Inside of IT: Welcome to Derry, the prequel series to the Stephen King franchise coming to HBO, is two shows. One of the shows is a weird, wild take on the history of Derry and Pennywise the evil clown, from the perspective of the Cold War. The other is just IT, again, but with different kids in the 1960s instead of the 1980s. Neither of these shows is particularly good, but at least one is more interesting than the other.
On the second show, with some twists and turns here and there, we get the plot we all know well from multiple adaptations of IT, as well as the original novel by King. A bunch of kids, one by one, start having nightmarish encounters that play on their intrinsic fears. Once they start to realize they’re not alone in this, they join together to stop the force that is terrorizing them, which, of course, is Pennywise, the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård).
Don’t get too excited here; whether due to a misguided sense of the Jaws philosophy of keeping the monster off-screen to build tension, or more likely, a general lack of availability for Skarsgård, the main clown attraction is barely in the series (at least based on the five episodes provided for review by critics). When Pennywise does show up? They nail his entrance, and it shows why Skarsgård was so impactful in the two more recent IT movies, which led directly to this prequel. But without him, we’re given a Surf Dracula of a show that leaves us with pale, mostly unfleshed-out echoes of the Losers Club from IT. Nothing against these kid actors, but they really aren’t given much to do, and every line is pitched like they’re in the midst of a high school production of Grease.
There’s nothing new or fascinating in this section of the show, other than more extreme gore that might satisfy some horror heads. But most of the scares boil down to variations on the strangely stretched CGI monster running at the children and screaming in their faces, which got old halfway through the running time of Andy Muschietti’s 2017 IT. And that’s not mentioning the show’s bizarre and unexplained obsession with birth trauma, as well as an abysmal foray into using the Holocaust for cheap scares, right after a broadly antisemitic scene involving one of the main kid characters.
Like with IT: Chapter Two, which introduces a homophobic attack at the beginning of the movie for… Reasons… The series doesn’t delve too deeply into the ‘60s issues it brings up, from racism and sexism to antisemitism… They’re just fodder for more screaming monsters that, frankly, aren’t that scary. Not to give this show notes, but speaking as a Jew, having your Jewish family eat challah and matzah ball soup for dinner and then get yelled at by a lampshade made of Jewish skin is not playing with historical themes; it’s just gross.
Somewhat more successful is the other half of the show, which at least tries something different – or rather, uses some of the less fleshed out material from King’s IT to build out the mythology of Derry, Pennywise, and parallels an unknowable, constant fear of the other with the actual fear-based monster living in the sewers under the town. Pivoting off a small detail from the book that Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), aka the head chef from The Shining, saved Losers Club member Mike Hanlon’s grandfather, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), from a fire in an army bar called The Black Spot, we get to see the duo slowly get to know each other through a secret military mission to weaponize Pennywise to win the Cold War.
But here too, the janky acting and writing, and broad characterizations work against the overall thrust of the series. We’re told that Leroy is recruited because he suffered an injury that removed his amygdala, and thus his fear response. But that barely seems to impact any of the proceedings, including in an episode that apes Aliens without any of the thrill of the 1986 classic. And while Chalk, always excellent, does his best with a role that seems less like the kindly Hallorann who mentored Danny Torrance than a young Professor X from the X-Men movies, and throws in mythology from The Shining and the sequel Doctor Sleep without explanation, he’s also not much more than “weird psychic guy.”
On this side of the show, we delve into even more uncomfortable territory, exploring Indigenous mysticism, which was previously brushed over quickly in IT: Chapter Two. There’s more time spent with the Indigenous population, but the series seems less concerned by the fact that they’ve been displaced by the mostly caucasian residents of Derry and now the US military than “they’ve been keeping the secret history of Pennywise.” Similarly, Leroy’s wife, Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige), gets an intriguing storyline as a Civil Rights activist who got in trouble in the South, discovering the more open-minded North has its own strain of racism bubbling below the surface. But as of the first five episodes, this doesn’t seem to connect well to the overall narrative other than to point out that racism exists.
Look: the idea of a Black family moving to a small, Maine town in the ’60s and dealing with underlying racism is intriguing, both through their interactions with their neighbors and their jobs and school. The idea of the Indigenous population wrestling with the theft of their land? Also interesting. Kids dealing with the specter of nuclear annihilation? The military dealing with the Cold War by trying to weaponize something they don’t understand? Great fodder for thematic resonance. Add in the idea of a fear monster playing off all of this, working as both metaphor and external threat? It could be great stuff. Instead, pivoting off one of the dullest and most embarrassingly didactic pilots I’ve seen in a long time, the show seems more interested in pale imitations of the already repetitive scares it drove into the sewer in two movies than fully exploring any of these ideas. It makes gestures at far too many subjects than the slight scripts can handle, when focus is key.
Of the shows in HBO’s IP era, The Batman spinoff The Penguin is the high watermark, while IT: Welcome to Derry is the low, a poorly constructed and half-baked extension that is improperly thought out and often insulting. While there are intriguing bits here that may build to a crescendo in the final three episodes of the season, and Skarsgård is iconic as Pennywise when he does (briefly) appear, this is a show that does not deserve to be on the same network that gave us The Wire, Deadwood, Game of Thrones, and many, many others. It’s a blatant play to buff up a streaming library, rather than actually say anything fresh; an eight hour long “watch next” button on HBO Max. The unfortunate takeaway here is that after a generally well-received first movie and a generally mixed to negative reception to the second movie, to paraphrase Richie (Finn Wolfhard) from IT? It’s time to kill this f**king clown.
IT: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26, 2025, at 9 pm ET/PT on HBO, and streams on HBO Max.
IT: Welcome To Derry Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of IT: Welcome To Derry premiere on Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9pm ET.
Here’s the full list of episodes in IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 with premiere dates:
- Sunday, October 26, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 1
- Sunday, November 2, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 2
- Sunday, November 9, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 3
- Sunday, November 16, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 4
- Sunday, November 23, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 5
- Sunday, November 30, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 6
- Sunday, December 7, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 7
- Sunday, December 14, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
Where To Watch IT: Welcome To Derry
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