It: Welcome to Derry Recap: Seeing Is Believing

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I’ve read It several times, and I love that Pennywise is a truly terrifying creature, not just a clown. The new series, Welcome to Derry, has done a pretty good job of showing all the different forms he can take. However, it’s strange that we haven’t seen Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise yet. The director, Andy Muschietti, said he wanted to build suspense by delaying Pennywise’s appearance and making his reveals a game for the audience. While I understand the idea, all the teasing is starting to become annoying. The episode “Now You See It” keeps hinting at Pennywise showing up, but then pulls back each time. Even as the different storylines start to come together, it’s hard not to get frustrated with this drawn-out approach.

The episode begins with a flashback to a 1908 carnival. We might expect to see Pennywise appear, but instead, a young boy dressed as a clown is shown watching from afar. It hints he could be a younger version of Pennywise, though the timing feels a bit strange. A boy named Francis is frightened at a freak show by an old man with one eye, then finds his father who dismisses his fear and gives him a slingshot he won. Francis quickly trades the slingshot to some Indigenous children for water, and he becomes friends with them, especially a girl named Rose. We learn this is the same Rose who now runs the secondhand shop the Hanlons visit. Later, Francis ignores Rose’s warning and goes into the forest, where he encounters the same old man. The scene starts out unsettling, with the creature hidden among the trees, but it quickly becomes a generic chase sequence with a poorly rendered CGI monster – and surprisingly, not a clown. Rose saves Francis by shooting the slingshot at the monster’s head, allowing both children to escape.

Okay, so things are really ramping up in Juniper Hill. Lilly gets upped on her meds in ’62, which honestly feels like a win considering the looming threat of a lobotomy we saw at the beginning. There’s this one housekeeper, played by Madeleine Stowe – she’s amazing and the only one who seems to have Lilly’s back. She tells Lilly to fix things with Ronnie, and even believes her about… well, the impossible stuff, which is great, though a little risky for someone working in a mental institution, right? But making up with Ronnie isn’t easy. Poor Hank is in serious trouble; Chief Bowers keeps finding ‘witnesses’ putting him at the scene, and everyone at school is convinced Ronnie’s dad is a killer. Rich points out the cops must have something on Hank – ‘This is America, you can’t just throw people in jail for nothing!’ – and Will hits back with a perfect ‘Are we talking about the same country?’ Lilly realizes just telling the truth won’t save Hank, because everyone already thinks she’s losing it. They need actual proof of whatever’s haunting them, and they’re hoping Lilly’s camera can capture something solid.

It seems some adults know about the supernatural danger facing Derry. At the Derry Air Force Base, Colonel Fuller tells General Shaw that the car found at the dig site belonged to the Bradley Gang, but they haven’t discovered anything hidden inside. We find out they’re aware of “It” – the entity – and that it can change its form and resurfaces every 27 years. It’s unsettling that the military seems to know so much, but much of their information comes from a conversation Rose had with Shaw in 1908. He’s the adult Francis, and he still has the slingshot from when they faced It before. With time running out to find a powerful weapon, Shaw proposes sending Dick Hallorann up in a plane to fly over Derry, hoping the slingshot – which wounded the entity 54 years ago – can act as a guide.

Leroy and Pauly were assigned to fly Dick, with instructions to follow his directions completely, treating him like a human compass. Once airborne, Dick grew increasingly agitated, sweating and mumbling before falling silent. When Leroy requested permission to turn back, command insisted they continue. Meanwhile, Dick experienced a bizarre turn of events. He moved towards the rear of the plane and discovered water around his feet. A metal door slammed shut, and he suddenly found himself not above Derry, but under it – in the central chamber of the sewers, instantly recognizable to fans as Pennywise’s hideout. We almost catch a glimpse of the clown as his circus wagon opens, revealing two glowing yellow eyes. However, Dick’s grandmother, appearing with Pennywise’s floating victims, descends and urgently warns him: “He’s coming, Dickie, get out of here now.” Dick nearly jumped from the plane’s cargo door, but Leroy pulled him back just in time. Back on the ground, Dick shared a chilling premonition with Shaw. “It wasn’t supposed to see us, it wasn’t supposed to know,” he said. “I have a feeling if we keep going like this, something terrible is going to happen.”

