‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Review

Following Season 2 of Peacemaker, HBO is on a generational run that shows no signs of stopping with the latest IP flex in the form of IT: Welcome to Derry. Set in 1962, 26 years before Andy Muschietti’s 2017 adaptation takes place, Welcome to Derry is an eight-episode series that tells the story of horror’s most iconic town. With emphasis on the horror, this is a truly exciting show that doesn’t pull any punches, goes through multiple reinventions, and has a compelling story to boot. I’d even go as far as saying it’s the single best horror show I’ve ever seen, but HBO only provided critics with the first five episodes, so it could all go down the sewers in the final three. 

Andy, alongside his sister and producing partner Barbara, developed Welcome to Derry with Jason Fuchs, who co-produced the second movie in Muschietti’s Stephen King adaptations. Fuchs also wrote or co-wrote four out of the eight episodes for the series, with Muschietti directing more than half of the season. Suffice to say, Welcome to Derry is in the well-worn hands of people who have lived, breathed, and screamed this world for almost a decade.

That level of immersion is felt from the season’s cold open, which sees a young boy go missing, kicking off one storyline. The other storyline involves Jovan Adepo as Leroy Hanlon, a Black military general who moves to Derry with his young family amidst a backdrop of the nuclear tensions. If you know anything about how Derry views Black people, you’ll know exactly what to expect from this arc. The supernatural haunt the white folk of Derry, and the white folk haunt their Black neighbors. 

If a series that focuses on kids looking for a missing peer while the adults deal with politics and nuclear panic sounds familiar, stranger things have happened. But, unlike that show, Welcome to Derry leans heavily into horror, going darker than the movies dared to go, with extended sequences that are bone-chillingly visceral. Not only does Welcome to Derry build tension exceptionally well, the payoffs are subversive, lingering, and promote this from Halloween fare to Sunday night appointment television. 

By no means do I claim to be a die-hard fan of King, or the adaptations, but some things permeate into pop culture and – if you’re the same – you’ll get a good level of enjoyment out of this show (keep an eye out for a familiar statue being built). But, if you are a fan of King’s works, Muschietti’s adaptations, or the world of Derry in general, there will be much more for you to dissect and comb through in the remarkably dense episodes – all of which run close to or longer than an hour. There are callbacks to familiar places, the unsettling use of a microfiche, and elevations of the horror from the movies all within the first episode, which Muschietti directed, and thus makes this show feel like a substantial leveling-up of his craft.

While the episodes are dense, they’re also tightly-paced, weaving in necessary backstory that lays the groundwork for Muschietti’s three-season plan. Everything about this show, from the thoroughly creepy opening credits, to the glowing yellow eyes that appear throughout multiple episodes, feels intentional, almost to the point of artfulness. And, don’t think for one second that Pennywise isn’t in this show, because he is. Bill Skarsgård is expectedly phenomenal in the role, teasing vulnerability, power and the true essence of Pennywise that made his breakthrough so special. 

Welcome to Derry is a tragic, horrific, and delectable series that will no doubt cause weekly spikes in people rewatching Muschietti’s movies in between episodes. In all honesty, though I haven’t had the chance to watch the entirety of the show, I don’t see a world where the final three episodes are a disaster. Best case scenario: we get answers, resolutions and a hook for Season 2. Worst case scenario: the show doesn’t deliver on everything in this season but, knowing there’s likely going to be two more, I could hold out another four years for those answers to come. From the five episodes I watched, this is a virtually flawless season so far, with any criticisms tending toward nitpicks. Audiences should be excited to explore this world, theorize, and sink their teeth into Welcome to Derry.

Maybe with a side of pickles. 

THE FIRST EPISODE OF IT: WELCOME TO DERRY AIRS ON HBO SUNDAY, 26 OCTOBER. NEW EPISODES RELEASE WEEKLY.