A girl too close to a drain on the street with a “Missing” flyer next to her, children having fun but one being lured away by a monster with a candy, happy doctors and nurses performing a lobotomy on a scared child at the Juniper Hill asylum, or even a family posing in front of a haunted house: the opening credits of the second episode of It: Welcome to Derry depict the horrors of the city, influenced and led by Pennywise.
The show also starts with the theater massacre, this time seen from Lilly’s point of view. The poor girl is now haunted by what happened and can’t escape the horrors even in her dreams.
Early 60s obliged, the main suspect in the kids’ murders is Ronnie’s (Amanda Christine) father (Stephen Rider), only because he works at the theater. What an easy, convenient, and racist shortcut that surprises no one. With someone behind bars, Derry can go back to ignoring the horrific events plaguing it. But for Ronnie and Lilly (Clara Stack), life is already not the same anymore.
Ronnie has to face a monstrous version of her mother who died giving birth to her, reliving her own birth in a grotesque and gory way. It’s only the second episode, and we’ve already seen two horrific birth scenes, it’s becoming a pattern! The poor girl has to fight the monster attached to her by an umbilical cord, only to snap out of this vision, woken up by her father. She’s safe, for now, but It has its grip on her.
Lilly is also living in a nightmare of her own. As a witness of the murders, she’s been questioned by the police, who want a name. It’s also pretty clear they already know who they want to blame so they can close the case without even having to investigate it. And sure, they wouldn’t find any real suspect, but instead of just pushing the investigation further, they just choose to accuse the closest black man they can find.
And this is where Lilly is supposed to help them. If she can’t name him, she can’t say he wasn’t in the theater when it happened. The chief of police, Clint Bowers(Peter Outerbridge) (yes, same family as Henry Bowers), is using his best tricks on her to make her say whatever he wants, which leads to Ronnie’s father’s arrest.
Later, she’s at the local grocery when It strikes again, this time trapping her in an aisle, surrounded by pickle jars. When some of the jars turn out to be filled with corpse parts visibly cut, it becomes clear It is playing with the way her father died at the pickles factory. What is supposed to be her father reconstructed escapes the jar. There’s tentacles involved too, and I’m not sure if it was a nice image to have a young teen girl with a tentacle in her mouth.
Unfortunately (maybe…), all this being an illusion she had in public, Lilly is sent back to the asylum, and we can already guess things won’t go well there either.
The show seems to push the limits of the franchise’s horror with more grotesque monsters. The It movies and miniseries already had their fair share of monstrosities, but in Welcome to Derry, it’s more extreme, also maybe more personal.
Charlotte (Taylour Paige), Major Hanlon’s (Jovan Adepo) wife, is discovering the town and its people, and if we already knew Derry was special, it seems evident the inhabitants are more passive than the average when facing violence, something that doesn’t sit well with Charlotte. The way people stare at her when she stops a group of boys from harassing another almost shows the way It influences the city.
Their son, Will (Blake Cameron James), is also not the typical young teen. He’s very smart, loves science, and keeps to himself. At school, his integration starts the wrong way when he’s wrongly accused of throwing a stink bomb in the hallway. At home, at least, things go well for him, his mother supports his hobbies, and his father tries to understand that not all boys love baseball.
Seeing the Hanlon family be happy is also bittersweet, as we already know Will’s future thanks to his future son, Mike. According to the It movie from 2017, Will and his wife will perish in a fire, and Mike will also have to face Pennywise like a familial rite of passage. One thing is sure: bravery and facing dangers is part of his DNA from his grandparents!
Fear is one of Pennywise’s biggest sources of power, and this is where Leroy Hanlon becomes his greatest enemy. Hanlon had his amygdala damaged after being injured in Korea. Buried in the temporal lobe of the brain, this gland governs the fear response, like an alarm system. Disable it and fear goes away, a shocking revelation that makes Hanlon the perfect asset against Pennywise. The whole military plot is now quickly taking a different turn.
After a short but effective investigation, Hanlon discovers his assault was a test. While the three men weren’t supposed to act with so much violence, the whole thing was set up to see if Hanlon really didn’t experience fear. Following that confirmation, he’s included in their secret plan: finding a “special weapon” that uses fear against the enemies. In short, they’re looking for It without knowing what they’re really looking for.
But that’s not all. If you’re familiar with the universe of Stephen King, the general’s driver from the first episode might have a familiar name, coming from The Shining. In the movie, Dick Hallorann is a character who possesses the shine, a range of psychic abilities. In the show, Dick Hallorann mentions “feeling” something while looking for the special weapon. Everything is connected.
It: Welcome to Derry is deeply rooted in the world of Stephen King while not being obscure for people not in the know. The horror is grim, grotesque, and always very personal, it’s faithful to the way Pennywise manifests itself. Derry is a town ruled by an unseen monster, and its influence is everywhere. We already know this generation of children won’t be the end of it, but Major Hanlon could unlock new ways to banish the creature.
