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Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower had already predicted Vecna's connection to [SPOILER]

Nick Romano
·4 min read
Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower had already predicted Vecna's connection to [SPOILER]

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Stranger Things season 4, Volume 2.

Maybe it was Jamie Campbell Bower embracing his inner psychic, but the actor behind Vecna had already predicted his character's big revelation in the Stranger Things season 4 finale — even before he got a hold of the scripts.

Volume 2, consisting of the remaining two episodes of the penultimate season, revealed that Vecna/Henry Creel/One has been the puppet master behind the Mind Flayer, the gargantuan demo-creature that first showed itself in season 2.

As he explains in his monologue to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Henry explored the Upside Down when he was first cast out into the dimension and came across a floating, swirling mass in the sky — similar to what Joyce (Winona Ryder) described as the Upside Down "particles" whizzing about in the Russian prison. Hoping to transcend his form and evolve into the predator he always knew himself to be, Henry used his powers to mold the dark cloud into the shape of a spider, thus creating the Mind Flayer.

"Vecna, or Henry, is so powerful that when he is thrown into this world of the Upside Down, he's able to create this inter-dimensional being, almost another extension of himself," Bower explains to EW. "It's the thing he loves most in the world. It is a spider, so it's mine. It belongs to me."

Stranger Things
Stranger Things

netflix The Mind Flayer as seen terrorizing Hawkins in 'Stranger Things' season 2.

Bower previously disclosed to EW that, when he took the role in Stranger Things, he created a mood board of everything he was thinking about for the character. An image of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) was at the center and right next to him was the Mind Flayer, the shadow creature that took possession of the boy and later came to possess Max's late brother Billy Mayfield (Dacre Montgomery). This was before Bower had even gotten his hands on the scripts for episodes 408 and 409, which he only received just before shooting began.

"I didn't wanna mention this when I was first talking to people 'cause I didn't want to give this away," Bower says. "But the Mind Flayer was right next to [Will] all the time. So when I saw in [episode] 9 that this was happening, it just confirmed what I thought I already knew. I was like, 'I'm not mad!' It was really, really cool." He adds, "Whatever [series creators] Matt and Ross [Duffer] were putting out there in the world energetically, I was picking up on."

Given Henry's affinity towards spiders, a part of Bower's process was purchasing two black widow spiders from a curiosity shop in Atlanta, where they shot parts of the season. Netflix released a behind-the-scenes photo of the actor on set, staring at the jars. He would often draw pictures of the arachnids and study them. In the way that music became a "comfort blanket" for Max (Sadie Sink), Bower says spiders were Henry's comfort blanket. "Every time I'd look at them, everything would come bubbling back up again," he says.

Though, he never gave his two pets names. "I just called them my spiders, which is almost more terrifying," he notes.

STRANGER THINGS 4
STRANGER THINGS 4

Netflix Jamie Campbell Bower stars as Vecna in 'Stranger Things' season 4.

It seems as though Henry/One/Vecna will now be returning for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. When asked if he had signed on for multiple seasons when he first took the role, Bower laughs. "You're so smart. You're such a smart man. I couldn't possibly say, it's gonna be my answer," he responds. "I couldn't possibly tell you. Anything I say is going to be wrong."

In the context of the show, Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Robin (Maya Hawke) are able to sneak into Vecna's lair while he's astral projecting and severely wound him. Steve and Robin light him up with molotov cocktails, while Nancy fires a shotgun. Vecna, now on fire, stumbles out of the attic window and tumbles to the ground below. But when the kids race outside, his body isn't there. Will, upon returning to Hawkins, says he can feel Vecna and knows he's still alive.

This, Bower says, was his Halloween or Friday the 13th moment. "It's the classic, 'Oh no! What?! Where's he gone?' Hazarding a fairly educated guess, I would say that Halloween was probably a big inspiration for that moment, for sure."

EW's Ultimate Guide to Stranger Things is available online or wherever magazines are sold.

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