By: Kelly Kearney
After a mini-series and a two-film remake, “It: Welcome to Derry” jumps back in time to tell the story of Pennywise the Clown and the town that has cursed its children. With a nod from author Stephen King, this series kicks off in heart-stopping terror with just enough gore to keep horror fans hungry for more.
The Birth of Evil
It is 1962 in Derry with Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) – a quiet, bullied, much-too-old-to-be-clutching-his-pacifier teen boy who is hiding out in the Capitol Theater to escape his abusive father. While the town outside feels like a prison, the darkened movie house showing The Music Man offers him peace. When his father storms in looking for him, the kindly theater owner Hank (Stephen Rider) and his daughter Ronnie (Amanda Christine) step in to protect the boy. They send Matty’s father in a different direction, while the terrified boy stays hidden, out of sight to everyone but Hank’s daughter. Once his father is gone, Matty flees the theater, hitchhiking out of town in hopes of a new life—anywhere but Derry.
While soothing his nerves by sucking on his pacifier, a cheerfully nuclear family on their way to Portland, Maine, pulls over and offers Matty a ride. They seem normal at first, but everything changes when the daughter becomes fixated on a Tupperware container sitting in her lap. The plastic container is full of raw and slimy liver. She slowly dips her hand into the meat, sniffing her bloodied fingers and forcing them into Matty’s face. Her brother also seems off—obsessed with spelling every word uttered by Matty. The tension in the car goes from strange and annoying to a full-blown gorefest—like ripping the Band-Aid off a scratch only to find a wound so deep it tunnels straight down to the bone. As the son maniacally spells, and bloody fingers join in, it is clear to Matty it’s time to hop out of the car before things get worse. Unfortunately, the doors are locked, and the entire family joins in, chanting “Out, out, out…” as Matty pleads to be let go.
When he realizes the car isn’t heading to Portland but back toward Derry, panic hits the roof of hysteria. This family’s cheery disposition turns manic, as if each of them is possessed by an unnamed evil—although fans of It know its name. Nobody is leaving the car—especially not Matty—who chooses to close his eyes, pop in his soothing sucker, and try to block out the horror unfolding. That’s when the very pregnant mother in the front seat suddenly goes into labor, violently birthing a winged, shrieking demon. The creature tears through the car, sending Matty flying into the front seat to try and grab the steering wheel in an attempt to pull over. Instead, the quick jerk of the car while crossing over the bridge into Derry sends the demon through the windshield along with Matty’s pacifier. As we watch it bounce into the river below, it bobs and buoys until it drops into a storm drain, where it floats past the series title card as familiar whispers echo off the sewer’s walls. The screen fades to black, leaving viewers questioning: was Matty the victim of killer kidnappers, or is this something even older—an evil waking beneath Derry?
Cold War and Racial Tensions at Derry Airbase
The answers leak out slowly, like air squealing from a deflated balloon, as we jump ahead four months, post-Matty’s disappearance. We meet a young boy, Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), peering through binoculars as a plane lands at the Derry Air Force Base, where Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Captain Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso) disembark and are immediately met with a jeep sent to take them to their assignments. As they are briefed about their new home—one that is only seven hours from the closest Soviet base—it’s clear the Cold War is about to turn up the heat to nuclear.
When Hanlon mentions he isn’t staying on base but instead, he and his wife are set to live off-base in town, a fellow officer warns him with a wary look. We aren’t sure what that look means, but as the only two Black soldiers in the jeep—and considering the racial tensions of pre-Civil Rights Act America—that look could mean any number of things. As the jeep drives by a series of fences holding “Top Secret” signs, it’s clear there’s something off about whatever this base is working on.
Next, we head to the local school, where Matty’s absence isn’t really felt. Considering one of their own is missing, it’s surprising the town of Derry has moved on so easily. Even his so-called friends at school seem to have gotten over the trauma—all but “Loony” Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack), who was the only authentic friend the missing boy had. Sympathy is a gift given by those who care, and nobody except Lilly seemed to care about Matty or what happened to him. Because of rumors about her mental instability, she is also a bit of an outcast. Outside of her best friend Marge (Matilda Lawler), Lilly is treated like a joke and bullied by her peers. While avoiding the whispers and judgmental eyes staring at her, she opens her locker to find it filled with pickles. We find out later what the significance of that is when Lilly passes Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim Fidler) and his alien-obsessed, conspiracy-theory bestie Phil. We get a clue about not only her social status at school but also Matty’s. These friends—a loose term, considering Phil and Teddy were bribed with treats to spend time with Matty—steer clear of the pickle girl, even as she catches Teddy’s attention. They are too occupied with their debate over the military base and Phil’s thoughts on what it could be hiding. Who has time for girls and school when nuclear war might break out any minute?
