Men's Lifestyle October 27, 2025 0 Comments

Unlocking Derry’s Dark Secrets: What You Missed in IT Episode 1 That’ll Keep You Up Tonight

Like the infamous Pennywise, director Andy Muschietti sure knows how to make an entrance that sticks with you—slow, eerie, then BAM! Out pops that nightmare from the shadows to mess with your head and heart. His work on IT and IT: Chapter Two may have faced its ups and downs, but those spine-chilling Pennywise moments? Pure genius. Now, with IT: Welcome to Derry, Muschietti steps back into the ring—not just to scare us but to extend the dark legacy of Derry, Maine on HBO. But here’s the twist: can this prequel really capture the raw, unsettling Americana that’s more than just a nostalgic throwback? Or is it just another cash grab hiding behind polished production and jump scares? Well, if you ask me, there’s something undeniably thrilling—like stepping back into the ring against an old rival you thought you’d beaten. So gear up, because Derry’s waiting… and it’s more hellish than ever. LEARN MORE

Like Pennywise himself, director Andy Muschietti knows how to make an entrance. Across both IT (2017) and IT: Chapter Two (2019), Bill Skärsgard‘s demonic entity occasionally slithers into frame, slowly and eerily, through the cracks of what’s polite and what’s plausible, before bursting like a hideous geyser to terrify some helpless child. Muschietti’s edge as a director shined in his Pennywise setpieces—the lesser quality of Chapter Two notwithstanding. (Even still: The scene between Jessica Chastain and Joan Gregson as Mrs. Kersh? Paralyzing.)

Because maximizing shareholder value is paramount these days, nothing stays in the dark forever. And so we return to Muschietti’s interpretation of Stephen King’s literary tome with IT: Welcome to Derry, a new HBO series helmed by Muschietti along with his producing partner/sister Barbara Muschietti and screenwriter Jason Fuchs.

Cynical as we ought to be about Welcome to Derry as yet another instance of a big studio leveraging its IP library for quarterly growth, it feels right that Muschietti still sits in control. It’s for the better that this prequel feel like an extension of the duology rather than a prolonged prologue. This is still Derry, Maine as seen in those movies, where a nostalgic Americana hides all of its cruelty beneath a veneer of politeness. Handsome production design and muscular sequences of trauma-inducing terror were the markers of Muschietti’s films, and it’s thrilling to see more of that in the first episode of Welcome to Derry.

Welcome to Derry? Welcome to hell, actually. And it’s great to be back. Here’s what went down in the aptly-named “The Pilot” in IT: Welcome to Derry, directed by Andy Muschietti.

a group of children stands in a nearly empty theater facing the audience

Brooke Palmer//HBO

In the first episode we meet the main kids of IT: Welcome to Derry. But not all of them survive the first episode.

Welcome (Back) to Derry

It’s simply not IT if the plot isn’t also a coming-of-age tale. Adolescents, caught between childhood and adulthood, are at an age where quite literally no one understands them. They don’t even really know themselves. It’s no wonder Pennywise likes to feed on them. They reek of fear. Fresh meat to a hungry lion.

Brooke Palmer//HBO

Jovan Adepo (right) seems to be the “main” adult in IT: Welcome to Derry.

“A Little Taste of Normal”

IT might be a story preoccupied with youth, but it isn’t exclusively about kids. Standing in contrast to the show’s small and already dwindling ensemble of children is its other major character: Major Leroy Hanlon, played by our friend Jovan Adepo.

Fresh from the Korean War, Major Hanlon is assigned to a base in Derry, Maine, the “tip of the spear” against Russia in a war that’s definitely going to happen. But despite his accolades abroad, not everyone in the Air Force is keen to salute a Black man in 1962.

In our interview with Adepo, the actor told us that Welcome to Derry isn’t shying away from the brutal realities of life in a racist America. For now, we’re only seeing the surface–the small indignities and gestures of disrespect, like a refusal of salute in the presence of superior command. It surely won’t be long until we see worse, like the true colors of Hanlon’s new neighbors. As the major himself said, he’s moving his family into town, which means more Black folk living in a mostly-white Maine town. (If there’s anything we learned from this season of Peacemaker, it’s to look closely at the extras.) It’s 1962, remember. Not everyone will be so welcoming.

To say nothing of Hanlon’s own fears of his newly important position. Early in the episode, Major Hanlon passes by Special Projects, a closed-off section of the base shrouded in secrecy. Later at night, Hanlon is visited by masked men who beat him for classified specs on experimental weapons. My first impression was that this was a test; the men would unmask to reveal Hanlon’s own superiors, testing him on his loyalty. But the men run off to who knows where, leaving the story unresolved. For now.