Welcome To Derry Is The First Stephen King Adaptation Where No One Is Truly Safe

Beware of the red balloon: This article contains Spoilers For “It: Welcome to Derry,” Season 1, Episode 1, “Pilot.”

“It: Welcome to Derry” is an origin story for Pennywise (Bill Skarsgórd) that is technically based on Stephen King’s “It.” In practice, though, it only comes down to the approximate historical timeline of the titular monster, as established in Andy Muschietti’s “It” films and King’s novel. This leaves A a lot Let the show play and interpret it as he pleases…and the “Pilot” proves that the show intends to do just that. how? By casually killing off almost every member of the show’s version of the Losers Club.

After the episode spends its opening moments subjecting poor, distressed Matty (Miles Eckhart) to the worst delivery experience imaginable, it spends a fair amount of time setting up what appears to be the show’s version of the monster-fighting kid team from “It Chapter One.” In fact, Lily (Clara Stack), Teddy (Michal Karim Fiedler), Phil (Jacques Molloy Legault), and little tagalong sister Suze (Hunter Storm Baker) receive so much attention and characterization that it’s easy to forget that they won’t be defeated until the events of “Chapter Two”…and so He will win this round no matter what.

This episode sets up the new team of kids for so long that when the demon kid that was used to kill Matty returns in the big finale at the movie theater, it’s truly shocking. Even more shocking is the fact that the film proceeds to graphically slaughter Teddy, Phil, and Suze, leaving only Lily and young showrunner Ronnie (Amanda Christine) for later. In one fell swoop, “It: Welcome to Derry” establishes itself as a King adaptation that has the opportunity to be truly unexpected — which is great.

The first season of It: Welcome to Derry takes place in 1962. For this reason, a perceptive viewer who has paid attention to the historical portions of Muschietti’s “It” films will have a rough idea of some The events that take place, as well as the influence of It/Pennywise in the middle of it all. However, the real magic of the series is that it features so many characters conspicuously absent from the events, that a King fan can, for once, sit back and expect to be truly surprised by who lives and who dies.

In fact, in the current situation, it is expected that only two characters are more or less safe. Will Hanlon, played by Blake Cameron James, is apparently the father of main character Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa and Chosen Jacobs), so unless the show intends to mess with canon in highly unexpected ways, he’ll likely survive into adulthood. It also seems fair to suspect that the series’ main connection to a different Stephen King film — Dick Halloran (Chris Chalk) of “The Shining” fame — will live to make his way to the Overlook Hotel. Aside from them, though? Everyone’s fates hang in the air.

By the way, you should enjoy this while it lasts. We learned a lot of things about “It: Welcome to Derry” at the 2025 New York Comic Con, and one of them is that each of the show’s three planned seasons will take the story 27 years into the past. This could lead to the first season having some adult characters who are still children in the second season, making more and more characters narratively safe as the story continues.

Season 1 of It: Welcome to Derry is streaming on HBO Max.