At the base hangar, Major Hanlon faces his first obstacle in Derry when he tries to earn the respect of his men but faces open defiance steeped in racism from Airman Masters. When Hanlon reminds him of the chain of command, Masters refuses to salute—until General Shaw (James Remar) appears. Shaw apologizes and invites Hanlon to his office for a private meeting to “make amends” for the small minds he encountered on his first day at the base.
Ghosts of the Past
While Hanlon deals with the realities of being a Black man in America during a time when racism typically kept people out of powerful positions, we head back to the teen drama, where Teddy is at home with Phil, supposed to be doing their homework, but his friend is too busy peeping on the neighbor getting undressed. Teddy is also distracted from his work, as his mind is stuck on Maddie. It’s been four months, and they still haven’t found his body — so does that mean he ran away? Phil isn’t interested in talking about Maddie again and even less so when Teddy blames themselves for forgetting the boy’s birthday. They assume that led to him running from Derry, and what happened after that, nobody knows. Perhaps it’s guilt fueling him, but Phil is absolutely done discussing Maddie’s death, which he assumes was the outcome — because all the debates in the world about what happened or didn’t happen won’t bring him back.
Next, we check in on Lilly, who also can’t stop thinking about Matty. We learn through flashbacks why Lilly liked Matty so much. Last New Year’s Eve, he invited her up to his secret spot above the town — the one we saw Phil on in the opener when he was watching those planes landing. Apparently, the building has been abandoned for years, but Phil, Teddy, and Matt managed to turn it into this Boys Club spot. As a gift, Matty gives Lily a turtle charm and makes her promise not to tell anyone he brought her to the boys’ secret spot. Apparently, there’s a vetting process, and she probably wouldn’t pass the test. That’s when Lily assumes it’s because of her reputation as “Loony Lily.”
This is when we find out why those pickles in her locker were so upsetting. Her father — who worked at a jarring plant — was killed while attempting to repair one of the machines. The power was supposed to be off, but something happened, and when he climbed in to repair it, the machine turned on and killed him. Matty has sympathy for Lily, and as they watch the celebratory fireworks, Matty makes a failed attempt at a first kiss. He misinterprets Lilly’s reaction and takes off with a broken heart, leaving her confused and calling after him. That was the last time she saw him, and the memory haunts her.
In the present, we meet Lily’s mother (Alixandra Fuchs), who orders Lily to lay out her clothes as the two are visiting her father’s grave the next day. It’s been a year since his death, and she still hasn’t been to the gravesite — and Lily still doesn’t want to go. She isn’t ready to face her father’s death, but in her mother’s cold response, she makes it clear she doesn’t care how her daughter feels; she’s not the only person in the world who’s grieving.
After that, Lily draws herself a bath when she suddenly hears what sounds like the missing boy singing “Ya Got Trouble,” the hit song from The Music Man. His voice echoes from the drain — but how can he be in the pipes? Is Maddie hiding in the sewer? She calls out his name and begs him to come home, and the only response she gets is: “He won’t let me.” That’s when we see a couple of bloody fingers creeping out of the drain, reaching for Lilly. Is this real, or just a figment of a traumatized girl’s imagination?
The following day, she tells her best friend Marge about it, but considering her “Loony” reputation, Marge wants her to keep quiet. She pulls her into a bathroom stall, away from the glaring eyes of their peers and any of the popular girls who might hear them. Marge isn’t interested in having Lilly’s reputation attached to her and hopes Lily won’t fuel the fire of gossip with more reasons for their friends to call her crazy.
Nightmares Fed on Fears
Later, Lily visits the viewing deck of the tower, where she’s met by Phil and Teddy. Just like her best friend, the boys don’t believe her story about Matty in the sewer drains. As much as they want to forget about the missing boy, they’re faced with constant reminders of him—leaving them with questions about what really happened.
After catching up with Hanlon, who does make it to Shaw’s office, we learn the reason he was called to the Derry Air Force Base. His skills with the new B-52 bombers will come in handy if they fall under enemy attack. Shaw knows what he did in the Korean War and hopes Hanlon will finish what he started. With his understanding of those new planes, the Derry Air Force Base will be trained and ready.
