“It: Welcome to Derry” is a new American supernatural horror television series based on Stephen King’s 1986 It novel. The series was released to HBO Max on October 23, 2025, intended for mature audiences.
This series serves as a prequel to the 2017 It Chapter One, which takes place in 1962, featuring a new group of kids teaming up to defeat the demonic shapeshifting clown that haunts Derry.
The show follows a new group of kids called the “Losers Club” composed of Lily Bainbridge, Ronnie Grogan, Marge Truman, Will Hanlon, and Rich Santo who join together to solve the mystery of why kids keep disappearing in Derry every 27 years while trying to avoid the shapeshifting entity from consuming them too.
While the Losers Club is dealing with their own mysteries, Jovan Adepo’s character, Leroy Hanlon has to help the military to uncover this “weapon” by discovering ancient stones around Derry which function as a cage for It. The original plan was to uncover the pillars and use the entity as a weapon against the Soviets, but a shocking twist shows the general going rogue and attempts to release IT across the whole U.S.
Throughout the show, it slowly brought up more of the background of the entity known as Pennywise, the dancing clown, with how he crashed landed in Derry millions of years before humans existed, and how It first awoke thanks to American Settlers in 17th migrating to the west. Then it showed how he obtained his favorite form, the dancing clown from Bill Skarsgard’s character Robert Grey who was a circus performer.
I truly enjoyed the show with how nice and refreshing it was to see King’s universe expand from not only little references to other books but actually having a well written reason to why having them collide, and not just some name dropping that usually happens with the modern movies of today.
Chris Chalk’s character, Dick Halloran helps Leroy uncover the “weapon” while he fights demons from the past due to his “shine” telepathic ability, where he’s able to see deceased souls and paranormal creatures. Dick’s character connects with Stephen King’s The Shining where the same character shows up.
Even though the season is now over, the successful ratings it received has opened the ability of having two more seasons, each going back 27 years with season two taking place in 1935 with the Mafia wars in Derry, and season three in 1908 with the Ironwoods Easter egg explosion.
“It: Welcome to Derry” not only delivers horror, thrill but emotion, with how fear is not just something children have, but how adults struggle with traumatic childhood horrors. The shocking twists all throughout the season, the emotional interactions with the children, and making amends with a traumatic past.
