Returning to Derry Feels Like Opening an Old Wound
When I started watching It: Welcome to Derry Episode 1, I didn’t feel excitement at first. I felt unease. That familiar, uncomfortable feeling that Stephen King’s Derry always gives me. This town has never been about jump scares alone, it’s about cruelty, trauma, silence, and how evil patiently waits for the weakest moment to strike.
This episode doesn’t ease us back into that world. It drags us in.
Right from the opening moments, I realized this series isn’t interested in being gentle. It wants to remind us that Derry is cursed, and that children always pay the highest price here.
The Music Man Opening: “Trouble” Was Never Just a Song
The episode opens in darkness, with voices chanting “trouble” from The Music Man. On the surface, it feels strange, almost playful. But very quickly, it becomes clear that this song is being used as a warning.
To me, this choice was brilliant.
The people of Derry chanting “trouble” mirrors how this town always works. Mob mentality. Blind belief. Fear is passed from adult to child like a disease. Pennywise doesn’t need to control everyone directly the town does most of the work for him.
And then we meet Maddie.
Maddie: A Child Marked for Death from the Start
Maddie immediately stood out to me as one of those kids Derry never protects. He’s bruised, anxious, sucking on a pacifier far past the age where that feels normal. Nothing is said directly, but everything about him screams abuse.
And that’s the cruel truth about Pennywise.
He doesn’t pick random children. He picks the already broken ones.
Maddie runs from the theater, hitchhikes, and says something that hit me hard:
“Anywhere but Derry.”
That line alone tells us everything. And of course, Derry doesn’t let him go.
The Car Ride from Hell: When Pennywise Strikes Without Showing His Face
The family that picks Maddie up feels wrong immediately. The raw liver. The strange spelling game. Words like maggots, necrosis, strangulation, and, of course, trouble.
This scene didn’t rely on Pennywise’s clown face at all, and that’s what made it disturbing. Instead, Pennywise twists real-world fears of the 1960,s radiation, birth defects, mutation into something grotesque.
The mutant baby reveal is horrifying. Not because it’s loud, but because it feels cruel and mocking. Pennywise turning fear into flesh.
When Maddie’s pacifier floats into the sewer afterward, drifting toward the darkness, I knew the message was clear:
Once Pennywise chooses you, there is no escape.
A Time Jump That Feels Like a False Sense of Safety
Four months later, April 1962.
On paper, this feels like a reset. New characters. New locations. But emotionally, the weight of Maddie’s death hangs over everything. The episode never lets you forget him, and neither does Pennywise.
This is where the story splits into two paths:
- The children
- The Air Force subplot
And honestly, the kids’ story is where the heart and horror truly live.
Derry High School: Trauma Wears a Teenage Face
The “duck and cover” turtle sign outside the school immediately stood out to me. On one level, it’s about nuclear fear. On another, it’s clearly symbolic.
Duck.
Cover.
Hide.
That’s what children in Derry have always been forced to do.
Here we meet Lily, instantly labeled “Looney Lily” by her peers. Her locker prank, exploding pickle jar,s isn’t just bullying. It’s psychological torture tied to how her father died at a pickle factory.
This show understands something deeply uncomfortable:
Kids in Derry don’t just suffer; they are publicly punished for their pain.
Lily and Maddie: Guilt Is Pennywise’s Favorite Weapon
The flashbacks between Lily and Maddie were some of the most heartbreaking moments for me.
Maddie confides in her.
She listens.
But when he leans in for a kiss, she pulls away.
That single rejection becomes something Pennywise later weaponizes.
This is what makes the horror in It different. Pennywise doesn’t invent fear; he reshapes guilt. He takes small, human moments and turns them into lifelong punishment.
When Lily later hears Maddie singing “trouble” from her bathroom drain, I got chills. Bathrooms in It are never safe spaces. The finger emerging from the pipe felt like a direct echo of Stephen King’s obsession with domestic horror terror invading the most private spaces.
Phil and Teddy: Logic Can’t Save You in Derry
Phil and Teddy felt like classic Stephen King kids, smart, curious, defensive, pretending they’re braver than they are.
Phil hides behind conspiracy theories. Aliens. Military bases. Special Projects.
Teddy hides behind religion and comic books.
Both are coping mechanisms.
The dinner scene with Teddy’s family was deeply disturbing. The discussion about Holocaust victims’ skin being used as lampshades is not there for shock alone. It sets up exactly how Pennywise works, taking real historical horror and manifesting it physically.
And when Pennywise later appears to Teddy as a screaming skin lamp, it becomes one of the most unsettling horror images in the episode.
Light, something meant to protect, becomes the monster.
The Adults: Setting the Stage, Not Stealing the Spotlight
The Air Force storyline with Leroy Hanlon feels like groundwork. Important, but intentionally secondary.
We learn:
- Derry sits dangerously close to Soviet airspace
- There are secret projects on the base
- Leroy survived something in Korea he probably shouldn’t have
Dick Hallorann’s presence quietly connects It to The Shining, reinforcing the idea that some people can sense the evil in Derry and flee from it.
The masked attack on Leroy felt weaker compared to the rest of the episode, but I see it as a test of loyalty, paranoia, and control. The real horror here isn’t the attackers, it’s what the government is willing to hide.
The Theater Finale: No One Is Safe
The final act in the Capitol Theater is where this episode fully earns its reputation.
The kids return to where Maddie was last seen alive.
They’re grieving.
They’re crying.
They’re blaming themselves.
And Pennywise is watching.
Seeing Maddie appear on the screen, surrounded by the same family from the car, was devastating. Pennywise doesn’t just kill, he shames.
He accuses them of failing Maddie.
Of lying.
Of not being there.
Then comes the giant mutant baby, now amplified by the logic of projection, larger and deadlier than before.
What follows isn’t heroic.
It isn’t hopeful.
It’s a massacre.
Phil dies brutally.
Teddy is killed.
Little Susie is taken, leaving only her severed hand clutched in Lily’s grasp.
There is no victory.
Only survival.
And that final scream from Lily holding what remains of her friend is one of the rawest endings I’ve seen in a TV premiere.
Killing the Kids: A Bold and Terrifying Creative Choice
Learning that the original script spared most of the kids makes me glad they changed it.
By killing them, the show makes one thing brutally clear:
This is not a comfort story.
This is not about a new Losers Club.
This is about how Pennywise wins.
At least sometimes.
Final Thoughts: A Relentless, Bleak, and Powerful Opening
It: Welcome to Derry Episode 1 doesn’t ask if you’re ready.
It assumes you’re not.
It strips away nostalgia, replaces heroism with guilt, and reminds us that in Derry, children are expendable and evil is patient.
I would have liked to see just a bit more of Pennywise’s physical presence, even a balloon, a shadow, something more concrete. But emotionally? His presence is everywhere.
This episode hurt.
And that’s exactly why it worked.
Derry is back.
And it hasn’t forgiven anyone.