TV Review - HBO's It: Welcome to Derry

Go back to where IT all began.

It: Welcome to Derry is a 2025-present supernatural horror television series created by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, produced by Rideback, Vertigo Entertainment, FiveTen Productions, K Plus Ultra, Double Dream, Warner Bros. Television, and HBO, and distributed by HBO. The series stars Javon Adepo and Taylour Paige. It is based on Stephen King's 1986 novel, It. The series acts as a prequel to both It and It: Chapter Two.

"Duck and cover, kiddos." - Pennywise the Dancing Clown

Plot

In 1962 Derry, a group of young kids begin to investigate the mysterious disappearance of one of their friends. Meanwhile, at a local army base, the military is searching for answers about the long and terrifying history of the seemingly quiet town.

The Sweet

Let me just say that, while I was pretty excited for Welcome to Derry, I was not really expecting it to be great. I like both It movies, but I was just worried that this show would not be able to capture the same mix of child-like wonder with abject horror. I also knew that they would not be able to get kids with the same level of charm and chemistry as the Losers' Club in the first film, so that had me hesitant.

And, color me shocked. This is probably my favorite project from the It franchise.

It is a 1100-page novel. That thing is long (I have actually read it twice, which is kind of insane). So, at first glance, due to the epic nature of the story, it seems like Pennywise and Derry would be best in a cinematic format. You've got an extravagant tale about an evil shapeshifting entity and seven kids trying to kill it and then returning to finish the job as adults. That feels like a story perfectly made for a movie.

And, yet, I think this world and this story work better as a TV show. Obviously, Welcome to Derry is not directly based off of It, but it's a spin-off, so its not not based off of the book. TV allows you time to explore the setting and sit with the characters, and Welcome to Derry uses that time beautifully. It really takes the time to get you invested in these characters, whether it be the kids or the adults, so you have a true emotional connection to them when the show reaches its climax.

And, look, the kids here are not as good as the kids in the first film, but that's a ridiculous ask. That first movie has Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Sophia Lillis, and Jaeden Martell in its group of kids. Enough said. The kids in Welcome to Derry, while not the insane perfection of the kids in It, are still really good. I actually think it helps that we rock with a smaller group here, because it gives us more time to understand them as individuals before they all come together. We see Lilly as this traumatized girl who everyone thinks is crazy. We see Will as the new kid who has trouble connecting with his dad. Ronnie is suffering because her dad is being blamed for Pennywise's atrocities. Marge starts off as a pretty unlikable and insecure tween who becomes better after encountering Pennywise. And, of course, the best of the kids is Rich, who is just so funny and lovable.

Part of the reason that Rich is the best of the kids is because of his devastating sacrifice at the end of episode seven, which leads me into my next point. Welcome to Derry delivers some emotional moments that outdo both of the It movies significantly. It and It: Chapter Two have their fair share of poignant moments, but nothing in those films hits like Rich's death. This is the first time we've seen a kid that we have grown to love die in a horrific and sad way, and it stings. The capper on it is when his ghost appears to help the kids put the dagger back where it belongs to re-trap Pennywise. The show also is able to have other poignant moments, whether you are talking about Hank and Ronnie's reunion or Leroy telling Will that he loves him because he's different than him. Like, I don't know where these writers brought all this emotion from, but I am here for it.

But far and away the best thing about Welcome to Derry is, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Bill Skarsgård is great in the It movies. But he just dials it up to eleven in this series and gives his best performance as the world's scariest clown. As soon as he showed up in episode five, the show got significantly better, and so much of that is due to Skarsgård. The It movies rely too much on CGI spectacle for scares, and, while Welcome to Derry does have that problem from time to time, when Pennywise is on screen, he's not CGI. They don't do as much of the weird jerky charges that he does in the movies. Instead, Andy Muschietti lets Skarsgård terrify the audience with his line delivery and physicality. I just felt the terror of Pennywise way more in Welcome to Derry than I have in any of the other It movies. And a lot of that is due to Bill Skarsgård's incredible performance.

The other reason that you feel the terror of the clown here more than in any of the movies is because it really leans into the human horrors as well. The book makes Derry feel like a character. It's a rotten town of cyclical violence that is always inevitably ignored and forgotten about. This show understands that and really uses that in its narrative. We see how Pennywise's influence causes people to do terrible things. The incredible Black Spot sequence in episode seven is just a perfect encapsulation of how Pennywise feeds off of the evils of humanity. I love that side to the book, and it really isn't a focal point in the movies, so I was just ecstatic to see it here.

I guess I should've prefaced this review by saying that I am a massive Stephen King fan (if you can't tell), so seeing all of this book accuracy just had me through the roof. But the thing that got me even more excited was the connections to King's other properties. The shared universe is a tired trope of Hollywood that has only been executed well by the MCU. But Stephen King has been doing a shared universe of his own for his entire career. And it isn't about having interconnected stories that lead to some big climax. No, it's a universe tied together thematically and conceptually, and that's what Welcome to Derry does. It uses Dick Hallorann, the cook from The Shining, who actually appears in the It book, and has him contribute to the story in a meaningful, sensical way. Shawshank prison makes an appearance. Characters who possess the shining ability use it. This is how King interconnects his novels, so it was just so exciting to see that done on screen.