I’m still not completely convinced by the military storyline in Welcome to Derry, but I do like how the show is now connecting the character of Dick to the Hanlon family. After last week’s episode felt disjointed, things are starting to come together more clearly. We see Dick join Leroy and Charlotte for dinner, and we learn more about their family dynamic. Charlotte used to be a history teacher in Shreveport, but hasn’t found a similar job in Derry. Her past as a civil rights activist is causing friction with her husband, Leroy, who worries it could hinder his career. Dick understands Leroy’s concerns, pointing out that Black people in the military often have their personal lives closely examined, though this doesn’t really help Charlotte. So far, Charlotte is the most interesting character, especially because her strong sense of justice clashes with the deep-rooted prejudice in Derry that Pennywise thrives on. I hope we see more of her soon, but for now, the story mainly focuses on Dick and Leroy. Leroy figures out that Dick was one of the men who broke into his room earlier, because he can sense Dick reading his thoughts. He warns Dick to stay out of his head. Dick, who already realized Leroy doesn’t feel fear, assures him that he’s not someone Dick would ever want to mess with.

Let’s check in on Charlotte and Leroy’s son, Will. He’s at the Derry Grill enjoying burgers and milkshakes with his friend Rich when Ronnie and Lilly arrive, asking for help. Knowing Will loves science, Ronnie hopes he can develop any pictures they manage to take. The boys are skeptical of Ronnie and Lilly’s story about a creature that kills kids, but they agree to help anyway. (Rich jokes that Will might be motivated by his crush on Ronnie, a detail that feels a bit abrupt unless you remember they’re twelve.) At the Derry Standpipe, Will cleverly asks how they plan to make the creature appear. Lilly suggests waiting, or trying to summon it. When she explains that it appears as deceased loved ones to frighten people, Rich proposes it might be an orixá. His uncle was a babalao (a Santería priest) who could summon an orixá – a spirit that could take the form of a person’s ancestors. While adding more mythology isn’t ideal, and orixás are traditionally divine rather than evil, it gives the 1962 Losers Club a lead. Rich thinks he can recreate his uncle’s ceremony to lure the spirit out, so they head to the cemetery with candles.

Okay, so the last part of this episode really let me down. Up until then, even with some awkward explanations, Welcome to Derry had been delivering genuinely scary moments. But the cemetery scene? It just didn’t work. After their ritual fails, Rich starts to think the whole monster thing is a hoax, and Ronnie gets upset, with Lilly following her out. When Will and Rich try to follow, things start to happen – the ground opens up, ghosts appear. But honestly, it wasn’t scary, especially considering how brutal the premiere was! These ghosts, meant to be their dead friends, just looked silly. The special effects were cheap, they glowed, and it ended up feeling more like a Haunted Mansion ride than a horror show. The danger just didn’t feel real, which killed any tension. Then Will gets a picture of the creature in a crypt, and finally admits Ronnie was right, leading to a group hug. Back at school, developing the photos, seeing the ghosts of Teddy and Susie appear was okay, but the final reveal – a blurry picture supposedly of the clown – was a huge letdown. It’s supposed to be a shocking cliffhanger, but it just didn’t do enough to redeem the weak ending. It wasn’t a strong enough moment to get me excited about what’s coming next.

Losers Club

Shaw and Rose run into each other again at her store. Shaw confesses he’d completely forgotten about her after leaving Derry. Rose explains that’s common – the town has a way of making people forget things as they get further away, a phenomenon first introduced in Stephen King’s novel, It.

Local tribal members are meeting to talk about the ongoing military excavations. Rose shares that her community is worried about the possibility of disturbing ancestral remains. She emphasizes the importance of protecting unmarked burial sites from being damaged. The idea of disturbing Native American burial grounds is a common theme in stories like Pet Sematary and the film The Shining, which some believe is actually about the historical genocide of Indigenous people, as I mentioned last week.

Okay, so there’s this moment where Rose uses a slingshot on the old man monster, and it totally reminded me of Beverly Marsh in the book – she used one to fire silver bullets at the werewolf version of Pennywise! Apparently, slingshots weren’t as popular when the movie came out in ’89 as they were back in the ’50s, which is when the novel is set, so the director, Muschietti, decided to leave that detail out of the films. It’s a small thing, but it stuck with me as a detail that changed from the source material.

Chief Bowers unnerves Hank by referencing the harsh treatment of child killers at Shawshank Prison. Shawshank is a famous location in Stephen King’s work, best known from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and the film The Shawshank Redemption. However, it also appears in several other King stories and played a significant role in the TV series Castle Rock.

Dick shares with Leroy that his grandmother also possessed the ‘shine,’ and her spirit warns them about Pennywise hiding in the sewer drain. The story fully explains Rose Hallorann’s past – including how she helped her grandson understand and develop his psychic powers – and this information is found in the sequel to The Shining, called Doctor Sleep.

This carnival game is a special treat for fans of Stephen King! The ball toss includes imagery of clowns and turtles, referencing the ongoing battle between the powerful entities Pennywise and Maturin from his stories.

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2025-11-10 07:04