Stephen King Teases a Beloved Character’s Comeback in IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1

Two episodes into IT: Welcome to Derry and the clown is still offstage, but the show is already throwing nasty curveballs and mean little jump scares. If you were hoping for a quiet stroll through 1960s Maine, sorry. This thing is gory, weird, and already playing with bigger ideas than just a monster in a sewer.

So... where is Pennywise?

Stephen King isn’t saying when he shows up, but he did tease the payoff in a New York Post interview:

"When Pennywise finally appears, he's still scary as hell."

Translation: patience. Bill Skarsgard is back in the greasepaint, same guy who turned the role into a cultural nightmare in the 2017 movie and the 2019 sequel, so at least we’re not waiting for a watered-down knockoff.

What the first two episodes actually do

This is a prequel to King’s novel and the films, set in Derry, Maine. The show takes its time with the clown and instead dives into how the town gets rotten.

• Episode 1 (1962): We meet Matty Clements, a kid trying to hitchhike out of Derry. A nice-seeming family picks him up. Then the mom suddenly goes into labor and delivers a grotesque, winged thing in the car. Matty gets dragged into the darkness and that’s it for him. Local kids start poking around about Matty’s disappearance, end up at the Capital Theater, the lights go haywire, and they’re attacked by the same creature. Only Lilly and Ronnie make it out alive.
• Episode 2: Aftermath time. Lilly is shattered and barely holding it together. The town pretends nothing happened (because of course it does), while little signs pile up that something powerful is stirring. Then the show drops the strangest card yet: General Francis Shaw says there’s a classified program in Derry called 'Operation Precept' that’s literally trying to weaponize fear and poke at the supernatural. Subtle? Not at all. Intriguing? Absolutely.

The vibe so far

The series is going for a slow-burn origin of a cursed town, with bursts of absolute nightmare fuel. The idea that Derry isn’t just unlucky but actively complicit is the most interesting swing here. The whole 'government meddling with terror' angle is wild, but it fits the show’s mood: people in power ignoring horror until they can use it.

When to watch

New episodes drop Sundays at 9 PM EST on HBO. Two are out now, with more rolling weekly.

Thoughts so far? Traumatized? Curious? Waiting for the clown? Same.