Hello everybody. I'm Dan Merl here with my review of the HBO Max series, It: Welcome to Derry. The show wrapped up its first season on Sunday night, but I had charts on Monday. I had Avatar on Tuesday. I was traveling yesterday, so this is the first chance that I've had to do a full review of it, and I had a lot to say. Like the first It movie, Welcome to Derry also dropped a chapter 1 at the very end. So, it looks like there are plans to continue the story, and I found season 1 to be a mix of some very high highs and some other things that I didn't like as much. Now, I'm going to be going into detail about the show. So, if you haven't seen Welcome to Derry and you don't want to be spoiled, click away now. Go watch the show and then come back to hear what I have to say.
One of the dangers of doing a prequel to a popular movie or show is that going back and explaining things can often demystify those things. And things get even riskier when you start adding characters from other stories that weren't there before, like Welcome to Derry's inclusion of Dick Howerin, which was expanded greatly from the book. But Welcome to Derry has a big advantage as a prequel because it is already part of the world of Stephen King. A lot of these events were established in the book already and mentioned in the movies and the King universe is already full of characters and events and places that cross over with each other. So, this show I thought was actually uniquely suited to being a prequel and some of those prequel elements were among my favorite parts of this season. I really like the novel It and the first Andy Musceti It movie. I'm a little bit cooler on It Chapter 2, but one of my favorite things about the book is the depth of Derry's history and the fact that every appearance by it is accompanied by a horrific tragedy. The 27-year cycle of these events basically begs for them to be adapted into some sort of a prequel or anthology series. And that's why I was excited when I heard about Welcome to Derry. The show isn't making these events up out of thin air. It's just a deeper adaptation of what King has already written. And having Bill Scarsgard back as Pennywise, I think was essential to tie this concretely back to the recent films and not make this seem like a disconnected side project.
Even though I should have expected some of the abject horror that we got starting in the very first episode, I have to admit that episode one of the show really caught me by surprise. At first, it seemed like a pretty conventional restaging of what we got in It Chapter 1. It's Derry in 1962, which is the cycle prior to the 80s set first movie. And we got to meet what we thought or I thought were going to be our new group of losers who are going to take on Pennywise. But by the end of the first episode, almost that entire group is slaughtered in horrific fashion. And then we realize that this is just the beginning of the story. Now, killing kids is something that has to be treated with extreme care. It is so unconscionable that you can turn your audience off really easily. And it's important not to make that act feel flippant or consequence-free. That's where I've had some trouble with shows and movies in the past. I don't think the murder of those kids was treated that way. It's the terrible event that echoes throughout the rest of the show. And at the end of the episode, I went from mildly intrigued in the series to completely shocked and anxious to see what was coming next.
Episode two was where we get to meet the real bunch of kids who are going to be Pennywise's targets. We already knew Ronnie, whose father is accused of the movie theater massacre. I thought that Amanda Christine was solid throughout this season, especially because her character had even higher stakes than just about anybody else in the show. We also already knew Lily. Now, I have to say that I felt like the show kind of lost her in the shuffle about midway through this season. So much of the first two or three episodes was about her trauma and her losing her father and possibly being recommitted to Juniper Hill, but the show's focus quickly turned and I don't think that they were able to fully realize her character in the same way that they set her up at the beginning.
Then there were the kids who had ties that we know of so far with the losers in It Chapter 1. Will Hanland is Mike Hanland's father, so we knew that he was going to make it through the end of this season. I liked Blake Cameron in this role. I thought he really grounded that group. Marge, played by Matilda Lawler, was revealed to be Richie Toer's future mother in the season finale. I didn't really know what to make of her for a while because she had to turn her back on the popular kids before she joined the group. But her character really started to come to life when she started her teen romance with Rich, who I think was played with a lot of charm by Arian S. Carta. He was by far the funniest of the group. And his awkward flirting with Marge was sweet in that kind of pre-teen kind of way. I guess it should have been obvious that one of them wasn't going to make it. And Rich's self-sacrifice I thought was a very touching moment. Very heartbreaking. Again, if you're killing a character who's a kid, I think you have to handle that very delicately. They did. Plus, Rich got to come back into the fold as a spirit who actually got a laugh out of me when he flipped off Pennywise as he ran to help his friends. And I thought that seeing him console his friends and family from beyond the grave at his own funeral was a nice emotional beat to end the story on. It was a good way also to incorporate Dick Howerin into the very end of the show.
It does feel a bit derivative that we get not one but two groups of new bike riding kids this season. I know that Penny Wise targets kids because they give him the fear that he needs, but if this show is picked up for future seasons, which I think is probably pretty likely, I hope that they shift the focus a bit. Pennywise/It is a terrifying figure and one who wields immense power, but we've seen him now defeated by two separate groups of kids, and if you do that too much, I think that you risk making him look weak and almost comically bad at what he does.
