It: Welcome to Derry Season-Finale Recap: Frozen Empire

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Throughout the first season of It: Welcome to Derry, I’ve tried to approach the show with an open mind, with varying degrees of success. I’ve enjoyed some moments, like last week’s fire scene and the shocking opening massacre, but others, such as the Periwinkle the Clown storyline and the graveyard chase, were less impressive. It’s been hard to see why a prequel was the best way to expand the It universe, considering the challenges involved. Because we know Pennywise can’t be truly defeated, the finale felt uncertain – how do you end a season when your options are limited? Thankfully, Welcome to Derry manages a reasonably good conclusion, but like much of the season, it’s best to just go with it and not overthink things.

The episode continues directly after the last one, and surprisingly, it only took destroying one pillar to release Pennywise. A thick fog quickly descends on Derry, killing plants, causing unsettling smiles, and even freezing the river – it felt very similar to the movie Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (though I only saw the trailer). Pennywise is free and doing well, immediately taking over Derry High School. He gathers the upperclassmen for an assembly and shockingly kills the principal with a gruesome display, complete with a song and dance. He then traps the students with terrifying visions, leaving them paralyzed and floating in the air. While it’s understandable the finale aims for a dramatic climax, Pennywise’s sudden increase in power feels a bit much, potentially diminishing the impact of future confrontations with the Losers’ Club. As Pennywise leads the children away, Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge find missing person flyers, including one for their friend Will. Determined to stop him, Marge steals a milk truck and drives her friends towards Pennywise’s circus wagon.

Charlotte, Leroy, Hank, Dick, Rose, and Taniel are meeting at Rose’s house to discuss what needs to be done. With Pennywise free, they know they can’t stop him directly, but they have a plan. They can use a special dagger to recreate the magical cage that once held him, replacing a piece the military destroyed. The dagger needs to be buried near the riverbank, before Pennywise reaches it. Kimberly Guerrero cleverly explained that this location is the furthest the dagger’s power can reach to reconnect with the other magical pillars and rebuild the cage. Dick, who can use his psychic ability to find the dagger, is struggling with overwhelming voices from the dead. Rose gives him a tea made from a special root called Maturin, which she says will connect him to the world where Pennywise came from – and reassure him that not everything from that world is evil. (More on this in the section about the Losers’ Club.) Thankfully, after a brief trip to another dimension, Dick feels much better and can now see Marge, Lilly, and Ronnie driving towards them with the dagger.

The kids’ drive took a scary turn when they hit a pothole, spun out of control, and crashed into a tree. Luckily, everyone escaped with just cuts and bruises, which is amazing considering they were driving without experience. But the real problem is a dagger they found. Lilly is acting strangely, refusing to let anyone near it and running into the woods whenever someone tries to take it. As the adults follow Dick to where the kids are, they learn the dagger is dangerous the further it gets from its original location under the Neibolt House – it can drive people insane. Burying it won’t be easy either, as it will actively fight back. Right now, it’s just making Lilly paranoid and causing tension within the group. The whole situation feels like a clear nod to The Lord of the Rings and the One Ring, with the dagger even glowing with old carvings. Instead of Gollum appearing, the kids argue over who gets to hold it, then make up and decide to take turns. They’re getting closer to Pennywise than they realize, reaching the frozen riverbank and spotting the circus wagon lights in the distance.

Without skates, Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge venture onto the ice, heading towards Pennywise and passing a line of floating children. They get close enough to the wagon to see Will floating above, but can’t quite reach him. The noise alerts Pennywise, who emerges from behind the wagon, sneering, “Look who decided to join the circus.” Ronnie’s dagger manages to keep the clown at bay, forcing him to retreat into the fog. However, Pennywise uses the cover to grab Marge’s leg, pulling her away from the others. Once he has her isolated, he reveals a disturbing truth: “I’ve always wondered how you’d taste, Margaret Tozier.” While Marge doesn’t recognize the name, the audience does – she’s destined to become Margaret “Maggie” Tozier, Richie’s mother. To make the connection absolutely clear, Pennywise then produces another missing-child flyer, this time featuring a picture of Finn Wolfhard, the actor who plays Richie.

