For months now, the folks behind IT: Welcome to Derry on HBO have been promising a twist, or trick, in the finale that would explain why the show will be going backwards in time for subsequent seasons. Well, they weren’t kidding because — spoilers past this point — “Winter Fire,” the Season 1 finale, changed everything with a time travel twist involving Pennywise’s birth. Or should we say death?
We’re being a little cagey here, but don’t worry… We will actually explain and break down what went on, and how it not only redefines what’s been going on in IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1, but changes what we know about IT and IT: Chapter Two as well.
First though, a brief (hopefully) recap of the IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 finale… Then the ending explained, and a few other sundry bits for your delight and amusement.
IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 Finale Recap:
In case you forgot like a kid leaving Derry, the big cliffhanger from last week’s episode was that one of the mystical pillars that kept Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skårsgard) trapped in Derry was melted down by the US army. Also, Pennywise did his Deadlights thing on poor Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James)… Though you don’t have to worry about him too much because we know he’s going to go ahead and have a kid named Mike Hanlon who will eventually help kill Pennywise. And last detail, as it’s important here, the army, led by General Francis Shaw (James Remar) has this whole plan to release Pennywise into the wild so that he can eat a bunch of kids every 27 years and then America will be great again. Somehow. I don’t think they’ve thought this through, but what do I know? I am but a humble TV journalist.
Okay, back to the episode at hand. A strange mist — not from The Mist — envelopes the town of Derry right in the opening, now that Pennywise is ready to “do” America, to borrow a phrase from Beavis and Butthead. It seems likely this is supposed to evoke an atomic cloud, a la the vague theme they occasionally touch on in this series but never really embrace in any particular fashion.
Pennywise, before he leaves town, decides he needs some road snacks. So after killing the Derry High School principal, he summons all the kids to the auditorium, does a quick musical number, and then wins the Guinness World Record for Most Deadlight’d Children At The Same Time. And this leads to the eeriest sequence in the episode… Pennywise leading a line of floating children through the icy mist, riding on Bob Gray‘s (also Skårsgard) carnival carriage while playing an off-tune tuba. It’s all pretty great and classic Pennywise, though one (meaning: me) might wish that most of the episode wasn’t therefore spent running around though digital mist and fog instead of offering up classic images like this.
Anywho, back to our remaining heroes, Lilly (Clara Stack), Marge (Matilda Lawler), and Ronnie (Amanda Christine) all quickly realize that Will has been taken, Pennywise stole all the kids, and they’ve got a mystical dagger which can take down the clown. “I want to kill that f**king clown,” Marge says angrily while they steal a milk truck, in the first of many prequel-itis Easter eggs littered throughout the episode. In case you forgot this one, “I’m gonna have to kill this f**king clown,” is what Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard) said in IT, and then he was prompted to say again in IT: Chapter Two (now played by Bill Hader). Why did Marge says this? Well, stay tuned.
Over to the adults for a second, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) is absolutely losing his mind now that he’s let the literal ghosts in, and is about to end it all when Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) drags him to see Rose (Kimberly Guerrero). She’s got Maturin root, which is our second big Easter egg in the episode. In IT: Chapter Two, Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) explains that the native people gave him Maturin root to provide visions about IT’s history.
Maturin, from Stephen King’s novel, is an ancient turtle who provides order where IT provides chaos. That’s the simple version, but where IT/Pennywise directly interferes with human events, Maturin nudges. If you’ve seen the turtle shells and high school mascots and bracelet charms littered throughout Welcome to Derry, that’s how Maturin helps… He’s kind of just around. And here, he provides focus for Dick as he helps the adults track down the missing kids.
More specifically, they realize something that likely every viewer realized several episode back: they can use the dagger Lilly has to replace the melted pillar, and keep Pennywise trapped in Derry. They also drop a lot of nonsense mythology about how the pillar/dagger wants to return to the comet that brought IT to Earth, and it also corrupts people, and blah blah blah whatever. Honestly all you really need to know is that Lilly carrying around the dagger is making her more paranoid than a veteran hepped up on wacky weed, and also it’s gonna be tough to stick the dagger under a tree — which is where the adults determine is the best place to put it because it’s the farthest place they can complete the magic circle/prison that holds Pennywise.
Anyway, that brings us to our endgame, which is set on the ice river at the border of Derry, as Pennywise tries to leave town and everyone chases after him.
IT: Welcome to Derry Ending Explained: Pennywise Is Going Back In Time
Remember we mentioned the whole Marge saying something Richie said in IT thing? Well, this is where the wild, game-changing twist comes into play. After getting separated by the extremely cool and interesting to look at digital fog, Marge is cornered by Pennywise who calls her… Margaret Tozier. Yep, as suspected, Marge is the mom of Richie Tozier, and clearly named her son in honor of the dear, departed Richie Santos (Arian S. Cartaya).
Just in case you didn’t get it, Pennywise brings out a missing poster of none other than the young Richie Tozier (Wolfhard), says “Beep beep, Margie,” just like how he says “Beep beep, Richie,” in IT, and then drops a bomb. Specifically that he already knows Richie and his friends will kill him, leading to his death. “Or is it birth?” says Pennywise admitting that he doesn’t live his life in the proper order. Not only that, he’s not just tired of being confined to one town, he’s tired of being confined to one time.
We’re going to break this down out of order here because a lot more happens before we get to this, but later in the episode Marge hypothesizes that Pennywise is actually heading back in time from his death via the Losers and trying to eliminate them from history. So the reason Pennywise targeted her is that she is the mother of Richie, who helps lead to his doom. What Marge doesn’t realize is that Ronnie and Will are Mike’s parents (they kiss towards the end of the episode, though Ronnie leaves town), so she’s sort of on the right track.