I was actually kind of preparing myself for him to triumph at the end of this show, given that we know he survives for another cycle. Will was the only kid that I knew was safe until that reveal about Marge, and it didn't really seem possible that he would suffer a huge defeat every 27 years. I think there have to be some cycles where he gets to just eat everybody and then go back to sleep. And the show, I think, might be boxing itself in because the other big revelation about Pennywise is that he experiences time all at once. He can see the past, present, and future all at the same time. And Marge floats the idea that he was targeting her to prevent Richie from being born and leading to his demise. Now, whether this is an ability that he has only when the gate was open, or if it's something that he's going to be able to do going forward, I'm not so sure about it. But the show seems to hint that Penny Wise would target other ancestors of the losers.
What if he tries to go back and kill someone from the time before we were born, like our parents? If that's the case, then there always are going to be characters who we know won't die from the beginning. And I think that that could rob the show of some impact and suspense in future seasons.
On the adult side, I really enjoyed Jovon Adepo and Taylor Paige as Will's parents, Leroy and Charlotte. Charlotte, in particular, I think gave us a really interesting perspective on Derry. As a civil rights activist, she's a character who's used to being persecuted and otherred from their time in the South. And the Hanland's experience in Derry, I thought poses an interesting question. To what extent were she and the other black residents being persecuted because the town is corrupted by Pennywise? And to what extent are they being persecuted because they're black? I think that it's it's a symbiotic relationship between those two things, a channeling of the town's worst qualities. And I thought that it really added an extra edge to Derry beyond just, you know, there's a malevolent presence on the loose.
There were several elements from the book that I think got more room to breathe in the show for the first time, and I really liked that. One of them is that Derry is a town where the adults are essentially brainwashed and corrupted every time that it emerges. Some of the creepiest moments in the show were just shots of the adults smiling at what was happening, as well as Penny Wise's ability to keep the adults from seeing the truth, like altering the photos that the kids took in the graveyard. Derry the town is as much a character in the book as Pennywise and I like that we got to go deeper into that. I also like the integration of the major violent events that end every cycle for Penny Wise. We get to see the fire at the black spot in this season which was described in detail in the book. And that whole sequence I thought was terrifying. It was the peak of the evil that Derry is capable of. And on top of that, you had Penny Wise showing up to get one last hit of fear before going back into hibernation. I thought that it was a really well-shot sequence and it lived up to being one of Derry's most infamous tragedies. And if the show continues traveling back in time, it sounds like we're also seeing depictions of things like the Bradley gang murders, which we saw the aftermath of in this season, and the Kitchener Iron Works explosion from the cycle before that. All of those events are depicted in the show's opening title sequence, which by the way, I thought was fantastically done. I loved the picture postcard design depicting Derry's horrifying history paired with that kind of idyllic music, and I never skipped it when I was watching the show. I thought that that title sequence set the tone for the show perfectly.
I also loved that the importance of Derry's indigenous population was given center stage. That whole element of the story kind of tied into Maturin the Turtle is probably the most out-there element in Stephen King's book and that's saying something which means that the TV miniseries and the film adaptations really only skirted it or ignored it completely. I think that it would have been easy to give that expert role, if you will, to Dick Howerin, maybe having gleaned it from being inside Penny Wise's head, but I thought that Rose and Taniel were well-drawn, sympathetic characters who brought the legacy of Derry's indigenous population into play. And I loved that they were also a key part in keeping Pennywise contained and in standing watch over the community for generations. This wasn't just adaptation, it was expansion, and I like that the show went in that direction.
Speaking of Dick Hower, Chris Chalk I think really put in a great performance as a character that Stephen King fans including me may have been worried about when they saw how big of a role he had to play. While Dick Howerin is mentioned in the novel as being present at the Black Spot fire, crossing it over with The Shining in such a major way is a collision of iconic works that I think could have gone wrong. But it made sense because they did a good job of combining Howerin's ability to get into people's heads with Penny Wise's ability to do the same thing. They were good foils for each other and both at some point got the best of the other one, so it didn't really feel like anyone got nerfed for the sake of the story. Dick's ability to see the dead in The Shining seems to be a direct consequence maybe of what Penny Wise did to him this season, but it didn't feel forced or contradictory in any way. It actually made the King universe feel even more unified. And they held themselves to just one minor shining reference, which I think was a good exercise in self-restraint.
I think I'll manage. I mean, how much trouble can a hotel be?
However, to turn to something that I wasn't as big a fan of, I thought that the whole military subplot was pretty silly. The idea of capturing Pennywise to unleash him on the Soviets was goofy enough, but then when you get the revelation that James Remar was actually planning to let him loose in the USA to kill the civil rights movement and women's lib, I mean, he gave the old fear keeps people in line speech, but I just don't think that it was a very good plan on a screenwriting level. I understand that General Shaw was a big fan of the white patriarchy, but it's hard for me to believe that even he could witness Pennywise's carnage and still come to the conclusion that letting him loose was preferable to integration and equal pay. I mean, I understand the statement that the show is trying to make, but it came off to me as more of a hamfisted commentary on modern politics than a believable story turn.