I wasn’t surprised by the reveal – many viewers had already guessed Marge’s true identity. However, Pennywise’s ability to see the future and move through time is really confusing. He tells Marge, “You and your child will be my downfall,” but then adds, “Or is it my beginning? It doesn’t matter to me.” Essentially, Pennywise understands that killing Marge would prevent Richie from ever being born. He’s about to attack her, effectively stopping the Losers’ Club before they can form, when he suddenly stops. At the same moment, all the children affected by the deadlights, including Will, collapse and wake up.

Dick has managed to enter Pennywise’s mind, trapping the creature in a nightmare where it’s been reborn as the human Bob Gray in 1908. It’s a humiliating experience for Pennywise, who insists it’s a god. Meanwhile, the children’s parents have arrived at the river and found their kids. Leroy and Taniel set out together to take the dagger to the deadwood, realizing they’ll need both their strengths to overcome the area’s defenses. They don’t get far before the military, who have been watching the situation, opens fire. Leroy is wounded in the leg, but Taniel is killed. Shaw orders his soldiers to help Leroy and find Dick, hoping to stop what he’s doing to Pennywise. Despite everything that’s happened, the general still wants to use the creature as a weapon, which seems illogical. Given the fog and icy conditions, it’s obvious Pennywise escaping Derry would lead to disaster. Trying to reason with the general is pointless, so a wounded Leroy passes the dagger to Will, instructing him where to bury it. He believes Will and his friends can reach the deadwood undetected by the military. It’s a risky plan with soldiers nearby, but they’re out of good options. Before handing off the dagger, Leroy shares a touching moment with Will, telling him he loves him.

Shaw’s confrontation with Pennywise isn’t emotional. He tells the stunned clown, “I always wondered if you were real, and now I see you are.” (It’s odd he invested so much effort if he wasn’t sure Pennywise existed.) Suddenly, Dick loses control, and Pennywise wakes up, immediately remembering their 1908 encounter and devouring Shaw’s face. (A darkly humorous moment.) Meanwhile, the kids are nearing the deadwood, struggling against the forces trying to stop them. Pennywise, now awake and fed, rushes to intercept them. Leroy manages to overpower the soldiers and grab a gun, shooting Pennywise’s head twice, but it barely slows him down. Though the kids reach the deadwood, they lack the strength to use the dagger. When Pennywise transforms into a monstrous bird-like creature, things look hopeless. But then, the ghost of Rich appears, a welcome surprise. With Rich’s help, the kids manage to plunge the dagger into the ground beneath the deadwood. This creates a beam of light that knocks the bird-Pennywise back onto the ice. Returning to his clown form, his face flashes through past appearances before he explodes in fire and light. The cage is restored, and Pennywise is trapped for a long sleep.

Like many parts of Welcome to Derry, the ending had both strong and weak moments. It’s hard to ignore that these are actors delivering lines, and I found Marge’s speech at Rich’s funeral to be pretty disjointed, though that’s perhaps realistic for a 12-year-old. On the other hand, Dick’s words to Rich’s parents – telling them their son is still with them – were genuinely touching. (The fact that Dick can now see ghosts is a bit strange, but let’s not dwell on that.) I also enjoyed Lilly’s conversation with her father’s grave, but I wasn’t as impressed with her talk with Marge, who seems to think Pennywise might go back in time to target their parents. I really hope that isn’t where the next season is headed. Lilly’s conclusion that it would then be someone else’s problem felt bleak, and I couldn’t help but sigh. While Will’s goodbye to Ronnie before the Grogans leave town was sweet – a promise to write and a first kiss – I didn’t buy the Hanlons’ decision to stay in Derry. It felt odd that Charlotte, the most level-headed character, is the one who decides they should take over Rose’s farm, not her husband. It just doesn’t quite add up, especially with the over-the-top title reveal: It: Welcome to Derry: Chapter One. It’s a title that feels as extra as High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

