IT: Welcome to Derry (2025) — Episode 1 (2025)

Welcome to Derry, Population: Nope.

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

I bet some y’all are thinking who wanted an IT prequel? Well id urge y’all to give thie show a chance before judging it, also did I enjoyed this episode? Lets find out.


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⚠️ Content Warnings (read this before you watch)

This episode is graphic and disturbing. Within minutes you’ll see childbirth/body-horror imagery, and later a theater massacre with child casualties. The season will also tackle racism and hate crimes head-on. If those topics are hard for you, brace yourself.


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🌑 Season Plot Rundown – IT: Welcome to Derry (2025)

So here’s the deal: Welcome to Derry drops us into 1960s Maine, back when the town looked picture-perfect on the surface but was already rotten underneath. Forget the Losers’ Club for now — this story is about a whole new group of kids, which makes it ten times scarier because we don’t know who’s safe and who’s on Pennywise’s dinner plate.

Everything kicks off when Robert “Bobbie” Anderson, a troubled kid from around town, vanishes. Adults do their usual Derry thing — shrug it off, pretend it’s “just another tragedy.” But for Lily, our main character, it hits different. Bobbie was the only person who ever actually listened to her when she felt like an outcast. She feels guilty for not stopping him the night he left, and now she’s hellbent on finding out what happened.

From there, the season peels back all the layers of Derry’s curse. We’ve got Dick Hallorann (yep, the same guy from The Shining) as a young soldier trying to bury his visions, Shawshank Prison looming over the story like a bad omen, and the whispers of the Black Spot — one of the darkest pieces of King lore that they’re finally bringing to screen. Each piece reminds us that Derry is basically one big haunted wound that never heals.

And yeah, Pennywise is lurking. He doesn’t just show up right away with the balloon and the clown get-up. The showrunner said he won’t appear in full until halfway through the season, so in the meantime it’s all creepy voices, sinister shadows, and that gnawing sense that the town itself is alive and playing with its food.

What makes this exciting is how unpredictable it feels. In the book and the movies, you kinda knew who made it out alive. Here? Nope. These kids don’t have plot armor, which makes every scene feel like it could be their last. And on top of the supernatural, the show digs into real-world horrors too: racism, hate crimes, generational trauma. It’s raw, it’s nasty, and it’s already darker than both IT movies combined.

Eight episodes, three seasons planned, each season moving further back in time. If this first chapter is anything to go by, Derry’s going to chew up a whole new generation before we even get close to the Losers’ Club.

This is an HBO series (streaming on Max). Btw, I thought id throw tjat out there.

Andy & Barbara Muschietti (the team behind the two IT films) return, and Bill Skarsgård has said this Pennywise will be darker and creepier this time.

Show leadership has teased Pennywise won’t fully step into the light until roughly mid-season.

Planned as three seasons, each moving backward in time (Season 1 → 1962, then earlier).

Release cadence (Max/HBO):

Ep2: Fri, Oct 31th at 12:00am PT on Max / Sun, Nov 2nd at 9pm on HBO

Ep3: Nov 9th at 9pm

Ep4: Nov 16th at 9pm

Ep5: Nov 23rd at 9pm

Ep6: Nov 30th at 9pm

Ep7: Dec 7th at 9pm

Ep8 (finale): Dec 14th at 9pm

If you ask me them airing, episode two on Halloween this Friday then airing episode 3 on Sunday November 9th, kinda kills the momentum.




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👥 Character Rundown

Lily (Taylour Paige) – My early favorite and the most fleshed-out so far. Her dad died in a freak factory accident; the trauma sent her to Jupiter Asylum. Now Derry treats her like an outcast, and she’s the one shouldering the search for the missing boy. I’m hooked.

Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim-Fidler) — A Jewish teen with a strict father who forbids him from reading comics. Teddy’s arc is already shaped by generational trauma, as his family history ties back to the Holocaust. His outsider status and stern upbringing make him vulnerable to both real-world prejudice and Derry’s supernatural evil.

