IT: Welcome to Derry (2025) – Episode 5 Review

“Sewer Tourism Was a Mistake”

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

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⚠️ CONTENT WARNING — THIS SERIES IS BRUTAL

Before we go ANY further: IT: Welcome to Derry is not playing around.
This episode includes disturbing imagery, mutilated children, hallucinations, abusive family trauma, demonic trickery, and outright unnerving visuals.
Stephen King horror is already harsh — this prequel doubles down.
Please watch responsibly.


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📌 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Episode 5 — “29 Neibolt Street” — finally pushes the kids straight into the belly of Derry’s curse. When a long-missing friend suddenly returns, pale, shaken, and claiming he escaped the sewers, the kids decide they have no choice but to go down themselves to look for the others who disappeared. Meanwhile, the military splits up underground to recover the shards that can contain the creature. Hallorann faces psychic torture, adults are breaking under pressure, and the episode steadily pushes everyone toward the inevitable: Pennywise revealing himself for the very first time this season.

This episode is atmospheric, chaotic, and the most movie-quality installment so far.


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🧒 Character Rundown

Lily – the emotional anchor of the group, forced to confront the monster head-on.

Ginger (the blonde girl) – Lily’s friend with the damaged eye who officially joins the adventure.

Maddie – the formerly missing kid who returns… but something is off.

Corporal Phillips – the military father desperately trying to protect his son.

Dick Hallorann – experiencing visions, psychic attacks, and temptation from the creature.

The Kids Group – all terrified, all determined, all VERY unprepared.


Everyone in this episode feels like they’re spiraling into the exact kind of terror Derry is built on.


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⏱️ Pacing / Episode Flow

This is the tightest episode yet. No long detours. No subplots dragging it down.
The story moves: return → sewer descent → military chaos → Pennywise reveal → emotional fallout.
It feels like the real “mid-season wake-up call.”


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⭐ Pros

Pennywise finally makes an appearance.

Surprisingly improved CGI in the sewers.

Creepy atmosphere, drenched in dread.

The kids actually feel like kids — scared, reckless, and making dumb decisions.

The Hallorann sequences are genuinely disturbing.



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❌ Cons

Pennywise isn’t scary anymore if you’ve seen truly unhinged horror like Art the Clown.

Some lines and visual choices (UNCLE SAM PENNYWISE… bro…) are extremely corny.

The show still refuses to explain why It chooses the Pennywise form.



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🎈 A Segment Just for Pennywise

Five episodes. Five.
And only NOW does the show finally give us Pennywise in full glory.

The buildup works… but the scare factor doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong — Bill Skarsgård is still excellent, but after watching Terrifier, Art the Clown permanently raised my horror threshold. Pennywise is calculated fear. Art is chaos. One has rules. One doesn’t. Guess which one is scarier?

So Pennywise showing up in Episode 5 felt more like, “Oh hey, finally,” rather than “OH NO IT’S HIM.”

Still cool. Still iconic. Just… not terrifying anymore.


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💭 Final Thoughts

This is the strongest episode yet.
It’s messy, violent, atmospheric, and actually feels like the IT universe again.
The only thing holding it back is that some imagery goes from horrifying to unintentionally goofy (the Uncle Sam bit… I physically sighed).

But the story momentum is FINALLY here, and Pennywise’s re-entrance (even if not scary) gives the show new energy.


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🎯 Rating: 10/10 for me this week

This is the episode that proves the show can still hit hard.


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⚠️ SPOILER WARNING

Turn back now unless you want the full, detailed, no-bullet-points, in-order spoiler breakdown.


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🍿 SPOILERS — FULL EXPANDED BREAKDOWN

The episode begins with the group of kids — Lily, Ginger (the blonde friend with the missing eye), the others, and their newly returned friend Maddie — heading to their usual meetup spot. A tent suddenly appears, and Maddie crawls out of it looking sickly, pale, and traumatized. He claims he escaped the sewers and that the other missing kids are still alive down there. He refuses to involve the cops and refuses to go back underground. Only when the group threatens to hand him over does he reluctantly agree.

Believing they can protect themselves, the kids steal sleeping pills from Lily’s mom — “Mommy’s Little Helpers” — and take three pills each, assuming it will numb their fear. Their logic: if fear feeds the creature, maybe dulling themselves will weaken its power. It’s exactly the kind of chaotic kid logic that both frustrates you and breaks your heart.

Two visual callbacks appear: the group walking with their bikes under the train tracks (straight out of 2017’s IT) and their formation near the sewer entrance. Finally, they reach the legendary Neibolt Street house, but unlike the movies where it sits among other homes, here it’s isolated in the woods on a curved road. Inside, the military is invading the property, looking for shards that can contain the creature. The Native man from Episode 4, who had his memories torn open last week, escapes them and drops his protective shard — something crucial for later.

Meanwhile, Corporal Phillips moves his wife and son to a military base to protect them, but his son sneaks away to help the kids enter the sewer. Down below, the military team splits up. Phillips and his friend begin experiencing hallucinations, including Phillips shooting what he thinks is a monster but it’s actually a vision of his wife morphing. Realizing the sewers create illusions, he tells his friend, “Anything you see down here that doesn’t belong — shoot it.”

Hallorann gets separated and is teleported into a psychic vision of his abusive grandparents’ bathroom. His grandmother speaks to him telepathically using the Shine, begging him not to open the chained box he carries in his mind. His grandfather orders him to do it anyway. In a horrifying moment, his grandfather shoots his grandmother in the knee and forces Hallorann to open the box with him at the count of three. The box cracks open, releasing the psychic darkness Pennywise wants.

Back with the kids, Maddie leads them into the water. Suddenly, the corpses of the missing children rise from the sewer water — rotting, green, lifeless. Maddie begins swinging on a pipe, singing “They joined the circus and left the town, now they live here down with the clown.” His head splits open into rows of teeth as his body tears apart and transforms fully into Pennywise for the first time all season. Maddie was dead all along — this was the creature luring them in.

On a side note Andy Muschietti said and I quote i didnt want to make it obvious that Maddie was IT, well sorry to tell you buddy. I clocked it in as soon as Maddie came stumbling out of the tent that randomly appeared at the kids hideout, so epic failure.

The kids run, but Lily becomes separated and cornered by Pennywise, who taunts her for “bringing him all those people” because she’s “such a good friend.” He opens his jaws to devour her, but the shard — the one dropped earlier — glows beneath the water. Pennywise sees it and recoils. Lily grabs the shard and escapes.

The other kids run into Corporal Phillips and his friend. Phillips sees them — including his son — as hallucinations and opens fire. His friend, realizing the kids are real, steps into the line of fire and is fatally shot. He dies telling Phillips, “Don’t make my death count for nothing.” Phillips directs the kids to flee.

Later, Phillips gives a report to his commanding officer. His superior apologizes for the loss of his friend. Before leaving, Phillips asks whether Hallorann survived. His superior says he doesn’t know, but if anyone could survive, it’s Hallorann.

The final scene shows Hallorann stumbling out of the sewer, exhausted and broken. In the distance, he sees the ghostly image of Phillips’ dead friend walking slowly. The figure turns, smiles at Hallorann, and disappears as we see the glowing crack in Hallorann’s mental lockbox — now wide open.

Cut to black.

Here’s the trailer for Episode 6, enjoy.