What’s absolutely fresh about Andy Muschietti’s unabashedly dark, depressing, and stomach-churning IT: Welcome to Derry is its unique mix of themes and tones that have never brunched together before. I’d even say that that’s what adds to the constant uncanny valley-like look and vibe to the whole show, which makes the spooky effect all the more vibrating, wouldn’t you? I mean, you don’t really see the overwhelming dread of the Cold War in shows with the kind of sense of humor that thinks up regurgitation-to-gloopy school cafeteria food transitions. But that’s Derry in the 60s for you. A town where adults aren’t scared of what they should be scared of, and trauma is the only family heirloom being passed down to the miserable generation that is now prey to an alien force. Does it get any worse? When you’re in Derry, Maine, it always does.
Spoiler Alert
Why is the police after Hank Grogan?
I like how there’s this feeling that the makers could predict what the audience would feel about the pilot, even the disappointments. I’m not saying it’s you–not that a whole lot of people would crowd up to express their grievances about the missing death scenes in the ending of the pilot anyway because Phil, Theodore, and Susie were children, for crying out loud. But IT: Welcome to Derry is a very wrong place for you to be if you’re uncomfortable watching children go through some of the worst things ever. So yeah, a whole lot of fans sure do appreciate that the opening of the 2nd episode ofIT: Welcome to Derry brings us right back to relive the massacre at the Capitol Theatre. But this time, the deaths don’t happen behind the fog of utter chaos. This time, we see Phil, Theodore, and Susie die very graphic deaths at the claws and mouth(s) of the alien monster baby because we’ve invaded Lilly’s subconscious. No wonder what she’s just been through is giving her nightmares. She was holding a little girl’s severed hand in the end, for Pete’s sake. But other than a curfew the school board announces, and the lukewarm speech Principal Dunleavy has deemed fit for the three kids who’ve died, there’s not a whole lot of mourning going on. Dunleavy’s speech fittingly ends with an announcement of a change in the lunch menu, which will now include “greens,” which is a layered joke because it’s mentioned right as the camera pans over the poster reading “radioactive fallout can reach your farm.” This show, I swear to God! But it’s not just Lilly who has a terribly hard time rejoining school and coming to terms with the whole town’s staggering apathy to the tragedy. Ronnie’s going through a really rough time too. When most of Derry’s voters and moneybags are racist, who do you think the law will want to use as a way to escape accountability and work? The cops waiting outside Hank Grogan’s place even though they don’t have a smidge of evidence tying him to the crime scene don’t care about the logic behind the Chief’s theory. But Hank works at the theatre where Phil, Theodore, and Susie have died, though all that the police have apparently found of them is a lot of blood and not a lot of flesh. The cop making a joke about how Hank might’ve eaten them doesn’t really know how close he is to cracking it. But Hank’s only persecuted because of his color. He knows his mom’s alibi is hardly going to keep the cops from breaking down his door if they can get a warrant. But he’s not too worried, because unless someone lies, there really is no way the cops can place him there. Brave as she may be, Ronnie’s just a kid terrified of losing her dad. So it must be excruciating for her, and for Lilly to walk into school like everything’s fine. It’s funny how Marge can see that Lilly’s pulling away from her but she doesn’t get why. I think she’s actually that obtuse and obsessed with her ambitions to be one of the popular kids. Lilly’s hurting bad while all Marge can get herself to care about is the validation of the Pattycakes. And Patty, obviously the queen bee, is so insecure that she has to take a dig at Marge when the girls find her goofiness funny. Marge is wasting her potential trying to impress the wrong people. But again, that’s Derry for you. Not a lot of people are known for making the right choices in this cursed town that’s only getting more ripe for Pennywise. But the place is also wrapped up in this inescapable state of fear by design too. Ronnie’s grandma and dad love her to bits and would always want to protect her. But her grandma’s loud. And even though she’s right to be furious over the fact that the police aren’t questioning any of the other employees of the Capitol Theatre, she should’ve tried to keep all that fear out of Ronnie’s ears. It’s true that her dad is being targeted by the very racist vein that runs through Derry’s core. But Ronnie can’t do anything about it. The fear only makes her susceptible to Pennywise’s attack. Or am I not supposed to name him yet? “IT” is back, and what a scary as hell comeback it is! Ronnie was looking at her late mother’s picture when the sheet she hid herself under turned into a giant womb. Not the rebirth people usually have in mind, but okay. This particularly terrifying experience has been customized based on what I can only imagine are Ronnie’s worst fear and pain. She bursts out of the womb to meet her mother at/as the head of the bed, obviously an image meant to emulate Ronnie’s worst nightmare. It’s possible that Ronnie’s mother died when she was born. That’s the guilt that the creature is now trying to feed on as it takes the shape of Ronnie’s dead mother, and blames the poor girl for having killed her. It’s a bold move by Ronnie to tear through the giant umbilical cord with her teeth, and I mean that literally and metaphorically, but then the entire bed turns into a towering, decaying, monster mom who would’ve snacked on Ronnie had her father not walked in. Close call!