Phil Malkin (Jack Molloy Legault) — A curious and restless kid, often looking into strange happenings around Derry. He has a natural tendency to chase rumors and mysteries, making him one of the first to suspect that something darker is at play when Matty disappears.

Veronica “Ronnie” Grogan (Amanda Christine) — Daughter of Hank Grogan. Out of the group, she’s shown to be the most headstrong and outspoken. Ronnie’s survival of the theater massacre puts her front and center in the story going forward.

Susie Malkin (Matilda Legault) — Phil’s younger sister. Her involvement feels more accidental than intentional, but her fate in the theater scene makes her one of the earliest casualties of Pennywise’s influence.

Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) — The missing boy whose vanishing acts as the inciting incident of Episode 1. His attempt to leave town and the eerie circumstances surrounding it immediately put Derry’s curse into motion.

Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) — Son of Leroy and Charlotte Hanlon. While not part of the main investigative crew, his presence links the kids’ story to the Hanlon family and foreshadows how the town’s history of racism will play into the season.

Leroy Hanlon & the Derry base – Military eyes on a decades-old “something” that fell near town.

Dick Hallorann – Yes, that Dick Hallorann. Here he’s a serviceman, pushing down his visions (“the shine”) and destined to become the one adult who actually listens.

Pennywise / It – Mostly felt rather than seen; when you do catch glimpses, note the softer curls in the hair—an unsettling, almost cherubic touch that makes the menace feel even weirder.



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⏱️ Pacing / Episode Flow

A tight ~54 minutes that never drags: shocking opener → personal hauntings → kids’ investigation → theater climax. It’s meaner, gnarlier, and moodier than either film—on purpose.


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✅ Pros

Tone & atmosphere: suffocating dread; this feels like Derry itself is the monster.

Thematic bite: racism, generational trauma, and the complicity of “good towns.”

Imagery that lingers: the bedside lamp sequence will crawl under your skin.

Skarsgård promise: holding him back is smart; the episode builds fear around him.



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❌ Cons

That CGI baby at the end (the theater scene). It’s the lone effect that wobbles. If the show leans too hard on CG like this, it risks aging fast—my ongoing gripe with Andy Muschietti’s projects.



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🧵 King-Verse Ties (no spoilers)

Dick Hallorann being here is huge for the wider tapestry. This is one of my favorite elements, because this ties The Shinning to IT.

Shawshank will feature this season.

The Black Spot will be adapted—if you know, you know. If you don’t, I won’t spoil it; you should witness it.



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💭 Final Thoughts

Episode 1 is way darker than both modern IT films and the 1990 miniseries, and it works. My only fear? Some folks will walk away saying, “This is the IT I wanted all along,” which undersells how great IT (2017) was. Still—this premiere is confident, cruel, and gnarly in all the right ways. Please keep the CG on a leash.

If each episode is the same length as this episode, which was 54 min long. I feel that would be enough time to balance everything that they want to tell in this season.

I mean, This season is already juggling a lot of heavy elements:

The Missing Kid Mystery – Lily’s emotional tie to Bobbie gives the story its heart. If they rush it, the guilt and drive could feel shallow; but with a full season, it has room to breathe.

The Supernatural Horror – Pennywise lurking in the shadows, visions creeping in, and that cursed “Derry rot” atmosphere. If they overexpose him too early, the fear dies; holding him until mid-season was a smart call.

The Social Horrors – Racism, hate crimes, and the Black Spot. These are sensitive, real-world issues, and if handled clumsily they risk feeling exploitative. But in the right hands, they deepen the terror by showing Derry’s evil isn’t just supernatural.

The King-Verse Threads – Dick Hallorann, Shawshank, the military base. Too many cameos or Easter eggs could shrink the world and feel like fan service. But if they space it out, it ties the universe together without overwhelming the main story.


This is why the TV format is a blessing: with ~54 minutes per episode and eight episodes in Season 1, there’s time to actually layer these elements instead of cramming them. Done right, it can feel epic without being bloated — something a two-hour movie never could’ve pulled off.

