The premiere episode of IT: Welcome to Derry delivers a jarring series of events, proving that even a prequel set long before the Loser’s Club faced Pennywise can still pack a powerful punch. HBO’s latest adaptation of a Stephen King classic offers a chilling reintroduction to the infamous clown, played by Bill Skarsgård, and promises a gripping horror experience.
**Spoilers ahead for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 1, currently streaming on HBO MAX**
The episode kicks off and concludes with Pennywise at his most brutal. Set in the winter of 1962, we meet Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt), a young boy left out in the cold after being expelled from a movie theater. As he attempts to hitchhike away from Derry, Maine, he unwittingly becomes ensnared in a deadly trap laid by the sinister clown.
The quest to uncover Matty’s fate becomes the driving force for the remaining children—Lilly (Clara Stack), Teddy (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), and Phil (Jack Molloy Legault). They are joined by the theater owner’s daughter, Ronnie (Amanda Christine), and Phil’s younger sister, Susie (Matilda Legault). When Lilly recalls hearing Matty sing a tune from The Music Man, the very movie that got him ousted, the kids decide to watch the film in hopes of discovering clues. To their horror, they see Matty seemingly trapped within the movie itself.
However, this moment of discovery turns into a nightmare as a monstrous figure emerges from the screen, launching a vicious attack on the group. The chaos leaves only Lilly and Ronnie alive, with the episode closing on a haunting image of Lilly, drenched in blood, clutching the remnants of Susie’s hand.
So why would IT: Welcome to Derry open by obliterating literal little kids? What does this mean for the show going forward? Are the children really dead? And were any child actors forever traumatized by the end of IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 1?
Well, well, well… Looks like IT: Welcome to Derry wants us to know that anyone could die over the course of Pennywise’s 1962 feasting cycle.
“Well, you’re coming into this with expectations about what an IT show is going to be. You’ve seen two movies, maybe you’ve read the book, and so we wanted to take those expectations right from the start and upend them,” IT: Welcome to Derry co-showrunner and Episode 1 writer Jason Fuchs told DECIDER.
“We wanted audiences to feel like anything’s possible. No one is safe,” he added. “You can care about a character and they’ll still be taken from you.”
Matty is indeed still in Pennywise’s clutches, if not already dead, and Teddie, Phil, and Susie have also been killed. Only Lilly and Ronnie survive the first episode and Fuchs said that was intentional, too.
“In doing that, we actually thrust you into the point of view of our lead characters, who are very much trying to get their wits about them and figure out what it all means and what the rules of this world are,” Fuchs said, before teasing why Lilly and Ronnie were specifically spared.
“We were interested in their journeys,” he said. “Derry is a town where if you see the truth, if you see the evil around you, if you’re sensitive to it, if you’re aware of it, your truth is denied.
If you’re worried if filming that gory sequence negatively impacted the child actors in any way, rest assured they had a great time. (Well, the actresses playing Lilly and Ronnie did.)
“Honestly, I mean, I loved doing that scene,” Clara Stack gushed to DECIDER. “I love like, horror, intense scenes. So getting to scream like that and getting drenched in blood and seeing in the actual series how everything turned out, I think it’s super cool.”
“I definitely agree with Clara,” Amanda Christine said. “It was so much fun filming that scene, and it was definitely action-packed.”
“The crazy thing was, the way we filmed it, we did it kind of separately and we filmed in like different chunks, different parts and everything,” Christine added, revealing she shot Ronnie’s scenes in the projector booth on separate days than her co-stars fighting for their lives in theater. “Some people got to film together, some people didn’t. So it was definitely cool to see everything come together.”
“Honestly, I mean, I loved doing that scene… Getting to scream like that and getting drenched in blood and seeing in the actual series how everything turned out, I think it’s super cool.”
IT: Welcome to Derry star Clara Stack
Clara Stack shared that the sequence’s complex logistics were actually really exciting for her.
“There’s a lot going on. My character, she ducks under the the seats, but then other characters are running and jumping over seats and there’s just a bunch going on,” Stack said. “So I think trying to truly portray the fear and endow the emotion while also remembering cues or remembering where to go, I think that was a really cool thing to kind of balance out.”
Amanda Christine said that she was faced with a different technical challenge.
“Actually for Ronnie, I had to learn how to actually work the camera and put the film in and make sure that it was all going and running,” Christine said. “So that was really, really fun to learn and experience.”
Also fun for the girls? A certain shock that might be giving viewers nightmares tonight.
“And that ending scene? Clara?” Christine said, referring to Lilly clutching Susie’s hand. ” Iconic.”
“Thank you. You, too,” Stack said, with a blush.
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