It: Welcome to Derry Finale Will Leave You Devastated — And Its Backwards Storytelling Holds the Key

Two episodes in and we already need a nightlight. 'It: Welcome to Derry' is the prequel ride back into the sewer grates of Stephen King land, and the folks who built it are already teasing how this season ends. Short version: brace yourself.

So what are they teasing?

Co-creators Barbara and Andy Muschietti say the finale is going to hit hard. Barbara put it bluntly to Collider:

'Destroyed.'

Andy, a little gentler but not by much, added:

'There's a feeling of closure. Of course, everybody that knows the movies knows that It is alive in 1989, but there is a trick. There's something that happens and it's related to the reason we're telling the story backwards.'

And if that sounds like he's hinting at some narrative sleight of hand, he is. He followed with:

'Nothing is what it looks like in this world, let me put it that way. I can't be too clear about it.'

How this fits with the movies

The show is set in 1962, decades before the Losers Club story we saw in the recent two-part film adaptation. That naturally raises the big question: if this season delivers 'closure,' why is Pennywise still very much an ongoing nightmare by 1989? Andy's 'there is a trick' line is doing a lot of work here. Given Pennywise's whole deal with bending reality, don't expect a straight line between cause and effect. The series being a prequel is the obvious 'backwards' part; how that plays into the ending is the puzzle they want you thinking about.

Where the show is right now

Early days, but the first two episodes have already left a trail of chaos. The setup is classic Derry: a new group of kids, a feeding cycle ramping up, and a town pretending not to notice. From the sound of it, the intensity is only climbing from here.

The nuts and bolts

'It: Welcome to Derry' runs for eight episodes. It airs on HBO in the US and on Sky Atlantic in the UK.