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IT: Welcome to Derry Adds a Shocking Twist to the New Losers’ Club
On the heels of two massively successful films, IT: Welcome to Derry returns to Stephen King’s cursed town to unearth a preceding chapter of its terror. Set in the early 1960s, the series promises to explore the origins of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) and its deep-rooted connection to the town, while also serving as a narrative hub for a wider on-screen King universe, explicitly connecting to landmarks like The Shining‘s Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) and Shawshank Penitentiary. In addition, the show explores generational trauma and the sinister ways that societal evils fester, providing a perfect breeding ground for a creature fueled by fear.
2017’s IT became a cultural phenomenon largely due to the young cast of the Losers’ Club, as their chemistry transformed a creature feature into a powerful story about friendship and resilience. Naturally, all promotional material for IT: Welcome to Derry showcased a new generation of kids, establishing the clear expectation that a new Losers’ Club would anchor the prequel’s narrative. The series intentionally builds on this familiarity, introducing a new group of outcasts who band together against the town’s encroaching darkness. However, the premiere episode of IT: Welcome to Derry weaponizes this very expectation, delivering a shocking narrative pivot that signals the show has no intention of simply repeating a successful formula.
Warning: Spoilers below for IT: Welcome to Derry, Episode 1
IT: Welcome to Derry Losers’ Club Feels Too Familiar to the Movie’s
The first episode of Welcome to Derry introduces Matty (Miles Ekhardt), a 12-year-old boy who often breaks into the town’s movie theater to watch a film for free. Matty uses cinema as a way to escape the harsh reality of his home, where he lives with an abusive father who left him with a black eye. Of course, Matty’s trauma makes him easy prey for Pennywise. On a snowy night, he tries to catch a ride with a family passing by Derry and asks them to take him far away from home. At first, Matty thinks he has found a refuge, but as it turns out, the whole car ride is a deception created by Pennywise to extract Matty’s fear before killing the boy. Just like Georgie’s (Jackson Robert Scott) death kicks off the formation of the Losers’ Club in the IT movie, Matty’s demise leads to a new group of kids banding together.
Each young star of Welcome to Derry has a unique personality and a role to play in the ensemble, teasing that they are the main characters of the TV show. First, we have Terry (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), a Jewish boy raised in an orthodox family, who likes to read comic books instead of studying the Torah. He and his best friend, Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), accepted a bribe of candy from Matty’s family to attend the boy’s birthday celebration. Consequently, they feel guilty about Matty’s disappearance, as they believe they could have tried to be true friends to the ostracized kid when he was around. Phil also has a younger sister, Susie (Matilda Legault), who ends up joining the group when their parents cannot find a nanny.
The new Losers’ Club of IT: Welcome to Derry also includes “Loony” Lilly (Clara Stack), one of Matty’s former classmates. Lilly got her mean-spirited nickname after being committed to the Juniper Hill Asylum after the death of her father. Lilly’s father worked at Derry’s pickle factory and was torn to pieces in a vicious machinery accident. Lilly watched the whole thing, which caused a mental breakdown that her mother chose to deal with by sending the girl away. Rounding up the group is Ronnie (Amanda Christine), the daughter of projectionist Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider). Since Hank is a Black man and one of the last people to see Matty, the police are eager to pin the blame for the kid’s disappearance on him.
Much like in the IT movie, the new Losers’ Club begins to experience paranormal phenomena they can’t explain, which they deduce is connected to Matty’s vanishing. Putting their heads together, they realize all the clues are leading to The Music Man, the movie Matty was watching the night he died. By then, it seems obvious that IT: Welcome to Derry will follow these children as they investigate Pennywise, mimicking the story structure of the first film. The new Losers’ Club even has its own clubhouse, set atop an abandoned observatory that gives them a beautiful view of Derry. However, IT: Welcome to Derry is cleverly playing with the audience’s expectations, setting them up for a shocking reversal in the final scene of the first episode.
How IT: Welcome to Derry Subvert Expectations
At the end of Episode 1 of IT: Welcome to Derry, Ronnie takes the children to the movie theater so they can watch The Music Man together in secret, looking for clues. While Ronnie remains in the projection room, the four other members of the new Losers’ Club sit in the empty theater. To their surprise, Matty is somehow embedded in the movie, accusing them of negligence. Then, all hell breaks loose when the same creepy creature that killed Matty erupts from the screen.
In a shocking display of blood and guts, the creature hunts down the children one by one, ripping off their limbs and throwing their limp bodies against the walls. Soon, Terry, Phil, and even little Susie are dead. The only people who survive the ordeal are Lilly, who escapes in time, and Ronnie, who was in the projection room. Just like that, IT: Welcome to Derry shatters our sense of security, betraying every promotional material to slay the children we thought would be the heroes of the story.
The twist is brilliant because the episode spends most of its runtime carefully building the personalities and inner conflicts of each child, making their sudden demise truly unexpected. This narrative investment ensures their deaths register as a genuine shock, not just a cheap horror gimmick. It is also a powerful way for the spinoff to declare its independence from the films. By making it clear that it will not simply rehash the movie’s narrative, the show establishes that it is treading its own dark and unpredictable path where no character is safe.
New episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry premiere on HBO every Sunday.
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