It: Welcome to Derry Season 1 Sneaks In a Clever Nod to Michael B. Jordan’s $367M Hit

Episode 6 of It: Welcome to Derry takes a breather from red balloons and sewer grates to throw a party — and then quietly turns that party into a powder keg. There is a gutsy, very specific choice here: build a sanctuary, make it feel alive, then show us how fragile it actually is.

The Black Spot: a good time with a target on its back

The episode rolls out The Black Spot, a club run by Black airmen on the army base. It is all music, dancing, laughter — the kind of space where kids and adults can exhale for five minutes and pretend the rest of Derry does not exist. Ronnie gets a chance to reunite with her father, young Will and the others drift in and out, and there is a great little sequence of tipsy drumming and carefree partying that feels like stolen time.

Outside, though, the threat builds. The Maine Legion of White Decency — yes, an actual white supremacist group in the show — is gathering, and the people inside have no idea. The contrast is the point: inside you have warmth, connection, and a taste of freedom; outside it is hate, fear, and the promise of violence. The whole setup doubles as a sly nod to Michael B. Jordan's supernatural thriller Sinners (which pulled in $367 million, per Box Office Mojo) and a clean metaphor for how evil, in Derry, does its best work by exploiting division and fear. Pennywise is not the only thing feeding here.

Episode 6, 'In the Name of the Father,' quietly rewires Pennywise

The hour also sneaks in a major lore swing with a new character: Ingrid Kersh. She is presented as the daughter of Pennywise's clown persona — or, at the very least, someone who firmly believes he is her father. In a 1935 flashback, we see Ingrid as a child at Juniper Hill asylum. Pennywise emerges, she calls him 'Papa,' and suddenly the show is not just about a monster that eats fear. It is about a monster that knows how to twist loss, longing, and broken love into a leash.

That twisted bond becomes a pipeline. Ingrid's grief and guilt are the strings he pulls, and she ends up feeding him children at Juniper Hill, convinced that doing so might bring her 'father' back. It is grim, and it reframes Pennywise less as a jump-scare machine and more as an expert manipulator who turns trauma into compliance.

The clown you do not see (yet): the Jaws playbook

There is also a clear reason you have not seen a ton of Pennywise this season. The showrunners are timing him like a fin slicing the water.

'We decided that, in this season, Pennywise should be a little bit like the shark in Jaws. You really want to be strategic. In both movies, it was very important for us to keep the mystery and the fear for this character alive. We find that familiarity is the enemy of that. So it was important for us to delay the pleasure, or the terror, as much as we could.'

Andy Muschietti calls it 'a slow-burning, game of anticipation' that makes people feel like 'I need to see the clown! Where is it?!'

It is a smart move. By stacking the episode with human cruelty and festering paranoia first, Pennywise's entrance becomes a payoff, not just a pop. It hits harder than a simple jump-scare and reasserts him as the main event when he finally shows.

What is next

It: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 drops Sunday, December 7, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

Are you into the slow-burn approach, or do you want the clown up front and center? I am firmly Team Delay — if you are going to unleash a monster, make me earn the sighting.