So, you want to make America dairy? At what cost? I think that you could have done all the same set pieces, which were the show's strength, with a better subplot for Dick, Major Hamlin, and the military. That subplot also introduced something that could box the show in even further going forward, which is rules. Pennywise apparently is not only susceptible to precocious kids, but he's also trapped in Derry due to 12 buried pieces of the asteroid he crashed in, which keep him imprisoned. And he's also afraid of a dagger, which is made from that same asteroid. I think part of what has always made Pennywise, it so scary in previous depictions, is that he's almost a force of nature, pure evil. We know a little bit about his background, but all you really need to know is that he wakes up every 27 years, terrifies the town, eats a bunch of people, everybody forgets, and then he comes back for another cycle. When you add all of these rules and weaknesses, I think that it kind of dilutes his character. We should ideally, I think, be seeing him working at his peak effectiveness, not falling prey to a bunch of weaknesses that we didn't know about. But in order for some of these characters to survive, you have to invent those things. And I think that it's subtraction by addition.
We also got to see the origin story of how it took on the form of Pennywise by witnessing Bob Gayy's appeal to kids as a traveling carnival performer, killing him and co-opting his clown identity. This was kind of a fun bit of information that filled in some gaps. I don't know if it was strictly necessary. A lot of it was done to tie him into Ingrid Kersh, but I'm not really sure if I needed to know that particular bit of backstory. Yes, I guess it kind of explains why there were pictures of Pennywise in Kersh's apartment when he was posing as her in It Chapter 2, but I didn't really need to know that. We did get to see the older version of Mrs. Kersh at the very end as we tied directly back to It Chapter 1 and the death of Beverly's mother. But this was a whole other subplot that I don't know, it just didn't really work for me.
One thing that did work for me though was Bill Scarsgard as Pennywise as always. What a great bit of casting this was. He absolutely owns this character coming off of an already iconic portrayal by Tim Curry in the miniseries. who decided to join the circus. I love just about every second that he was on screen. And I have to give the series credit for holding Penny Wise back until the last half of the season. Scarsgard is just so good. He gives the perfect mix of humor and absolute skin-crawling creepiness. You convinced everyone to come and see me cuz you're such a good friend. Even in the parts of the show that didn't work on a story level, Bill Scarsgard delivered. And because the Oscars work the way that they do, he was never really a serious contender in that way for Academy recognition. But I seriously hope that Scarsgard gets a shot at an Emmy for his work, at least a nomination as Pennywise, because he deserves it.
This show would not have worked without him. Full stop. They did a good job of depicting its other forms in the first half of the season. and they were really well-done scenes, but without the payoff of Scarsgard coming back, I don't think it would have been enough. While not every subplot or even episode worked for me on a story level, every episode did have at least one sequence that I thought was great. Episode one had the movie theater massacre, which started off on a super creepy note of having Maddie step out of the movie screen. Episode two had the scene where it takes the form of Ronnie's mother and her nightmares, which is a very visceral, literally, horror sequence. Episode three opened with a flashback sequence that I thought worked where it pursues a young general Shaw and rose through the forest. Episode four had Will's close call at the river and the extensive flashback sequence showing its arrival and the indigenous population's fight against it. Episode 5 had the reveal of Penny Wise and a suspenseful chase scene through the sewers. Episode 6 had what I thought was a really good black and white Penny Wise flashback sequence, very stylized. Episode seven had both the Penny Wise origin story and the extended sequence at the black spot. And episode eight was packed with great imagery, including Penny Wise revealing himself to the high school and capturing them all in the deadlights. A great visual of him leading a procession of floating kids through the mist and the final showdown, including Rich's return and Penny Wise trying to stop them from capturing him once again. Almost all of these sequences go right up there for me with the best that we've seen from this iteration of the franchise, both TV and movie.
My biggest complaint with the visual style of the series is how cartoonish some of the visual effects looked, particularly in the graveyard chase sequence. That apparently is just Andy Moscetti's aesthetic. It's how some of the effects in both it movies looked. It's how some of the VFX in the Flash looked as well. That style can deliver some really good striking imagery, and it did in this series, but it can also look pretty silly. I think that the show looks striking more than it looks silly this season, but that's a line that's going to be drawn entirely by the viewer.
So, overall, I think I'm going to remember It: Welcome to Derry more as a flawed show with some incredible highlights than a consistently great show. The performances were almost universally strong, which helped the series out when the writing hit some of its weaker points. And we got some really, really great stuff involving Pennywise and a lot more of Bill Scarsgard in the role, which I'm not complaining about. It is a very dense novel. And Stephen King put a lot in there that makes it ripe for a deep dive series like this. Going forward, I think I'd like the show to be a little bit more historical and less about trying to retcon things and keep building the franchise out. There is so much potential in the past that you don't always have to be looking toward the future with this story. So, on my personal scale, I'm going to bump It: Welcome to Derry up into a low-grade, it's good territory because when this show was cooking, it was really cooking.
But what did you think? Did you enjoy this expansion of Andy Moskeeti's It Universe or were you left a little cold? Let me know down in the comments below. And as always, stay tuned right here for the latest in movie news, reviews, box office, and more. Until next time, stay safe and I'll see you then. Bye.