We Counted Every Stephen King Easter Egg in It: Welcome to Derry Episode 3
HBO Max’s It: Welcome to Derry lands Episode 3, Now You See It, on November 9, 2025, a lore-charged installment that forges bold links between the 1962 prequel and the 2017 and 2019 films while cracking open new paths through Stephen King’s wider universe.
Episode 3 of It: Welcome to Derry is where the show stops hinting and starts connecting dots. Titled 'Now You See It', it lands on HBO Max November 9, 2025, and it is stacked with deep-cut ties to Stephen King lore. The season sticks to a weekly rollout across eight episodes, wrapping December 14, 2025. If you are here for the larger King universe, this is the one that says, pretty loudly, 'Yes, it all fits together.'
1962 sets the trap for 1989
The prequel takes full advantage of King’s 27-year cycle: Pennywise wakes up, feeds, disappears, rinse and repeat. By anchoring the show in 1962, Episode 3 lines up exactly 27 years ahead of the 2017 film’s 1989 timeline with the Losers Club. That choice is not just for flavor; it frames how decades-old trauma baked Derry into what the kids eventually inherit.
The series also pushes a decidedly bold thread: Operation Precept. That’s a Cold War program where the U.S. military tries to study, track, and, yes, weaponize the thing in the sewers. The implication is clear — the government clocked Pennywise long before the Losers ever did.
Hallorann is the crossover key
Dick Hallorann shows up and immediately becomes the show’s biggest multiverse swing. The same Hallorann from The Shining. Here, his psychic sensitivity powers an aerial search for old massacre sites, homing in on what he reads as psychic beacons left by Pennywise’s victims. Along the way he is slammed with visions: carnival barker patter, piles of toys, and those glowing eyes you do not want to see at 3 a.m.
On a story level, Hallorann gives Operation Precept its supernatural tracking tech — it is his gift that lets them triangulate the horror. On a bigger-picture level, the creative team — showrunner Brad Caleb Kane with Andy and Barbara Muschietti — uses him as a bridge between the Overlook’s evil and Derry’s. Different nightmares, same cosmic rules.
The fire that keeps burning: The Black Spot
The season’s emotional fuse is the Black Spot, the nightclub burned down in 1962. That ties directly to Mike Hanlon’s family history from King’s novel and sets up why Mike becomes the keeper of Derry’s memory in the 1989 story. Will Hanlon, played by Blake Cameron James, co-founded the club while serving as an Army cook. The arson that follows is not just a chapter-ending tragedy — it is the kind of wound that never fully closes and explains a lot about who Mike becomes later.
Easter eggs with teeth
Episode 3 is loaded with King-world references, and a bunch of them are not casual. Some are big swings, some are blink-and-you-miss-it, and a few are the kind of deep cut that will make constant readers grin. Here are the confirmed nods packed into this hour:
- Dick Hallorann’s aerial search sequences, directly tying Derry to The Shining
- A Shawshank Redemption prison subplot centered on Hank Grogan
- Visual callbacks to the Bradley Gang massacre woven into the opening credits
- Orixa ritual elements adding a layer of Afro-diasporic spirituality to the town’s hauntings
- The full-on Military Operation Precept subplot
- Pennywise appearing in carnival barker mode across vision sequences
- Implicit Dark Tower echoes surfacing through Hallorann’s visions
- Continuing turtle symbolism pointing toward Maturin
- Juniper Hill Asylum references, cementing ties to other King stories
The turtle keeps showing up for a reason
If you have clocked the turtles, you are not imagining things. In King’s cosmology, Maturin is the counterweight to Pennywise — one of the twelve Guardians of the Beams that uphold the Dark Tower itself. The show keeps nudging the idea forward: Cold War 'Bert the Turtle' imagery, and a Cracker Jack turtle charm worn by Lilly. Episode 3 continues that drumbeat, and it sure feels like the series is gearing up to make Maturin more than a wink.
Juniper Hill and the wider map
Juniper Hill Asylum pops up here too, and that single institution connects Welcome to Derry to at least a dozen-plus other King works, including The Tommyknockers, Gerald’s Game, and 11/22/63. It is one of those world-building anchors that quietly widens the map without stopping the story cold.
So where is this heading?
Between Hallorann’s psychic recon, Operation Precept’s meddling, and the Black Spot’s looming tragedy, Episode 3 does the heavy lifting of tying 1962 to the 2017 and 2019 films — not just in vibe, but in cause and effect. And yes, the show goes there with the government knowing about Pennywise decades before the kids. Subtle? Not really. Effective? Absolutely.
It: Welcome to Derry drops new episodes weekly on HBO Max. Episode 3 hits November 9. What references did you spot that I missed? Drop them below — the weirder, the better.