From references to Shawshank Prison to the involvement of The Shining‘s Dick Hallorann, IT: Welcome to Derry is full of Stephen King Easter eggs. The show’s third episode is no different, bringing in an important element from King’s novel that never actually wound up in Andy Muschietti’s two IT films.
I’m talking, of course, about slingshots.
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In King’s IT, the Losers Club uses a slingshot to wound Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). They discover that silver can hurt It, so they fashion slugs from silver dollars. They designate Beverly as the keeper of the slingshot, since she has the best aim, and she later shoots and wounds It. (Fittingly, It’s in werewolf form at that point, making the silver connection land even harder.)
While Bev’s shooting prowess made it into the 1990 IT miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise, it fell to the wayside in Muschietti’s IT films. In those, the slingshot and the silver dollars are totally absent. (Pennywise also kidnaps Bev to the sewers in an unfortunate damsel-in-distress plot during the film’s climax.)
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However, IT: Welcome to Derry, which was developed by Muschietti, in addition to his sister, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, course corrects on that adaptation choice.
Episode 3 flashes back to 1908, two cycles before Pennywise awakens in IT: Welcome to Derry‘s present timeline. It reveals that General Francis Shaw (James Remar) and local shop owner Rose (Kimberly Norris-Guerrero) knew each other as kids (played by Diesel La Torraca and Violet Sutherland). He bought water from her on the side of the road, but since he didn’t have enough money, she took his slingshot as payment instead.
Later in the summer, Francis and Rose are closer friends. He wanders into the woods — even after her express instructions not to! — and encounters Pennywise in the terrifying form of a too-tall, too-lanky version of the one-eyed man who scared Francis at a Derry carnival. Before Pennywise can kill Francis, though, Rose shoots him in the head with her new slingshot.
The moment is a clear callback to IT and Bev, but it also continues Welcome to Derry‘s tradition of establishing new, older versions of IT‘s Losers Club: kids who take on Pennywise with the power of friendship (and also, occasionally, slingshots). Perhaps we’ll be seeing more of young Rose and young Francis in IT: Welcome to Derry‘s future.
IT: Welcome to Derry airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
