Spoilers

“The Thing in the Dark”

We have not seen the Pennywise clown version as of yet, and that is pretty cool. We definitely see the shape-shifting clown in other forms… and those forms are absolutely gross and frightening. The fang-filled vagina of Ronnie’s mother…. and the pickle jar with pieces of Lilly’s father. Man, those were rough.

The show is looking at the racism of the time more than the IT movies did. The racism in Derry was definitely in the movies, but this feels like a new level of focus on it. It has a feel much like Watchmen and Lovecraft Country. The smartest characters of the show seem to be the people of color.

We are introduced to a couple new kids in the show after the slaughter at the theater last week. Poor Lilly was facing her own struggles and the sheriff trying to get her to change her story about that night in order to get Ronnie’s father as the killer. Lilly kept saying that she did not see her father that night. The sheriff manipulates her to give him something he can use to arrest him.

We get the driving force behind the use of the military in this show. We learn that the military is in search of a weapon they can use in the Cold War. It is a weapon that can create fear in any man. It is clearly Pennywise that they are searching for.

There are a lot of really great scenes in this episode, including one in a jail cell involving a Russian gun. IT: Welcome to Derry has been very good so far, with amazing visuals and a group of intriguing characters.