Why does Lilly lie to the police?
Lilly had enough to worry about without getting entangled in the case of the disappearance of 3 kids. No one in the town holds the cops accountable for their ineptitude. Pictures of missing kids keep growing in number, one even symbolically meaningful. One of the missing kids, Colin Woods, has got a toy clown on his shoulder in the picture. Along with the Monstera plant in the back, the image basically spells out Monster Clown without so much as a word. Somebody’s been thinking real hard on these fun little foretellings of Pennywise’s arrival. Not that IT’s not already in the town, feeding off of the kind of coldness that can make a bunch of girls scream “Pattycakes” as Lilly and Ronnie try to talk about the huge stuff going on in their lives. Ronnie’s mad at Lilly because she kept the truth about the alien monster baby to herself when she talked to the police. Lilly did insist that the cops believe her when she told them that Hank wasn’t there that night, but that’s not enough for Ronnie. If Lilly doesn’t tell the police about the very real monster, Derry and its systematically corrupt system will turn her father into a figurative monster. But how can Lilly risk telling the truth and being thrown back into her room at Juniper Hill mental asylum? She’s spent the worst times of her life going through unthinkable things at Juniper Hill. If she screams monster, she’ll be right back in that hellhole. But Lilly doesn’t have much of a choice because even the Chief of Police, Clint Bowers, doesn’t have a choice in a place like Derry. The people above him know that the voters want a Black man to fry for these murders and disappearances. And if Clint doesn’t deliver, by the next election, he’s goners. So to save his job, Clint stoops as low as to pick Lilly up from school and scare the poor girl to death in his office to get what he wants. He’s lower than what should officially be called a human when he tells Lilly that it’s basically her or Hank. Either she finds a way to place Hank there, or he makes sure that Lilly is sent back to the place that scares her the most, Juniper Hill. What choice does a little girl have over what seems like an almost-deadly threat. Lilly’s too sweet a kid to give in and ruin Hank and Ronnie’s lives if the price she had to pay wasn’t so high. We don’t know the whole picture when it comes to Lilly’s background. I think there’s a lot there. She would’ve done anything to protect Ronnie and her family. But Lilly can’t go back to Juniper Hill. So Clint’s twisted question gets the answer that he needs to get a warrant for Hank’s arrest. You think a man like Hank would get justice in the court of Derry? The man who threatened Clint into doing such an unspeakable thing did say that this isn’t America. This is Derry. And Derry’s the kind of place where Leroy’s new neighbors aren’t too happy to see a Black family move into the neighborhood. I mean, they’re not as obvious about it as the people in, say, a show like Them, the Amazon Original, but Leroy’s wife, Charlotte, is met with plenty of awkward smiles and stares when she’s out and about in town. It’s a weird place, as Charlotte gets to find out for herself when she sees the Paul Bunyan statue get erected. Derry’s fictional, but Stephen King’s universe hasn’t exaggerated one bit about the madness over the lore around a completely fake character that’s deemed a folk hero in America, Paul Bunyan. So, get this. This supposedly 7 foot guy who never existed supposedly struck down trees, carved rivers, townships, and everything that you now know as the US of A. Huh! What an astonishingly embarrassing way to deny the fact that the indigenous people lived in these regions and were severely affected and exploited by the colonizers who would then go on to create a myth about a White man who carved