IT: Welcome to Derry Ending Explained: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Where Every Character Ends Up

IT: Welcome to Derry sticks the landing by pulling all its threads into one nasty little bow and snapping the franchise clock into place. The prequel doesn't just end; it tees up the 2017 movie cleanly, resets that 27-year cycle, and drops a couple of wild connections to the larger Stephen King sandbox. If you finished the finale and need a clear, no-B.S. rundown of who did what and where everyone ends up, here's the cheat sheet.

Quick snapshot: the show comes from Jason Fuchs with Andy and Barbara Muschietti, based on Stephen King's It. It runs 8 episodes, stars Bill Skarsgård, Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Clara Stack, Amanda Christine, Mikkal Karim-Fidler and more. So far it's sitting at 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.8/10 on IMDb. You can stream it on HBO Max.

How the finale sets the stage

Pennywise gets shoved back into hibernation, the sacred dagger goes back where it belongs, and the cycle snaps shut so the next big flare-up lands in 1989 — right where the 2017 movie picks up with the kids. The real curveball: IT tells Marge that he will die in 2016 at the hands of the grown-up Losers Club. Make of that what you will — future sight, time loops, or something stranger — but the show is very clearly pointing from this prequel to both the 2017 kid timeline and the 2016 showdown with the adults.

Who ends where (and why it matters)

1. General Shaw (James Remar) — A military man with a terrible idea: trap IT and turn him into a weapon. He takes his operation into Derry's woods, tries to cage the monster, and it goes exactly how you'd expect. He loses control, comes face-to-face with Pennywise, and gets killed. The plan dies with him.
2. Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) — IT prods at his mind, but Dick pushes back. Using his psychic abilities, he tracks the kids and helps them return the sacred dagger to its rightful spot, even pushing into IT's headspace to do it. At the end, he talks with Leroy about his next gig: heading off to be a cook at a hotel in the UK. The show is clearly nodding at The Shining with that wink.
3. Pennywise/IT (Bill Skarsgård) — Back to sleep he goes. Before napping, he tells Marge that he dies in 2016 thanks to the adult Losers Club. Either he's glimpsing the future or playing some long, nasty game across time. Either way, it bridges this series to the films.
4. Rose (Kimberly Guerrero) — She loses her nephew Taniel to Galoo and walks away from her farm, selling it to the Hanlons. From there she forms a secret society to keep watch over Derry and its curse. Quiet move, big ripple.
5. Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) — The show doesn't shy away from how Derry treats him; racism is baked into the town's rot. Leroy gets discharged on the condition that he stays quiet about General Shaw's covert operation. After Rose sells them the farm, the Hanlons stick around and join her mission to protect Derry from IT.
6. Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) — Maybe the most emotional arc. Wrongly accused of killing kids, he busts out of prison, fakes his death, and — with Rose's help — heads to Montreal with his daughter to start over.
7. Ronnie Grogan (Amanda Christine) — She leaves for Montreal with her dad, but she and Will share a kiss and promise to keep writing. She tells Will she won't forget him or Derry.
8. Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige) — The fighter of the family. She pushes Leroy to stay and stand up for Derry, buys Rose's farm, and starts over just outside town. She also joins Rose's secret society with her husband. She isn't in the 2017 movie while Leroy is, which reads like a hint that she likely doesn't die during the 1989 stretch of IT's curse.
9. Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) — Will gets knocked around by life but manages to build something: he makes friends, promises to write Ronnie, and later marries and has a child. The bad news you know from the original story: Will and his wife die in a house fire, and their son, Mike, is raised by Leroy.
10. Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) — The dagger messes with her head and she starts to crack, but her friends pull her back and they rally against Pennywise together. In the post-credit scene, the show reveals Lilly grows up to be Beverly Marsh's mother — and she's the character who dies by suicide in 1988.
11. Richie Santos (Arian S. Cartaya) — He dies in episode 7 — one of the season's grimmer exits — but he's not gone from the story. Richie still shows up to help his friends return the dagger to its sacred place.
12. Marge Truman (Matilda Lawler) — The ringleader when it counts. She gets the crew to restore the dagger, cages Pennywise, and by doing that locks Galoo into the 27-year cycle. IT also tells her that she'll grow up to have a son named Richie who will be the one to kill him. That is a bold bit of foreshadowing.
13. Ingrid Kersh, aka Periwinkle the Clown (Madeleine Stowe) — Ingrid loses her grip and ends up committed to Juniper Hill Sanitarium. The bad news doesn't stop there: down the line, Pennywise takes Ingrid's form to torment Beverly Marsh.

Loose ends, neatly tied

The dagger goes back, Pennywise goes to sleep, and the clock is now fixed so the next phase hits 1989 — teeing up the 2017 movie — while that 2016 line points to where the adult Losers end it. The show even flirts with other King lore through Dick Hallorann and that hotel tease. It's a surprisingly clean handoff for a story this messy and mean.

Season 1 clearly leaves the door open for Season 2. Until then, IT: Welcome to Derry is streaming on HBO Max.