That’s not the end of the episode, though. The show revisits 1988, 26 years after Ingrid was taken away from the Black Spot fire, and she’s been at Juniper Hill hospital ever since. She’s painting a clown when she hears screams and investigates. Another patient, Elfrida Marsh, has died by suicide, and her husband, Alvin, and daughter, Beverly, are grieving. While it’s nice to see Sophia Lillis make an appearance without relying on awkward digital de-aging, the final scene feels a bit like a shortcut. After building up new characters all season, the show leans on familiar faces from the movie. However, the first season of Welcome to Derry deserves credit for its chilling final line. Ingrid looks at Beverly and, offering comfort, says, “Don’t be sad. You know what they say about Derry: No one who dies here ever really dies.”

Losers’ Club

There’s a lot to unpack with that ending! While it’s obvious how the scene connects to previous movies – including Joan Gregson reprising her role as an older Ingrid – it explains why Beverly sees Mrs. Kersh in It: Chapter Two. Pennywise is using Beverly’s painful memories of her mother’s suicide, specifically repeating the phrase, “No one who dies here ever really dies.” It’s a pretty smart way to rewrite some backstory, though honestly, it wasn’t entirely necessary.

There’s a quick appearance of Finn Wolfhard’s Richie in a photo, showing Marge a disturbing glimpse of what’s to come. I won’t delve into whether Pennywise can travel through time – I’ve covered that in a separate, detailed analysis. What really stood out to me about the reveal of Margaret Tozier was Pennywise playfully echoing Richie’s famous line, changing “beep, beep, Richie!” to “beep, beep, Margie!”

Since Marge has never left Derry, she likely remembers everything that happened in 1962, which could explain why she named her son Richie after Rich. This also suggests she intentionally started a relationship with Wentworth Tozier with the goal of marrying him and having a child, which is a bit strange.

We received feedback that viewers wished Pennywise had transformed into a giant bird to attack people escaping the Black Spot last week. While the creature on the frozen lake isn’t precisely a bird – and isn’t a hawk or kestrel like in the book – its claws definitely remind us of Stephen King’s original description.

The root Rose gives to Dick is a nod to Maturin, a powerful turtle from Stephen King’s It. Maturin is essentially the brother of Pennywise and played a role in creating the universe. In the book, a character named Bill meets Maturin and receives guidance on how to defeat Pennywise. The TV series has subtly referenced Maturin without overwhelming viewers unfamiliar with King’s work, and I’ve mentioned him in my episode summaries frequently.

Continuing with that thought, Dick’s hallucinatory experience caused by the Maturin root appears to reveal the macroverse – the dimension from which ‘It’ originally came before arriving on Earth, as Rose explains. This macroverse is also where Maturin resides, and Rose probably wants to connect Dick with him, hoping it will end the constant haunting he’s experiencing.

At the episode’s conclusion, Dick informs the Hanlons he’s moving to London to become a hotel cook, casually wondering, “What trouble could a hotel possibly be?” This feels like a foreboding statement for those familiar with stories like The Shining. Eventually, Dick will use his experience in London when he takes a cooking position at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado.

The Hanlon sheep farm plays a role in Mike’s history in the book It, so it was inevitable we’d see it. While I’m not sure it makes complete sense as a place Charlotte would choose, it was still a necessary stop.

The story includes a sweet detail: Will promises to continue writing letters to Ronnie from Derry, ensuring she doesn’t forget him. This echoes Mike’s role in the book It, where he diligently records Derry’s history to preserve it. Notably, Mike is the only member of the Losers’ Club who remains in Derry after they defeat Pennywise as children. He’s the one who eventually contacts the others, triggering their forgotten memories.

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2025-12-15 07:03