IT: Welcome to Derry has just concluded its first season, bringing Pennywise the clown back from its slumber in explosive fashion. The prequel to Andy Muschietti’s two-film saga from the late 2010s is an original story adapted from the It novel by Stephen King, and it just might be the best thing we’ve gotten from this series (excluding the original novel, which I’ve yet to read but will be remedying that soon).

Welcome to Derry Review

IT: Welcome to Derry was a bit of an unexpected entry to this saga. It is not at all rare for Stephen King stories to get adapted. There are a number of them in development now or announced, and there are over 100 movies, shows, and more that are based on King’s works. In 2025, there were six projects based on his work.

But pretty much all of them, even if they take creative liberties, are based on an existing novel. 1982’s The Running Man is very dissimilar to the book, but it’s based on the novel. And while Welcome to Derry is certainly based on It, this story itself was not penned by King. Events that take place in it and much of the rules/lore/logic was, but this is an “original” prequel to King’s book.

That meant that it had a tall task ahead of itself. Andy Muschietti helmed the two-part saga from 2017 and 2019, and he was the creator for Welcome to Derry. He had to balance his own existing canon, what King wrote, and try to add something original around both of those parameters.

For example, he couldn’t make up the origin of Pennywise the clown, and he couldn’t have the infamous antagonist defeated in this show since he returns 27 years later (and 27 years after that) in the two movies. What resulted was a pretty impeccable balancing act from all involved.

It perfectly brings together elements of the movies and the novel while providing a lot of in-universe lore that was left out of the films. Those two movies are made better by what we saw in the eight-episode run of the first season, and one can assume subsequent seasons will do the same.

The biggest reason for that is Bill Skarsgard. While horror movies don’t often get love from awards bodies, it would be a crime if Skarsgard isn’t nominated. Similar to elite comic book movie castings, actors who do well in this sort of project don’t get the love they deserve, but the actor is one of the all-time hororr performers here, doing even better than in either of the two movies.

And for what it’s worth, while some people have a certain nostalgia for the 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise, Skarsgard owns the role now. There has been no one better and there probably never will be if there’s ever a reboot or something.

He is outstanding, perfectly portraying the character as deliciously menacing. There’s a physical aspect of the performance that shouldn’t go unnoticed, either. Much of what you see, like the dancing, slobbering, smiling, and eye-rolling, is all Skarsgard.

That is also where my chief complaint lies. The show starts off with a pretty good pilot that hooks you, but then it meanders until past the midway point when Pennywise finally shows up. His return is phenomenal, but it makes the episodes leading up a little lackluster. And with literally every episode from then on being exceptional, it makes those earlier episodes, even the pilot, pale in comparison.

I’m also not in love with a few key aspects of the finale. The show ends with, fittingly, the kids and their helping adults temporarily staving off Pennywise and forcing him back into the confines of Derry and into hibernation, but it ties up with much too neat of a bow.

Spoilers ahead: There are quite a few “expendable” characters. Only Marge, Will, and Dick Halloran technically appear in future Stephen King projects, so most other characters could’ve been killed by Pennywise to up the stakes and give him even more to play around with.

He did a ton of carnage in the penultimate (and the best) episode of the series, but those were largely secondary characters excluding Rich. Otherwise, a shocking amount of the main cast survived even though they didn’t have to.

And since the next event in Pennywise’s cycle is It: Chapter One, the only place the show can go is backward in time, so killing off characters in this timeline wouldn’t have any consequences for the show. It’s a little too cowardly for my taste, especially with how unwaveringly brutal the show had been before then.

The show won’t be for everyone. It is best if you’re interested in the King multiverse or enjoy the It movies. It’s still a really good horror show, but I’m under no illusion that it’s elevated in my mind because of my connection to King as an author and to the original movies.

Conclusion

Just as quickly as he reentered the public conscious, Pennywise the dancing clown is back in hibernation until an undisclosed time. It may be a while until he returns to feast on the fears of children again, but in the meantime, we got a pretty fantastic project exploring more of the origin of this cosmic entity, and for that, we should all be grateful.

Score: 4.25/5