will like Henry, a boy who went to the Upside Down at a young age and was changed for the worse? Or will Will’s friends be able to save him from becoming the next Vecna? We’ll have to wait for the last four episodes of Stranger Things to know for sure, but The First Shadow sure doesn’t fill us with hope.