out America! There are countless Paul Bunyan statues of enormous size and popularity all across Minnesota and more. I guess you gotta make up heroes to hide your guilt over stolen land. But that’s just history. History has no place like Derry. Sure, some people are protesting the statue, but not the locals. Stan, the local butcher Charlotte wants a roast from, thinks it’s a neat idea to have a giant, and if I may be so bold, unsightly statue in the park. Reassuringly, one of the grande dames of Derry, Mrs. Cavanaugh, would’ve taken up the ax and struck down the giant lumberjack herself if she could. Also, did I just hear that Stan is a Kersh? Is he somehow related to the very freaky Mrs. Kersh from IT: Chapter Two? While tormenting Beverly, Mrs. Kersh claimed to be Bob Grey/Pennywise’s daughter. Now, fans are in many minds about this peculiar Mrs. Kersh’s very existence. She wasn’t human, for sure, at least not when Beverly met her. But she might’ve been a person at some point, someone Stan Kersh is related to. Stan doesn’t need a familial connection with Mrs. Kersh to be weird, though. He also does a fairly good job at being an enabler and a loser when he smiles and gives Charlotte a “boys will be boys” when she’s shocked to see that not a single person is stopping a group of bullies from beating up a boy. Moreover, they look at her like she’s doing something embarrassing when she intervenes to save the poor boy. She has a little boy herself, the terribly-smart-for-his-age Will Hanlon we met earlier. Will’s move to Derry was made smoother by his mom’s smarts. She knows her boy really well. And she’s even nice enough to let Leroy steal credit for the beautiful secondhand telescope that makes Will’s day (or life, by his reaction). She does it for both of them. Will may be growing up to be a very different person than his dad, but he wants to impress his old man more than anything. So the least Leroy could do was support Charlotte when she’s right. But Leroy doesn’t like it too much when Charlotte goes off about what happened with the bullies and the people who stood by and did nothing. Although, to be fair, neither Leroy nor Will like the idea of Charlotte going to these kids’ parents and giving them an earful. Leroy’s mention of a certain incident in Shreveport paints the picture of a Charlotte who’s. Most people think Charlotte’s trouble. And since Leroy can’t fight most people, he’d rather Charlotte tone down her instincts to do the right thing. The world world changes, and Leroy’s a realist who knows that there are places in the world where his family won’t be welcome in decades to come. But it’s also wrong of him to hold Charlotte back from doing the right thing when that’s exactly what he’s trying to do when he’s on his job. We’re not letting this casual sexism pass by just because we like Leroy otherwise. I don’t blame Will for being worried. Poor kid was bullied on the first day of school. But Will’s smart enough to know that any love from his mom will only make things worse. So he’s keeping it to himself. But then again, Will doesn’t mind being by himself too much. He enjoys reading by his locker because he doesn’t really want to try out the vibe of the cafeteria. Kid knows things! I love that he gets a friend in another loner, Rich. Now they don’t have to eat lunch by themselves in the hallway. It’s really too bad that Will doesn’t run fast enough when a kid throws a stick bomb in his direction. Instead, he runs straight into the teacher and gets detention. But a good thing comes out of that too. Ronnie got detention because she cussed in the cafeteria. It’s a good thing that it’s not just the science stuff that Will’s smooth with. He’s got his mama’s sharp tongue. You know that’s got to impress someone like Ronnie.
What’s the deal with the car they dig up at the Derry Air Base?