While also not explicated, back in the premiere Pennywise killed Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), the uncle of Losers Club member Stan Uris, while leaving Stan’s dad Dan (Finley Burke) alive and untouched. Unaccounted for are other Losers Club ancestors like anyone from the Marsh family, the Denbrough family, the Hanscom family, and the Kaspbrak family. So what about Lilly? Is she someone’s mama? Without listing every parent of a Losers Club member the answer — unless she changed her first name — seems to be “no.” So if Pennywise’s plan is to eliminate the Losers Club before they’re even born, he’s doing a bad job of it. Also in general he should stop screwing around, but that’s neither here nor there.
This part gets into pure speculation, but Season 2 will jump back to 1935, while Season 3 will take place in 1908. It seems likely that Pennywise will keep growing in knowledge and power as the seasons progress and he tries to destroy the various bloodlines that lead to his destruction in 2016, in IT: Chapter Two. And before you scream “retcon,” just know that IT is an entity that exists outside time and space in the novel as well… So while this direct time travel backwards is a conceit for Welcome to Derry, there’s nothing that says Pennywise is constricted by linear time in the source material.
It kind of works, and definitely makes things interesting as he travels backwards… We think we know what he’s headed towards with the Losers Club, but can he change things? There are certainly hints throughout King’s other novels that the assassination of Pennywise by the coward Richie Tozier (and friends) may not be as permanent as it seems. So it’s possible there’s a bigger twist coming that would allow more IT movies in the future. Yeah! IP extensions! So cool!
Okay, so back to the episode itself, not to speed through everything else but the army comes in and interrupts the adults from securing the dagger under the tree, so it’s up to the kids to do it, with them pushing against the reluctant dagger and Pennywise crawling behind him as he repeatedly gets shot in the head. There’s also a prety neat sequence where Dick gets in Pennywise’s head and tricks him into thinking he’s Bob Gray, but tricky Dick’s clowning around can’t beat a dick clown, so Pennywise breaks free.
In the resulting chaos, Taniel (Joshua Odjick) gets shot and killed, Shaw gets eaten by Pennywise, and Richie Santos’ ghost comes back to help save the day, pushing the dagger into the ground just as Losers Club ’62 is about to grabbed by an extremely cool dragon form of Pennywise. “Lively crowd,” says the clown as he retreats to his slumber for another 27 years, the prison replaced around Derry.
There’s still some business to wrap up, including Richie Santos’ funeral, and the Hanlons decide to stay in Derry, now working with the Native people to keep the town as safe as possible every 27 years. Dick, meanwhile, decides to head to London, he’s got a shot at cooking at a hotel. When asked whether he has an experience cooking, he says, “I think I’ll manage. I mean, how much trouble can a hotel be?”
This is of course a reference to the classic Stephen King novel Cujo, about a killer dog. Just kidding, Dick goes on to be the chef at the Overlook hotel in The Shining, and that place is a whole lot of trouble indeed. And then with the main action wrapped up, just as happened at the end of IT though less of a surprise here, a title card comes up that says, “IT: Welcome to Derry…. Chapter One.“
But wait, there’s more.
IT: Welcome To Derry Brings Back Sophia Lillis For One Last Scare
Surprise! There’s a post-credits scene. In it, we cut to Ingrid Kersh (Madeliene Stowe) being committed to Juniper Hill, the asylum she used to work at. She’s been driven insane by the Deadlights in the previous episode, and as time passes we cut to October, 1988, and surprise, surprise, Ingrid is now played by Joan Gregson, just like how she is in IT: Chapter Two. She’s painting an abstract clown, when she hears a commotion down the hall.
Ingrid hobbles down, and overhears that Elfrida Marsh hung herself, and there is a man and a girl sobbing at her feet. In case that name sounds familiar… Yep, it’s Beverly Marsh’s (Sophia Lilis) mother, and while we don’t see her dad, Lillis turns around once Mrs. Kersh starts talking to her.
“Oh, don’t be sad,” Mrs. Kersh says with a creepy smile. “You know what they say about Derry, dear. No one who dies here ever really dies.”
So a lot to unpack here, but the important bits are that October, 1988 is when Pennywise reemerges and eats poor Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) in IT. The implication perhaps is that Elfrida killed herself because of Pennywise, or the negative energy coursing through Derry. This also marks the first meeting of Mrs. Kersh and Beverly Marsh… And possibly the only meeting, because when we see Ingrid in Chapter Two, that’s actually Pennywise — not Ingrid. So as to what happened to the real Ingrid, TBD, though it’s likely she’s dead by 2016 and Pennywise is merely playing on this memory of a creepy old woman showing up during one of Beverly’s most traumatic moments.
And that’s it! See you back next season for fun in 1935!
When Will IT: Welcome To Derry Season 2 Premiere?
So first of all, as of this writing, Welcome to Derry hasn’t officially been picked up for Season 2. However, a writers room began back in mid-June, and there’s some indication that filming could begin in March of 2026.
As for if there is a renewal and when it will premiere… Tricky to say because Season 1 hit significant hiccups. Filming began in May of 2023, was interrupted by the SAG/WGA strikes, then ended up finishing in August of 2024. And then as you’re likely aware, didn’t premiere until October, 2025. That’s pretty atypical for a TV show, though less so for the streaming era. If the show is picked up, and things continue apace, it’s likely it would film for anywhere from four to six months, followed by six months of post-production.
A lot of that also likely depends on Bill Skårsgard’s schedule, as while Season 2 would likely have a mostly new cast (flashbacks and flash-forwards aside), Skårsgard is a must. So assuming all of that, the earliest Season 2 would premiere is some time in 2027. That’s pretty vague, but assuming at least 10 months total, February 2027 is probably the earliest, though more likely later in the year than that.
Hey, at least it’s not another 27 years, right?
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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