Rating: 9/10, I highly recommend this episode. I can’t wait for the coming weeks and see where this show leads into also I will be releasing my reviews on each episode. Every tuesday at 11:30am. So keep your eye open for next Tuesday at 11:30am.


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🚨 Spoiler Warning

Full plot details below.


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🩸 Spoilers

We open in a car at night: a family drives toward Derry, and reality…tilts. Speech goes off-kilter, the youngest learns they’re going to Derry now, and the world slides into Pennywise distortion. The pregnant mother goes into labor right there in the seat—stomach shifting, chanting rising—and she tears her underwear as blood pours, delivering a winged, howling demon baby. It ricochets around the car. The crash is inevitable.

I did warn you all this was gnarly, and keep in mind, this is only episode one and also keep in mind.This is only the first five minutes of the episode.

In town, Lily shoulders the guilt for a missing boy she turned down on New Year’s Eve—a tender, awkward tower-top moment where he tried to kiss her, she pulled away, and he hitchhiked out of Derry. She’s convinced her refusal sent him into the dark.

Nightmares bloom. The Jewish kid reads in bed; his lamp sputters and re-lights as a lampshade of human flesh—faces muttering—an image seeded by his father’s story of Holocaust victims turned into lamps. That’s this show’s line: it doesn’t wink; it wounds.

Meanwhile, the military thread tightens. Men from the Air Force base are sniffing around an incident that “fell” near Derry years back—orders, denials, and the kind of bureaucratic hush that says they’ve known something’s wrong for a long time. Dick Hallorann is there, working hard to ignore the shine that keeps poking him anyway.

The kids gather at the theater, hoping for normalcy. No such luck. The projector and screen distort—static and smear—until the missing boy appears in the image, grinning, cradling a baby. He tosses the demon infant out of the screen and into the auditorium. Panic detonates. What follows is chaos and slaughter in the aisles—screams, trampling, the thing swooping and tearing. When the shock settles, Lily looks down and realizes what she’s clutching: the severed hand of the younger sister of one of the kids. She breaks, screaming, as the episode cuts to black.

Count the survivors: Lily, and one other girl. Everyone else is gone by the end of Episode 1. The show just told you what game it’s playing.

Now I have a theory on how and why Lilly didnt get killed off, it probably has to do with the fact that she was handed s necklace that has a turtle on it. And if y’all know ur IT lore then u know why it makes sense, if not let me do a quick rundown in the book, there’s this giant turtle called the Maturin.

It’s basically this deity that’s spat up the universe and carries the earth on its back. And the earth is flat, yes, I wish I was making that up, but I am not. It’s one of those times where you have to sit back and wonder what the heck was Stephen King high on when writing this, like really a giant turtle that carries the earth on its back. And the earth is flat?

Why does it sound like it’s a ping to flat earthers? Never mindThat also I want to point out that that is the weakest part to me of the book next to the Beverly sex sewer scene, but the reason why the giant turtle is my least favorite part is I can buy into a shapeshifting demon that kills and eats kids.

But I draw the line at a giant deity turtle, that spat up the universe and carries the earth on its back that my friends is what we call jumping the shark. Anyways, that rants is over. I just wanted to get my theory out there ( well, it’s not my theory. Every youtuber has the same theory. So I just wanted to get that theory out the way, I guess.)


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Post-Episode Notes

Yes, Skarsgård says this version of Pennywise will be harder, crueler. You feel that already—even when he barely “appears.”

The CG demon baby during the theater climax is the one effect that clangs. If that’s the exception, fine. If not, we risk the “CG age-out” problem that dogs some of Muschietti’s set pieces.

Structure-wise, holding Pennywise until mid-season is a killer move. Let Derry do the scaring. It’s working.


If they keep up this level, Derry’s about to ruin Sunday nights (in a good way). 👁️🎈

Also here’s the trailer for whats to come in the coming weeks.

Anyways catch y’all for the next episode, till then.