The two important things that happen in the ending of the second episode of IT: Welcome to Derry have got to be two of the most crucial branches of the story to come. The dark power that’s lurking underneath Derry’s proverbial rug is waiting for only one thing before it strikes. It needs to know a kid’s worst fear before it cripples them with it. For Ronnie, the evil entity’s weapons were her mother’s death and her fear of losing her father. For Lilly, when she goes shopping after Ronnie’s painful outburst at her doorstep, the alien creature has a whole different plan altogether. Ever since Chief Clint Bowers has instilled the fear of having to go back to Juniper Hill in Lilly, the creature has gotten a whiff of her worst fear. That’s what IT tortures her with when she’s blocked in by isles full of pickle jars while the ghostly whispers haunt her. They call her crazy. They want her to be locked up. That’s Lilly’s worst fear. And I don’t know about you, but when Lilly’s sliced-up father appears in one of the pickle jars and tries to do something that you’re gonna have to watch for yourself (I’m not writing that down!)I get the feeling that there might be more darkness in Lilly’s past than we know of. In the movies, Beverly Marsh’s father was a major creep and a predator who sexually abused his daughter. The haunting in Lilly’s case is overflowing with suggestions of her father having been a predator too. Maybe this isn’t too uncommon in Derry either. Maybe this is something that Lilly has repressed. But then, we’ll only get to know more about her now that she’s about to go back to hell. When the haunting is interrupted by people, and the monster in the garb of her father disappears, Lilly finds herself on the ground beside a bunch of broken jars of pickles. She’s Loony Lilly to Derry yet again. And her mother doesn’t shed a tear when she drops Lilly back off at Juniper Hill. The creature has made her worst fear come true, just like it did with Ronnie. The kids aren’t winning against the alien creature feasting on their pain so far. But they’re strong. So who knows?
Coming to the second crucial movement in the plot, I’ve got to refresh your memory on Dick Hallorann, a character who goes beyond the IT universe and is spread across Stephen King’s spooky tales. Dick Hallorann has got this special power that’s called the shine, a combination of telepathic abilities. That must be the gift that Hallorann is leveraging at the air base. When Hallorann and his buddies are kicked out of the bar because their color bothers the White patrons, he takes them to a place which I think is going to become The Black Spot, a place the local White supremacist group will burn down. Hallorann’s got special privileges that get him in even when he and his Airmen friends come back post curfew, drunk as fish. He’s got something that gets him inside the secret projects area in the airbase too, a place Colonel Fuller seems to take care of. They’re doing some digging, and it seems that the privileges that Hallorann is enjoying come because of a promise he’s made to the US government. He claims that he knows that they’ll find something important in this area. And because he’s got the shine ability, I don’t think he’s messing with them. But Fuller’s patience is running thin. He’s already failed to convince Leroy that the attack on him the night before was done by Masters and his buddies. Masters was the racist airman who was rude to Leroy the moment he arrived. But Leroy isn’t too quick to buy this story even when it comes from Fuller. You see, he’s done his own research, and he knows that the weapon that was found in his room was an old Russian gun. The likelihood of someone like Masters having a weapon like that is slim. But there’s something else. As an experienced major who’s fought in Korea, Leroy is familiar with this specific gun and its finicky nature. What are the chances that someone as dull as Masters could use that so well? When Leroy meets Masters in his cell and triggers him into trying to put the magazine into the gun, Masters swiftly proves that Leroy’s instincts were right. They’re lying to him. But Leroy knows better than to have an outburst about this. He simply lets General Shaw know what he knows and drops the subtle threat that he’ll report this. Shaw’s in a tight spot now. Turns out, or at least this is what Shaw claims, this attack was his way to test a rumor he heard about Leroy’s brain injury. Apparently, his amygdala, the fear center of his brain, doesn’t work. This is good enough for Leroy to stay back. But what Shaw has to show him in the ending of the second episode of IT: Welcome to Derry has to be increasingly interesting for Leroy. He’s brought into the secret dig site so that he can get familiar with his purpose. Apparently, Dick Hallorann’s psychic gift has given them a rough map to a weapon that they wish to add to their arsenal just in case the Cold War escalates. If we’re to believe Shaw, this weapon is unlike anything the world has ever seen, and it can only be handled by someone as fearless as Leroy. Is that why Leroy was brought here? So that he could help the US government try to weaponize something they don’t even understand? Shaw says that the weapon is surrounded by objects. And in the ending scene, when a finding gets a rise out of them and they all gawk at the car they pull out of the mud, it looks like Dick Hallorann’s predictions are coming true. The car’s got bullet holes in it, and I spotted at least four skeletons in there. One even had a shotgun, which I think caused some of the holes in the car. Things are too muddy to make speculations about this freaky car now. But if the Derry Air Base is trying to weaponize Pennywise, I can already picture their unavoidable failure ahead.