I also loved how dark and violent this season was. It is obviously an incredibly dark property, but the movies have generally leaned away from truly graphic violence. Sure, Georgie's arm got ripped off, but besides that, there haven't been any insane kills or gory moments...until Welcome to Derry. From the first episode, this show just establishes that it is not messing around. It kills off three kids and makes sure you see what happens to them. There's a scene where Pennywise slices someone's face in half with a cleaver, and it is just awesome. Like, it's so scary, but at the same time, it just feels like the dark, horrifying character that he should be.

Finally, I think Welcome to Derry does exactly what a great prequel should do: it makes the original film(s) better. Instead of over-explaining everything and providing answers to questions we weren't asking, Welcome to Derry explains things that we didn't expect or didn't make a ton of sense in the movies. Why did Beverly see Mrs. Kersh in It: Chapter Two? Why did Mrs. Kersh act like she was Pennywise's daughter? All of these are questions that are answered in such a satisfying and cool way in this show, and I just loved it. Marge being Richie's mom was a fantastic little twist that felt earned, because you believe that she would name her kid after Rich. The finale even sets up the prospect of an It: Chapter Three or some more, expanded spin-offs with Pennywise beyond Welcome to Derry, but it sets those things up sensibly, not just randomly. Pennywise experiences time as a flat circle, not linearly, so that could make for some really, really interesting stories in the future.

The Sour

Welcome to Derry does have a few problems.

First off, I think the show takes a minute to get going. Pennywise does not show up until episode five, and, while I was okay with that, I think they spent too long teasing him and meandering through the same beats for those first four episodes. Episode one is great, but episodes two through four definitely have some trouble finding their footing. It feels like we are just going through the motions: the kids have a scary encounter, the military argues about the pillars and finding Pennywise, Hallorann has some hallucination, and Charlotte is trying to help Hank. Once Pennywise did show up, however, the show was basically perfect from there on out.

I also still was not a huge fan of the CGI monsters. To me, the scariest part of the show was when Bill Skarsgård was just acting his ass off as this inherently horrifying clown. The thing that makes his performance and the way he plays Pennywise so scary is the unpredictability and the eeriness of how he acts and looks. A gloopy CGI monster just doesn't have that factor to it. If you made some practical scares or combined something practical with CGI, it can be more effective. The two scariest scenes without Pennywise in them are when Ronnie gets re-birthed by her demon mother bed (yes, that was a sentence I just wrote) and when Marge's eyes bug out. Those two scares are combinations of CGI and practical effects. And they were way more effective than any of the crazy, solo CGI forms of It.

Lastly, I was not a huge fan of the military plot line. It becomes less of a focus when (say it with me now) Pennywise actually shows up, but I just thought the logic and reasoning behind what General Shaw was trying to do was stupid. Based on the established rules of Derry, you are supposed to not remember what happened when you were a kid. The Losers' Club forgets about Pennywise and does not remember him until Mike pushes for them to remember. Yet Shaw seems to completely remember Pennywise. And not only that, he wants to use him? To make the country better? I just didn't really buy into anything that he was saying. It's not a huge deal because the military plot line really fades out by the time you get to the final few episodes, but I would kind of roll my eyes anytime it cut to them.

Final Thoughts and Score

Welcome to Derry blew my expectations out of the water with fantastic scares, great characters, emotional moments, and some awesome faithfulness to Stephen King's iconic source material.

I am going Sweet here. Age range is 16+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"It: Welcome to Derry"

Fun Factor: 9/10

Acting: 8/10

Story: 8.5/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Quality: 8.5/10

Created by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs

Rated TV-MA for strong bloody violence, frightening themes and images, language, sexual content, thematic elements

Premiered on October 26, 2025

Episode runtime: 55 minutes

Javon Adepo as Leroy Hanlon

Taylour Paige as Charlotte Hanlon

Blake Cameron James as Will Hanlon

Clara Stack as Lilly Bainbridge

Amanda Christine as Ronnie Grogan

Arian S. Cartaya as Rich Santos

Matilda Lawler as Marge Truman

Stephen Rider as Hank Grogan

Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann

Madeleine Stower as Ingrid Kersh / Periwinkle

James Remar as Francis Shaw

Peter Outerbridge as Clint Bowers

Rudy Mancuso as Pauly Russo

Kimberly Guerrero as Rose

Joshua Odjick as Taniel

Thomas Mitchell as Colonel Fuller

Alixandra Fuchs as Terri Bainbridge

Maya McNair as Patty Stanton

Miles Ekhardt as Matty Clements

Mikkal Karim-Fidler as Teddy Uris

Jack Molloy Legault as Phil Malkin

Matilda Legault as Susie Malkin

Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh

Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown