(This article contains spoilers)
Every 27 years, the little town of Derry, Maine finds itself at the center of new horrors. And every 27 years, children are fighting for their lives, between hallucinations and deadly dangers.
It: Welcome to Derry, prequel to the 2017 movie It: Chapter I, starts in 1962 and reveals more of Derry’s ominous past.
Trouble, Trouble, Trouble
The story starts with the disappearance of the young Matty (Miles Ekhardt). For the people in town, the boy just ran away, and in true Derry fashion, everyone seemed to have just sort of forgotten, or at least moved on. For us, the audience, the reality is a lot more horrific. If Matty initially did run away from what we guess was an abusive family, he ended up in one of It’s monstrous traps, between a creepy family and a baby monster, or a monster baby. Matty is definitely not coming back.
Four months later, Derry is still experiencing some of It’s new sick games. It’s also clear that Matty hasn’t been forgotten by everyone. Some of his friends, or almost friends, still wonder what happened. We meet Lilly (Clara Stack), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler), and Ronnie (Amanda Christine), four teenagers who will eventually face the horrors of their little town. And in the middle of this bloody theatrics, The Music Man soundtrack echoes with the song Ya Got Trouble. “We got trouble” indeed…
Things won’t end well for these young people, and the only surviving witnesses of what is a real bloodbath are Lilly, also called “Loony Lilly”, and Ronnie, two young girls that no one would listen to or believe. First, because they’re girls, and will be treated as hysterical at best, and delusional or liars if they’re less lucky. Lilly is being bullied by her entire school after her father’s death, for which she feels guilty, and for which other teenagers unfairly make her pay for. As for Ronnie, well, she’s a black girl in the early 60s, and unfortunately, that’s enough to be dismissed, at best.
And what would they say anyway? That a baby monster with two heads and a single bat wing attacked them in the theaters and killed their friends after seeing Matty in a scene of the movie The Music Man? No one would believe that, whoever it comes from.
Welcome to Derry
In another part of the town, Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Captain Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso) land at the local army base. The two men will be part of a program involving a new aircraft, and will be living here for a while. Hanlon had already planned to stay in town, in Derry, not at the base, with his family. We already know he has a wife, Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and a son, which can only mean one thing: trouble for the family. “If normal is what you’re after, you two are going to love Derry,” says General Shaw (James Remar) to the newcomers. Now that’s what we call foreshadowing in the worst way possible considering what we know about Derry!
But that’s not all. Hanlon being an adult, It’s influence won’t reach him so easily. Instead, his second night in the area is met with three masked men assaulting him in his sleep. One of them asks him to reveal everything he knows about the new aircraft, but Hanlon refuses and fights back, soon helped by Russo coming from another room. Are these men intruders on the base or are they military? Hanlon immediately became the target of suspicious looks and racist behavior when he arrived. Could it be related, or was it just a plot diversion? In any case, things are not starting well for Hanlon and Russo at Derry. And it can only be the beginning of more sinister events.
Will It Float?
It: Welcome to Derry doesn’t linger, doesn’t hide the horror, and welcomes the audience with a killer opening scene, pun intended. Director Andy Muschietti, already at the helm of the two most recent It movies from 2017 and 2019, knows the monster well, knows Derry, and makes sure everyone is on the same page from the very first minutes of this first episode.
Horror is not an easy genre to adapt on TV. If a two-hour movie can keep the tension and the attention, the episodic format requires a different storytelling, and each episode needs to tell something, between keeping the red thread alive and adding new plot points along the way without rushing or leaving the audience behind. After a series as thrilling as Alien: Earth, that ended just a month ago, horror fans could find a new quality show to savor with It: Welcome to Derry.
