‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Ending Explained: What’s Next for the Stephen King Series

Another year, another Stephen King adaptation comes to a close.

Season 1 of IT: Welcome to Derry ended Sunday evening with the eighth episode, titled Winter Fire. The finale tied up loose ends, put an end to pressing storylines, and revealed just how high the stakes can be with this iteration of King’s classic killer clown. That said, it appears that, like Pennywise himself, co-creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti – as well as showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane – have a long game mapped out for the prequel. horror series.

If their plan comes to light, we’ll have a total of three episodes here, each set further in the past. This means that a second season would take us back to the year 1935; a third will recall him to 1908.

Instead of burying too much in the Stephen King Easter eggs and character references that are sprinkled throughout the series, I’m going to focus on a few key events that happened in this episode and why I think they made it a season finale worth watching. So there is Major story spoilers belowbut don’t expect a rabbit hole full of red string connections. That’s what Reddit is for.

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Will’s class finds itself stuck in dead ends

One thing I really enjoyed about this series is the disturbing lengths it goes to in order to scare. There really were disturbing sequences throughout the season. The finale has a handful of them, but there’s one in particular that I can’t get out of my head: Pennywise’s school performance.

One of the pillars that kept the extra-dimensional entity caged was removed by the military in Episode 7, allowing Pennywise to do his best towards the people of Derry. Instead of just taking one or two kids in a fit of violence, he took them all into a scary scene where the clown was doing a Vaudvillian performance that ended with his head split open and all hell breaking loose.

Will Hanlon and the rest of the children were taken through the creature’s dead ends, leading to what I can only describe as a Pied Piper-style procession of children towards their doom. I will admit that there were a handful of plot points that felt hackneyed throughout this eight-episode series. But the visuals (even the sloppy CGI ones) set a sinister tone. I can only imagine that if the show continues, things will become even more disturbing. I’m here for that.

The Redemption of Dick Hallorann

Dick Hallorann, who you may know from The Shining, plays a chauffeur in Stephen King’s computer novel, alluding to a disastrous fire at a place called The Black Spot. This little detail was expanded upon in Episode 7 of the HBO prequel series, and luckily Hallorann’s role in the series was much bigger than this tragic event.

Throughout the season, Hallorann’s character has been given delightful new nuances, thanks to Chris Chalk’s exceptional performance. Until this penultimate episode, Hallorann did what she was told and served the military as a psychic secret weapon. His skills helped them find one of the ancient pillars that kept Pennywise imprisoned. Once that was removed – and once Dick’s mental lock was opened, releasing the dead souls and voices that haunted him – the man had lost the will to continue.

That was until Leroy Hanlon asked for her help in finding his missing son. Instead of using his Shining powers to benefit the military-industrial complex, he did his part to slow Pennywise down, which allowed the kids to win and put Pennywise back in his cage.

Where will he go from here? As he tells Leroy after all the action has calmed down, there’s a hotel hiring him as a cook. “How bad can a hotel be?” he says in his final scene. Oh, Dick. If only you knew.

Beep beep, Margie

Much of the episode takes place on a frozen lake. Lilly, Ronnie and Marge reached the pillar a good distance before the army intervened. And then Marge was separated from her friends. It was her first face-to-face encounter with Pennywise and while it was super terrifying for the young woman, it was also very enlightening on a narrative level.

It turns out that Marge here is the future mother of Richie Tozier, played by Finn Wolfhard in IT: Chapter 1. This is notable in that we now get a glimpse of the character’s name, since Marge’s first love, Richie Santos, sacrificed himself in the Black Spot fire to save her life. This revelation may also explain why, once she becomes his mother, she ends up being too protective of him.

“The seed of your stinking loins and its friends brings me my death. Or is it birth?” Pennywise said.

It seems that time is just a flat circle for Ol’ Pennywise, leading Marge to express a legitimate concern that the supernatural clown might be targeting her and her friends’ ancestors to prevent them from being born, thus preventing all of this from happening in the first place. If you want to rack your brains, sit in this thought for a while. Talk about a horror retcon that will set the fandom on fire.

About that last moment…

I wasn’t a huge fan of the Ingrid Kersh story, although it was cool to see Pennywise from the past again, before he started eating children and stuff. That said, the final moments of the finale put a fun nail in the proverbial coffin by showing her growing old in a mental institution.

A passage in 1988, 26 years later, sees her interacting with a young girl after the girl’s mother is found hanging in her bedroom. This girl is Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis reprising her role), who is in tears. Her father is there too and he pushes her forcefully, alluding to the abuse that follows after Elfrida Marsh’s release.

Kersh tells Beverly, “You know what they say about Derry. No one who dies here really dies,” further linking the series to the films that put the Muschiettis on the map.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by IT: welcome to Derry. It introduced a new and sweet Losers Club, expanded on some classic Stephen King storylines, and upped the ante when it came to what Pennywise the Dancing Clown could actually do. Turns out there’s a lot of violence up this monster’s sleeve.

This sight reminds me that, truly, I will never turn down a trip to King’s troubled town of Derry, Maine. Although this trip was much more satisfying than Castle Rock that was eight years ago. I hope we get a season 2, because I can’t wait to come back for more.