IT: Welcome to Derry ended its first season on Sunday with the episode titled Winter Fire. The season finale closed the loop on pressing storylines, opened up the possibilities for new narrative directions, inspired a handful of new questions and revealed just how high the stakes can go with Stephen King's classic killer clown.
After all the iterations I've seen of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the HBO prequel unveiled some new sinister tricks the extradimensional entity had up its sleeve. That is by design. Co-creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti (along with showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane) have a long game planned for the horror series.
If everything goes their way, we'll get a total of three seasons here, with each taking place further in the past. That means a second season would take us back to the year 1935; a third would dial it back to 1908.
I'm not here to talk about the future -- I mean, past? -- of the show, though. This is about Sunday's season finale. My focus is on the key events that transpired here and why I think they made this a way better episode than the show's pilot. There are major story spoilers below. Let's get into it.
Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
Will's class gets caught in the Deadlights
Blake Cameron James stars in IT: Welcome to Derry. Brooke Palmer/HBO
Something I have truly enjoyed about this series is the disturbing lengths it goes to in order to deliver a scare. This season has had some truly unsettling sequences throughout. The finale has a handful of them, but there's one specifically I can't get out of my head: Pennywise's school performance.
One of the pillars keeping the extradimensional entity caged up was removed by the military in Episode 7, unleashing Pennywise to do his worst to the townspeople of Derry. Instead of just taking one or two children in a fit of violence, he went and took 'em all in a creepy scene that found the clown doing a vaudevillian performance that ended with his head cracking open and all hell breaking loose.
Will Hanlon and the rest of the kids were taken by the creature's Deadlights, leading to what I can only describe as a Pied Piper-style procession of children to their doom. I'll admit, a handful of plot points felt hackneyed throughout this eight-episode run. But the visuals (even the sloppy CGI ones) delivered a sinister tone. I can only imagine that if the show continues, things will just get more unsettling. I'm here for it.
... continue reading