Now that is what I call a title sequence. Among the many downsides of the Peak TV era was the plague of infuriatingly boring “prestige” intros. Game of Thrones wasn’t the first to do that schtick of artsy, abstract imagery mixed with memorable music: Nip/Tuck haunted me as a preteen, Grey’s Anatomy was once terrifically clever, and HBO’s Rome preceded Thrones to suggest old-world grandeur. But Game of Thrones‘s popularity had everyone doing their own pale imitations of it, even to the detriment of a show’s actual personality. (Looking at you, Doom Patrol.) When Marvel used generative AI for Secret Invasion, I knew the party was over. Thank heavens for Peacemaker.
So imagine my delight when I fired up IT: Welcome to Derry episode 2, “The Thing in the Dark,” and was treated to what I can only describe as “Norman Rockwell from Hell.” The idyllic nostalgia for an Americana that might have never actually existed, juxtaposed with the utter nightmare of nuclear paranoia and ugly everyday prejudices—IT knows exactly the kind of show it wants to be, and any good TV sequence worth its salt knows how to communicate those ideas at the top. I am not sure if Welcome to Derry will stick with Patience & Prudence (they should), but I do know that I won’t skip these intros anytime soon.
“The Thing in the Dark,” the second episode of what is becoming the show to watch this fall, is another hour of harrowing adolescence and the ugliness of a time period so many believe to be America’s greatest. The brilliance of Stephen King’s IT was, and is, that adults cannot understand children, which renders the dark forces that torture them totally invisible to us. “The Thing in the Dark” marinates in this idea, as a sleepy town tries to move on from a grisly murder case by pinning it on a suspect that seems awfully too convenient for them. Maybe the true evil in Derry isn’t an ancient clown demon after all. Meanwhile, something continues to haunt the children.
Happy Halloween, y’all: Here’s everything that went down in IT: Welcome to Derry episode 2, “The Thing in the Dark.”
Brooke Palmer/HBO
“This Ain’t America. This Is Derry.”
Following the bloodbath of the demon baby in episode 1, the police—represented by Peter Outerbridge as Chief Clint Bowers—struggle to pinpoint a culprit. The easy choice is Hank (Stephen Rider), the theater projectionist, for the simple reason that he’s a Black man and the crime happened in the one place he’d have access to. Never mind his alibi of sitting at home watching Andy Griffith with his mama. Chief Bowers is pressured to arrest someone, justice be damned, and against his own conscience decides to make an arrest.
But what the hell happened in that theater? Even the kids who were there and survived it have no idea. Lilly (Clara Stack) and Ronnie (Amanda Christie), the two biggest outcasts at Derry High, are at odds with as they struggle to make sense of the violence they witnessed. Or rather, Lilly witnessed; Ronnie didn’t actually see anything. And so we have our main point of conflict between them. Ronnie can’t trust Lilly, and Lilly is helpless alone.
And boy are they really vulnerable to Pennywise. In the episode’s standout sequences, Ronnie and Lilly are forced to confront their deepest anxieties; Ronnie’s guilt over how her birth killed her mother (yet another violent pregnancy on HBO) and Lilly still feeling anguish over how her father died in a pickle factory (I can’t ever type that out without laughing a little). Both achievements in design and execution, these sequences balance nightmare-inducing horror and giggling humor in such a way that explains why this particular media franchise has more juice in it than meets the eye. Whatever budget Welcome to Derry has is being put to good use in moments like these. Also, I have a thing against glowing eyes in the dark. Did not expect Welcome to Derry to get me like that.
Clunky as Welcome to Derry‘s mental illness metaphors may be, it’s a credit to both Amanda Christie and Clara Stack how their poor characters feel overpowered by Pennywise’s cruelty. These are children who deserve help, but a 1960s America wasn’t capable of providing that help to them beyond throwing them in an asylum. (A “loony bin,” they might call it!) It’s all the more tragic that Chief Bowers’s wrongful arrest of Ronnie’s dad further drives a wedge between them both. The only characters who might actually understand each other are now miles apart. To say nothing of Matilda Lawler as Marge, whose desperate social climber is starting to have her own arc that could be more consequential down the road.
Blake Cameron James’ performance as Will in episode 2 catapults him into a character of much greater importance. Brooke Palmer
New Kid Blues
Blake Cameron James, as Leroy’s son Will, steps up from minor player in episode 1 to a more important character in episode 2. As the new kid at Derry High, Will suffers all the indignities a new kid might suffer with heaping doses of suspected racism from teachers and peers alike. He has inadvertently made himself an enemy of one teacher, whose red hair and wrinkly pale skin will no doubt serve as a vessel for Pennywise in the future.
But at least Will is making friends. Arian S. Cartaya as Rich, who seems unbothered by social status save for his crush on the Patty Cakes (but which one?), is quickly becoming an ally. As is Ronnie, who meets Will in detention. It’s in detention where Will shines; his optimism about people, and enthusiasm towards the wonders of the universe elevate him into a character we suddenly want nothing bad to happen to. “Maybe I smell bad,” he says after getting engulfed by a stink bomb. But after pointing out that those same chemicals make up the atmosphere on Jupiter and Venus, he says with a smile, “Maybe I’m just covered in stardust.” What a kid. Please let him survive.
Sure, it was pretty obvious that Jovan Adepo’s Leroy was assigned to Derry for a reason. But how, exactly, will he help Uncle Sam get them their prized “weapon”? Brooke Palmer/HBO
“It Was a Test, Son”
I knew it. I KNEW IT.
I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it. I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it!!!
Yeah it was obvious, but I’m glad I got it right: I knew Leroy’s (Jovan Adepo) midnight assault was not Soviet spies or Sgt. Masters harassing a superior officer, but a test issued by General Shaw (James Remar). He claims the level of violence Leroy endured wasn’t intentional. Hmm…
But a test for what? It’s here another plot thread, anchored by Chris Chalk as Dick Halloran—a crossover character from The Shining, as part of King’s multiverse—ties together. Chalk’s Dick, an enigma until now, has been recruited by the U.S. military for his “Shining” abilities. Not everyone is thrilled that so much manpower and resources are being used by the whims of a Black man with supposed superpowers, but we the audience know Dick Halloran’s abilities are real, even if no one knows the true extent of them.
I admit I don’t know this corner of King’s stories too well. But I do know that Dick had a critical part in IT as a founder of The Black Spot, a bar in Derry, Maine that catered to Black soldiers and was burned down by white supremacists. In Welcome to Derry, which seems to precede the creation of The Black Spot, Halloran’s Shining abilities to locate things of importance are being used by the government to find what can only be described as a weapon. One that could be useful in the coming war with the Soviet Union. They might be looking for Pennywise himself.
“Something that was buried in Derry a long time ago,” Shaw says. When Shaw tells Leroy that he is uniquely qualified to find it for them, he says the weapon “generates debilitating fear in anyone who comes near it.” “We don’t know everything about it,” Shaw explains further, “What we do know is that it’s surrounded on all sides by a group of objects. Think of them as beacons. If we can find them, they’ll help us pinpoint the exact location of the weapon itself.”
It’s unclear how Jovan Adepo’s Leroy is meant to help the government get “the weapon” once they find it. It’s even less clear what they know about Dick Halloran’s superpowers, and how anyone found out. It’s all so cryptic and smokescreen-y, but when hasn’t the military been so shady?
In the end, they do find something buried in Derry. But it doesn’t look like a weapon. Instead, it’s the remains of a familiar family in a familiar car, and perhaps the remains of a missing boy named Matty. It’s not the weapon they found, but one of its victims in the ground.
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