My jaw hit the floor 10 minutes into IT: Welcome to Derry, and that’s pretty much where it stayed as I kept watching the show.
The biggest reason for my shock and awe was, of course, IT: Welcome to Derry‘s scares. This is a Stephen King show, after all, and you’re going to get the nightmares to prove it.
But my continued appreciation for the series wasn’t a product of frights alone. Like King’s novel and the film adaptations that have followed, IT: Welcome to Derry introduces a new crew of lovable kids in peril, each of whom you’ll latch onto faster than one of Pennywise’s (Bill Skarsgård’s) red balloons can go pop. The series also expands on Derry’s history, creating a fascinating portrait of a town that has learned to live with evil, both supernatural and human in nature.
What is IT: Welcome to Derry about?
Welcome (back) to Derry.
Credit: HBO
Developed by Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, the director and producer sibling duo behind IT and IT: Chapter Two, IT: Welcome to Derry draws inspiration from Mike Hanlon’s historical interludes from King’s novel. The series brings viewers back to the quaint town of Derry, Maine in 1962, 27 years before Muschietti’s first film takes place. (King’s novel originally took place in 1957, but the films moved the time period up several decades.) That means it’s time for the horrifying entity known simply as IT to awaken once more, don a face full of clown makeup, and scare the living deadlights out of Derry’s children in order to feed.
IT fans will likely see several parallels between Welcome to Derry‘s cast of young outcasts and IT‘s Losers Club. Foul-mouthed Phil (Jack Molloy Legault) reads as a predecessor to Richie Tozier, while the ostracizing “Loony” Lilly (Clara Stack) faces at school recalls the experience of Beverly Marsh. Welcome to Derry‘s new children also include relatives of future Losers Club members (the names Hanlon and Uris both crop up in episode 1).
While the similarities between the show and the films loom large, Welcome to Derry‘s talented young cast — which also includes Amanda Christine, Mikkal Karim Fidler, and Miles Ekhardt — manage to make the show their own. Each Welcome to Derry kid comes with their own rich interior life, complete with anxieties about family and fitting in that feel like companions to the Losers Club’s own anxieties, as opposed to total rehashes.
Mashable Top Stories
But it’s not just kids having the fun (if you can call being chased by a killer clown “fun”) in Welcome to Derry. The series also focuses on new Derry arrivals, Leroy and Charlotte Hanlon (Jovan Adepo and Taylour Paige). Leroy, a Major in the U.S. Air Force, finds himself working on a top-secret military project alongside Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk). Yes, that Dick Hallorann, from The Shining. Meanwhile, Charlotte adjusts to life in Derry, where she hopes her civil rights activism from her time living in the south can make a difference.
IT: Welcome to Derry examines evil in several forms.
Luke Beattie, Redden Callaghan, Tom Hulshof, and Taylour Paige in “IT: Welcome to Derry.”
Credit: Brooke Palmer/HBO
Welcome to Derry‘s adult-focused plotlines can be hit or miss, especially when it comes to lore drops. These attempts to dive further into the origin story of IT risk falling into goofiness. However, the more grounded aspects of Leroy and Charlotte’s time in Derry add meaningful layers to the show.
Both Leroy and Charlotte experience racist microaggressions while in Derry, be it lack of respect from military subordinates or disrespect from police officers. For a show that’s primarily focused on the evil of IT, these moments also allow Welcome to Derry to explore how Pennywise isn’t the only evil in town. That extends to the Air Force’s invasive presence on Native American land, an action that reflects the US government’s dismissal of Indigenous peoples.
King’s novel and the films emphasize that IT’s presence in Derry has tainted the town. People who leave it forget about the horrors there, but people who stay seem forced into complacency or mean-spiritedness. Look no further than the unnaturally cruel bullying Welcome to Derry‘s kids face, or adults’ dismissal of said bullying. “Boys will be boys,” one shop owner tells Charlotte after they witness bullies assaulting a kid out in broad daylight. Of all the onlookers, only Charlotte, an outsider new to Derry, realizes how twisted that mentality is. That scene, Pennywise-less as it is, is among Welcome to Derry‘s eeriest sequences, a chilling look at the mundane evils on display in Derry.
IT: Welcome to Derry is downright terrifying.
Bill Skarsgård in “IT: Welcome to Derry.”
Credit: HBO
But of course, there are several other chilling scenes that very much do involve Pennywise, and for the most part, they are ghastly in the best way possible. No spoilers here, but Welcome to Derry won’t just ruin clowns and balloons for you — it’ll also ruin pickles, car rides, and more.
The effectiveness of these scares comes from the time and care Welcome to Derry sinks into developing its new kids and adults. As in King’s work, each of Pennywise’s attacks plays up a specific fear or trauma of each child, lending each terrifying sequence an extra element of psychological horror. That these scenes get under the skin so quickly is a credit to the show’s ability to so fully flesh out the world of Derry, instead of simply coasting on Pennywise’s star power.
IT: Welcome to Derry premieres Oct. 26 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
