The Duffer Bros. Cut a Big Vecna Reveal From STRANGER THINGS Season 5 to Avoid Confusing Fans
One of the more surprising reveals tied to Stranger Things Season 5 actually never made it on screen. The Duffer Bros. recently shared that there was originally a scene where Joyce and Hopper acknowledged a massive shared secret.
They already knew Vecna. Or at least, they knew Henry Creel long before the Upside Down ever entered their lives. The moment was ultimately dropped, and the reason why says a lot about how carefully the final season was handled.
In early drafts of Stranger Things Season 5, Winona Ryder’s Joyce and David Harbour’s Hopper were meant to connect the dots about Vecna in a more direct way. Their connection to the villain doesn’t actually start with Will Byers’ disappearance in season 1. It goes all the way back to high school, when Joyce and Hopper were classmates with Henry Creel, the boy who would eventually become Vecna.
That history was explored in Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel stage play currently running on Broadway and in London’s West End.
Set in 1959, the play follows the Creel family as they arrive in Hawkins, with young Henry’s disturbing abilities beginning to surface. Joyce and Hopper are both part of that story, attending school with him long before the horrors to come.
When asked by Variety if there was ever a scene where Joyce and Hopper explicitly realized their connection to Vecna, Ross Duffer explained why audiences never saw it.
"Yeah, I’m sure there was. We had to walk a fine line with the play – we don’t want to frustrate, because so much of our audience is unable to see it. To have them start talking about it would have been confusing in the context of someone who hasn’t seen the play. But I’m sure they did have that conversation."
That decision wasn’t about downplaying the importance of the play. It was about making sure the final season of the show stood on its own. Not everyone can get to Broadway or London, and the Duffers didn’t want key emotional beats hinging on outside material.
Matt Duffer went on to say that Season 5 was built to function exactly as planned, with or without the stage production.
"We really needed the final season to be exactly as it would have been without the play," Matt Duffer added. "The play is Henry’s backstory after he’s infected by the Mind Flayer. But this is how the season was going to play out regardless."
It would’ve been interesting to see Joyce and Hopper openly grapple with the fact that the monster haunting Hawkins was once just a kid they knew. Even without that scene, the connective tissue is still there for fans who’ve seen The First Shadow, while the show itself stays clean and accessible for everyone else.
All episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 are now streaming on Netflix, bringing the story to a close exactly how the Duffers intended.
