IT: Welcome to Derry ends with a clever twist that simultaneously sets up Season 2 and fixes my biggest frustration with the other prequels
which Just like Pennywise, IT: Welcome to Derry is a strange and curious beast. The two don’t quite fit where they’re supposed to, transcending time and space in the most unlikely of ways. This is true for Pennywise, as he is an interdimensional entity of unfathomable cosmic origin. But it’s also true for the show itself.
Welcome to Derry is a prequel that takes place backwards, starting in 1962 before planning a flashback to 1935 in the (currently unconfirmed) second season, and then to 1908 in the planned third and final season. But why take us further and further into the past when we already know the outcome?
Please note: there is Major spoilers for IT: welcome to the Derry finale forward – go back now if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t want to know what happens!
Keep it in the family
Episode 8 begins with Pennywise waking up after one of the pillars enclosing him was suddenly removed. Free to renew his reign of dancing terror, everyone’s favorite demon clown uses the Deadlights on an entire cohort of schoolchildren, including Will.
Lilly, Ronnie and Marge pursue them, until they are confronted by Pennywise on the ice. Their dagger, made of the same material that imprisoned him in Derry, could only fend him off for so long before it pulled Marge’s feet out from under her, separating the one-eyed wonder from her friends.
With Marge now alone on the ice, Pennywise begins to taunt her, and it soon becomes clear that he did not choose her at random. “I always wondered what your taste was, Margaret Truman,” Pennywise said. “But not yet… First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Richie in the stroller… Unless he dies with you?”
Marge, being a literal child and all, is as confused as she is scared by this point. “Your son!” Pennywise continued. “The seed of your stinking loins and his friends bring my death. Or is it birth? I’m confused. Today, tomorrow, yesterday… All the same for little Pennywise. It’s not always easy to be locked in the same place, once.”
It is logical that a being of cosmic origin perceives time differently, experiencing different eras at the same time. But this is the first time Pennywise has revealed that this is the case. And the implications of this are positively game-changing, not just for Welcome to Derry, but for the IT franchise as a whole.
However, we have little time to dwell on that, as Pennywise is about to make shish kebab with Marge with his teeth. Luckily, Dick Hallorann intervenes and psychically freezes the monster just in time.
Back to the future
The biggest shock of all this is the confirmation that Marge is indeed the future mother of Richie Tozier, Finn Wolfhard’s character in the IT movies who helps defeat Pennywise for good. The dancing clown even shows Marge a photo of her unborn child in one of the missing posters displayed during Pennywise’s future reign of terror.
Fans have long suspected this to be the case, especially after Rich sacrificed himself to save Marge in “The Black Spot.” It makes sense that she would name her child after the boy she loved to honor his memory. But there’s more to this scene than just a twist or a fun little Easter egg.
Marge and Lilly later unpack this after the gang arrests Pennywise and (apparently) save the day. “[Pennywise] said that I was going to have a son and that he and his friends… They will kill him in the future. That’s why he wanted to kill me. He told her that the past, present and future were the same and that her death was actually her birth. »
The day was saved in 1962, just as it would be saved by the next group of kids in 1989, but what if Pennywise had Did you manage to kill Marge? This would have undone the events of the film that led to his eventual demise. And it doesn’t stop there either.
“What if [It] Does he see time differently?” Marge wonders. “What if he could go back in time? I know this sounds crazy, but what if he tried to go back and kill someone before we were born, like our parents. »
“I guess it’ll be someone else’s fight,” Lilly responds, and then the kids leave, free to mourn Rich and celebrate their victory over Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
But we can’t get out of here. Not yet. Because that means each season of the show is connected much more deeply than we could have ever predicted. We’re not just diving back into the history of Derry and what happens every time Pennywise wakes up. We now follow him as he travels back in time to undo his own disappearance, changing the past to save himself in the future.
This big reveal raises the stakes considerably, as there is now a larger battle to fight. Even victory against Pennywise in the films that preceded this series is in jeopardy. And because we’re traveling backwards, the children of the past who had to deal with all of this can’t even know what to do or how to win.
Just like that, it suddenly becomes very clear why Muschietti and his team chose to work backwards in this way, setting up not only the following season but also the entire premise of the series itself. Although it’s a prequel, we have no idea what’s going to happen, and everything we know could change in the blink of an eye or two simple steps thanks to Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
All episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry are now streaming on HBO Max in the US and NOW in the UK. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the best new TV shows coming in 2026.