That night, we meet Teddy’s parents—stern, practical survivors of the Holocaust—who dismiss his fears about missing kids and “things in the sewers.” They reprimand him for spending so much time reading his comic books when he should be preparing for his bar mitzvah. When his dad asks how his Haftarah studies are going, Teddy responds with a question of his own: is it possible that someone could kidnap a child and hide them down in the sewers? His parents, along with his older brother, are shocked by the question. Teddy’s dad freaks out on him for asking something so disturbing and reminds him that his grandparents escaped Buchenwald, so they know the horrors humanity can inflict. His father even tells him the Nazis used the skin of Jewish people as lampshades, which really drives home the terror he’s speaking of.
After that, Teddy retires to his bedroom to read a comic book before bed. That’s when his bedroom light flickers, revealing his lamp has turned into a screaming, skin-like lampshade. It’s a grotesque echo of his family’s trauma—and a sign that whatever haunts Derry is fueled by its residents’ greatest fears.
Shaken, Teddy can’t stop vomiting from what he saw. He meets with Phil and Lily the next day, and in between barfing into a bucket, they decide to find out what really happened to Matty. The two boys weren’t ready to believe Lily before, but now that it’s also happened to Teddy, they can no longer ignore the question of what became of the missing boy.
The trio heads to the library to research Matty’s disappearance. Phil is forced to drag along his little sister, Susie (Matilda Legault). As they thumb through newspaper clippings, they find the story of an unnamed 12-year-old girl and her father who last saw Matty at the movie theater. They realize that girl must be Ronnie, the daughter of the projectionist at the Capitol Theater, as that was the last place Matty was seen before he disappeared. The police might have chalked up the case to a drifter or Matty’s abusive father, but with no body—and even more questions about where the boy went—the three take their investigation to Ronnie.
When they show up on her front steps, she refuses to talk about that night. Her father was questioned by police because of his race, and the family is still suffering the fallout. The year is 1962, and Derry’s prejudice runs deep. Ronnie isn’t about to direct more eyes onto her or her father—even though all they did was stay quiet about the boy hiding from his angry dad. She orders the three to leave her alone, and just as she’s about to go inside and slam the door on them, she overhears Lily mention Matty singing in the sewer. Ronnie pauses, spins around, and runs back to the group—revealing that she also heard singing, and she knows where the song came from.
The Music Man’s “Ya Got Trouble”
Meanwhile, at the airbase, Hanlon is jolted awake by masked intruders demanding classified specs on the B-52 bombers. He refuses, and they beat him savagely. As Hanlon fights back, the noise wakes Pauly, who bursts in and helps fight them off. The men flee, leaving behind nothing but a gas mask—and a sense that the danger around Derry isn’t confined to its sewers.
Also that night, the kids, now with Ronnie joining the investigation, sneak into the Capitol Theater hoping to find answers in the movie Matty was watching. The place feels haunted, but they press on. As The Music Man flickers to life on screen—particularly the “Ya Got Trouble” scene—Lily confirms that was the song she heard emanating from the drain. They might feel guilty for never showing up to Matty’s birthday before he vanished, but they’re determined to make amends by figuring out what happened to him.
When the song kicks off, the group of kids suddenly sees Matty on screen. The missing boy is holding a swaddled baby, and as the excited kids start yelling for him to move closer to the edge of the screen, he refuses to return to the living world. His reason: they are not his friends, and they were never there for him. That’s when he ducks his head into the baby’s blanket and lifts it to reveal a clownish, evil grin. Then he launches the baby at the screen, and it bursts through—it’s once again that winged demon from the beginning of the episode. It flies at them, hungry teeth snapping, and the whole theater erupts in chaos.
There’s nowhere for them to hide. Phil and Susie try to escape, but the demon grabs Teddy in its bloody teeth. Lily screams as the creature rips Teddy to pieces, leaving her covered in blood. Each kill seems to fuel the monster’s growth. It goes for Phil and Susie, and from the projection room, Ronnie screams and starts to run down to the theater. She tries to open the door to help the others out, but it’s locked. Lily is hiding now under the seats and sees Susie a few rows ahead. She begs Susie to reach under and grab her hand, and as they lock hands, the demon rips Susie away.
When Ronnie finally manages to open the door, she’s faced with a bloody Lily—the only one left standing. All the other kids are dead, and from the other side of the room, the demon hisses, preparing for its next attack. Ronnie and Lily quickly escape the theater and lock the door behind them. When Ronnie asks what happened, Lily explains that the winged creature killed them. She’s so traumatized she has no idea she’s still holding the severed arm of young Susie. With that realization, she unleashes a blood-curdling scream—setting the stage for Pennywise’s backstory and the truth about what cursed the town of Derry.