Last Updated on October 24, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Stephen King’s IT, in a lot of ways, is as mysterious as it is beloved. There are countless references and events that receive one-off mentions without ever being explored or explained, leaving Pennywise skipping down the sewers with an endless trail of questions in his wake. Those questions, though, have always been part of the allure of IT. The lack of answers helped make the clown all the scarier! Because of that, the very premise of IT: Welcome to Derry is an odd one, but it's one that left us curious all the same.
The show’s premiere only extends that curiosity, laying a trail of crumbs that reads as familiar to those who’ve spent their lives poring over King’s work, but still leaving plenty of space to wonder what that scamp of a celestial being, Pennywise, is going to do to ’60s Derry (outside of what we already know, of course). For now, the premise is both simple and familiar: a young loner boy named Matty (Miles Ekhardt) seeks to escape his terrible life in Derry, but instead finds himself face to face with a nightmare far beyond his years. The rest of the pilot (titled only “The Pilot,” but used as a double entendre that will become evident after watching) explores the fallout from Matty’s disappearance, setting up far more questions than it answers. Alongside Matty and the kids’ arc is that of an Air Force base whose purpose is not entirely clear just yet.
As far as series premieres are concerned, “The Pilot” does its job on a narrative level, setting the tone for both the upcoming story and the horrors that are to come. We meet a group of misfit kids, find ourselves introduced to Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) — that’s Mike Hanlon’s grandfather, for those whose ears perked up at the last name — and kick things off with one hell of a nightmare birth scene.
The effects of said scene are admirable so far as the, y’know… birthing is concerned (you do, in fact, see it all). We don’t see Pennywise outright in this first episode, but we do see several people’s faces morphing into his distorted grin. This birth scene — taking place in the car of the family meant to abscond Matty from his nightmare town — is the first of such instances, with the Pleasantville-esque family’s already creepy cordialness evolving into full-blown horrors as a grotesque creature falls from the mother to the floor of the car before unleashing the chaos that will ultimately lead to Matty’s (apparent) untimely demise.
Unfortunately, unlike the birthing itself, the first of Pennywise’s grotesque creations doesn’t look quite right, and not just because it’s a multi-headed demon baby with wings. There’s a glossiness to the creature that makes the VFX seem unrendered both in its first introduction and when the monster re-appears later in the episode. The same glossiness appears later in the nightmares of Terry (Mikkal Karim Fidler), who sees a horrific lampshade after his father puts an idea in his head earlier at dinner. To be clear, these effects look the same way you would expect any other television show to look but, because a greater standard has been set by HBO, their odd sheen is unexpected. Still, they’re not bad enough to pull you out of the episode entirely and it’s easy to give them a little bit of a pass after the otherwise solid birthing scene.
The dialogue is, as expected, packed full with gee-whizzes, good-gollies, and other products of the time. We get a throwaway “not like other girls” line that grates, that could also be explained away by the period-nature of the series but, given that it also features a cosmic clown from hell, we don’t actually have to accept silly lines like that in our entertainment.
As far as references are concerned, King fans are eating well in IT: Welcome to Derry’s debut. The bus for Shawshank and Dick Hallorann were already revealed in the trailer (neither of which appear in this first episode), but the series itself is perfectly comfortable with getting more granular in its nods to both the source material and King’s universe at large. Breaking all of them down here would spoil the fun, but King fans should rest assured that there will be plenty of screen-pointing moments that will make you feel like you’re in on the happenings going down in Derry, Maine.
IT: Welcome to Derry is setting up a mystery that will undoubtedly find itself wrapped in countless horrors. Though, while most of the action revolves around the younger characters, there’s a lot of work to be done so far as getting us engaged in the children’s half of the story is concerned. We both meet and lose several new characters early on which, while good for overall intrigue and setting up significant stakes, doesn’t do much to keep you hooked on the kids’ arc in the pilot. Major Hanlon, on the other hand, is a different story entirely.
Though we see far less of Hanlon than we do the kids’ side of the story, “The Pilot” easily sets him up as the most intriguing character so far. King made a point to highlight the horrors that the Black population of Derry experienced throughout the ages and, given that we’re smack dab in 1962 and we’re already aware of Dick Hallorann inclusion in the show, we will undoubtedly be entering The Black Spot before the season’s end. In the meantime, this first episode makes what the Hanlon family experience will be in Derry abundantly clear while still also immediately highlighting the character’s resolve.
Ultimately, what showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane have set up alongside the Muschiettis here might have a few rough edges, but it sets up its story in a way that immediately makes you excited to tune in week to week. King fans might know the big beats coming down the pipeline and the point may be not to know everything about Pennywise, but IT: Welcome to Derry sets up the story in a way that leaves you eager for more anyway.
IT: Welcome to Derry premieres on HBO and HBO Max on October 26 at 9PM ET/6PM PT. Subsequent episodes will air at the same time slot every Sunday.
