Episode 2: The Darkness Within Derry
Imagine a city, not just a house, consumed by malevolent forces. What if the monstrous entity beneath the bridge extends its reach across an entire community? ‘It’ explores this chilling premise, where a cosmic, child-devouring clown exploits every societal crack—racial, sexual, gender, and class divisions—within a seemingly quaint American town.
These unsettling ideas are at the core of Stephen King’s monumental 1986 horror novel, ‘It’—a book I consider his most terrifying. Derry isn’t merely a backdrop; it’s an active, sinister character. The true terror lies in how the ancient evil lurking beneath this charming Maine town has fundamentally twisted its residents.
In Derry, a disturbing pattern emerges: no one seems to acknowledge when horrific events occur. Outcasts are tormented, racial injustices persist, LGBTQ+ individuals face violence, and women and children suffer abuse, all while the town’s ‘good’ citizens look on with blank stares, doing nothing. ‘Welcome to Derry’s’ second episode masterfully captures this pervasive dread by exploring the city’s various facets—Main Street, the Black community, and the air base—each revealing a layer of the town’s unsettling reality. Derry feels palpably real, a place where children are born, grow, and often, disappear.
Lilly and Ronnie, the only survivors of Pennywise’s recent movie theater massacre, now find themselves targets of cruel rumors. Lilly’s past mental health struggles and Ronnie’s race become weapons used against them, pushing the girls further apart instead of uniting them in their trauma. Ronnie, present at the theater but having witnessed nothing, can only vouch for her father, Hank, the owner, claiming he was absent during the attack.
Lilly, a front-row witness to the horrifying events, is no stranger to Juniper Hill, a local mental institution that rivals Arkham Asylum in its grim reputation. She faces an impossible choice: truthfully recount the monstrous sight and be institutionalized again, or remain silent, leaving Ronnie’s father—a Black man in a predominantly white town—to be unjustly blamed for the murders.
Under intense pressure from the chief of police, who himself is being pushed by influential town figures to close the case, Lilly is manipulated into discrediting Hank’s alibi. Hank is swiftly arrested, leaving Ronnie heartbroken and furious, fully aware of the true culprit.
Ronnie, however, remains trapped by It’s insidious influence. The entity confronts her, taking the horrific form of her deceased mother, complete with a gruesome umbilical cord that attempts to drag Ronnie into its tooth-filled abdomen, where Pennywise’s eyes menacingly gleam. Only Hank’s sudden arrival manages to repel the creature.
Ultimately, Lilly’s betrayal of Hank offers her no protection, as Pennywise shifts its sinister focus to her. The creature transforms a seemingly ordinary grocery store into a terrifying maze, filling it with customers who are nothing more than its grotesque, twitching puppets. Lilly is engulfed in a terrifying avalanche of pickle jars, from which her deceased, dismembered father reforms into a horrifying, half-man, half-tentacled abomination, crafted from his own brined remains. The scene takes an unsettling, almost incestuous turn, raising disturbing questions about her past relationship with her father.
The creature’s terrifying encounters with Ronnie and Lilly in this episode—released early on HBO Max for Halloween—hark back to the visceral, practical effects of horror classics like “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Hellraiser.” These unsettling visuals are amplified by the show’s distinctive, jarring score and immersive sound design, creating an experience that assaults the senses rather than simply startling the viewer.
Eventually, Lilly breaks free from the illusion, only to find she’s appeared utterly deranged in front of genuine customers. Her mother promptly takes her back to Juniper Hill. This harrowing experience teaches Lilly a bitter lesson: even unwitting compliance with Pennywise’s schemes leads to ruin.
A similar cautionary tale unfolds for the airmen at Derry Air Force Base. We reconnect with Leroy Hanlon, a decorated pilot and Korean War POW, who was attacked last episode by what appeared to be a spy ring. Leroy quickly realizes that Masters, the prejudiced local scapegoat, couldn’t possibly be responsible for such a sophisticated assault. When he presents his findings to Gen. Shaw, his superior, Leroy is finally briefed on his real, clandestine mission in Derry.
The ‘Soviet spy attack’ was, in fact, an elaborate loyalty test. Leroy’s true purpose in Derry isn’t to fly advanced B-52s; it’s his unique psychological profile. His traumatic experiences as a North Korean POW left him with physical scars and a specific brain injury: a damaged amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear. This effectively renders him ‘the man without fear’—an invaluable asset for a top-secret military operation in Derry, Maine.
Leroy isn’t the only Cold War operative with extraordinary abilities under Gen. Shaw’s command. This episode reveals that the enigmatic airman who has been intently watching Hanlon since his arrival is none other than Dick Halloran, a character who, years later, will become the telepathic chef at the Overlook Hotel, attempting to rescue Danny Torrance in “The Shining.”
Halloran, whose brief appearance in the novel is tied to the Hanlon family, is being exploited by the military as a human psychic divining rod. They aim to use his abilities to locate ‘beacons’—points that have anchored Derry’s ancient evil for centuries. The episode culminates with the discovery of one such beacon: a bullet-ridden car filled with machine-gun-wielding corpses, an image that eerily echoes the gangland shootout depicted in both the ‘It’ films and the show’s ominous opening credits.
Highly classified, often reckless, and potentially world-ending military operations are a recurring theme in many of King’s most cherished works. Think of Project Blue, the biological weapons program that unleashes the super-flu in “The Stand,” or the Arrowhead Project, responsible for the monstrous invasion in “The Mist.” Given the Indigenous presence observing military activities in this episode and the unsettling similarities of some creatures, one can’t help but wonder if these projects are connected.
Regardless, the inclusion of a black ops storyline in ‘It’ aligns perfectly with King’s recurring themes. By illustrating the government’s unchecked power to impose its will on unsuspecting communities, this element also offers a disturbingly relevant commentary on contemporary issues.
Tragically, the show also effectively portrays the relentless undertow of racism that impacts its Black characters—a crucial, brutally honest theme from King’s novel often softened in the film adaptations. Masters hurls a vile slur at Leroy. His son, Will (Blake Cameron James), endures bullying from bigoted classmates, for which he is then unfairly blamed by prejudiced educators.
Ronnie experiences similar prejudice when she shouts an expletive at Lilly, though she readily accepts accountability for her outburst. Dick and his companions are forcibly removed from a bar. Hank, unjustly, is framed for a crime he didn’t commit—a crime actually orchestrated by a shapeshifting clown-god, a truth few in an election year would believe.
Perhaps most distressing is the plight of Charlotte (Taylour Paige), Leroy’s wife, who arrives in Derry with Will this episode. While Charlotte initially embraces Derry, she lacks Leroy’s naive optimism about the North being a racial haven. Her past civil rights activism led to their family being forced out of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Leroy fears she’ll soon resume her advocacy, stirring trouble in their new home.
However, a scene on Main Street deeply shocks even her: three cruel boys brutally assault a child in broad daylight. This act of violence, devoid of any apparent racial motive, is witnessed by numerous bystanders—Black and white—yet no one intervenes. They simply… let it happen.
“Boys will be boys!” a grinning butcher remarks, casually observing a felony assault he could easily halt with a word. A similar eerie silence descends on Ronnie’s neighborhood as her father is dragged away, her screaming grandmother’s pleas ignored by the silent onlookers. Whether this inaction is due to supernatural influence or state-sanctioned, race-based intimidation, it undeniably serves Pennywise’s malevolent agenda.
While ‘Welcome to Derry’ attributes this pervasive societal apathy to Pennywise’s presence, the underlying message is clear when you look beyond the horror. For evil to thrive, it requires not only those who perpetrate violence but also a community too influenced, or too terrified, to intervene.