Welcome to Derry Showrunner Reveals Last-Minute Cameo That Reframes a Terrifying Pennywise Scene in It: Chapter Two

Welcome to Derry pulled a late-game trick in its finale, and it genuinely changes how one of the nastiest moments in It: Chapter Two lands. If you clocked that surprise Losers Club face in episode 8, yep, that was real — and no, it wasn’t in the original plan.

Quick spoiler heads-up

We’re talking about the episode 8 cameo and the season’s final scene. If you haven’t watched, you might want to bail now.

The cameo they added at the buzzer

Co-showrunner Jason Fuchs (who also wrote episode 8) told GamesRadar+ the Beverly Marsh appearance came together in reshoots — as in, right at the finish line. The thinking was simple: they already dropped a Richie Tozier missing kids poster as a nod, but they wanted one more clean line to the films, something that set you right at the doorstep of It: Chapter One. Reshoots are standard on big productions, but doing this that late is a swing, and it paid off.

How the finale plays it

• We see Sophia Lillis back as Beverly Marsh, devastated on the floor of a hospital room at Juniper Hill, staring up at her mother, who has hanged herself. It’s brutal, and it reframes pieces of Bev’s backstory the movies only hinted at.
• Then the episode jumps 27 years. We meet an elderly Ingrid Kersh — the same Ingrid who, earlier in the season, orchestrated horror in Derry that led to the deaths of more than 20 Black residents at the hands of racists. In the present, she’s suddenly playing sweet, quiet old lady.
• Ingrid hears a commotion down the hall and goes to check it out. She finds Beverly on the floor with her abusive father nearby. He pulls away; Bev looks up at Ingrid in tears.

"No one ever really dies in Derry."

Chills. And yes, that line is doing a lot of work.

Why this changes It: Chapter Two

If you remember Chapter Two, Pennywise shows up to adult Beverly as an old woman calling herself Mrs. Kersh. It felt like Pennywise twisting the knife about her father — which it was — but the show adds a sharper edge: the Mrs. Kersh identity isn’t random. It’s rooted in Bev’s worst day as a kid, when she saw her mother’s body at Juniper Hill and crossed paths with Ingrid. In other words, It isn’t just pushing on the father trauma; it’s pulling a mask from a face Beverly already associates with pure, buried horror.

The behind-the-scenes wrinkle

Fuchs says the idea was floated a few times during the season, but the team finally slotted it into the reshoots to stitch the prequel directly into the films. It’s a clever little structural fix — not flashy, but it deepens the mythology and gives that Chapter Two scene fresh sting.

All episodes of It: Welcome to Derry are now streaming on HBO Max in the US and NOW in the UK.