As we broach the halfway point of Pennywise’s small screen rebirth, we’ve found that It: Welcome To Derry seems to have settled into something of a pattern. Each episode alternates between zipping breathlessly through all the townsfolk and players criss-crossing and conversing as they either plot against the evil entity lurking beneath their town, or touching upon the unsavory emotions that flood the residents that lead to the rise of racism and the like. However, whenever it isn’t juggling the hefty human cast, the series lets it’s scarlet, fluffy hair down by slamming on the plot breaks and indulging itself in some truly eye-popping, horror setpieces that seem to be trying to go for broke every time they air.
However, while last week’s episode had more than it’s fair share of fucked up cool shit, it’s final scene dropped the jaw-dropping body horror and nightmare imagery in favour of a Spielbergian ghost chase that boasted some atrocious CGI. Is the influence of Pennywise the Dancing Clown starting to fade before he’s even appeared on-screen, or was that merely a temporary wobble before abnormal service is once again resumed?
After securing photographic evidence of the evil that murdered their friends, Ronnie, Lilly, Will and Rich race to the police station to show Chief Bowers the evidence that should hopefully clear the name of Ronnie’s father, Hank. However, as far as the adults are concerned, their blurry images contain absolutely no proof whatsoever and the the kids once again find themselves back at square one. However, just because the grown ups aren’t interested, it doesn’t mean that the evil is going to take it lying down and it attacks Will while he’s on a fishing trip with Leroy and shows him a threatening vision of his father burnt to death.
Meanwhile, military psychic Dick Halloran is taking advantage of his special privileges and has secured an unused building off barracks that they plan on fixing up. But while the air of hostility still floats around Derry, that doesn’t stop rights activist Charlotte visiting Hank in jail after she discovers that her son his now friends with his daughter. But while she pushes for Hank to be under house arrest rather than be sent to Shawshank Prison, she discovers that his shakey alibi was to cover for the fact that he’s embroiled in a sexual relationship with a married white woman.
Meanwhile, the entity targets Lilly once more, this time by hijacking a cruel prank played by Marge and making the girl think that her eyes are bulging out of her head leading her to try and cut them out. Of course, to the casual observer, it just looks like Lilly’s got crazy and stabbed one of her former friend’s eyes out with a chisel – but nevertheless, it looks like she’s got herself a one way trip back to Juniper Hill. So is anyone making any headway in their search for the evil force? Well, step forward Halloran who, after using his powers on a young Native American man spying on the base, make have cracked the origin of a murderous entity that’s far older than anyone could have guessed.
After witnessing it’s child-cast whizzing though a graveyard, screaming like the Goonies and being chased by ghostly beings that looked like they escaped from The Haunted Mansion, I was getting concerned that Weclome To Derry had gotten lost and found itself in full-blown Stranger Things territory. Now, while the two properties do admittedly have many things in common (the presence of Finn Wolfhard being the least of it), they do have some clearly defined boundaries that felt like there were being crossed. While the gang from Hawkins, Illinois often dabble in horror imagery, it’s It that should be pushing for the hard scares and repellent gore and not indulging in rollercoaster thrills with effects that can’t handles the load. However, with the extravagantly titled The Great Swirling Apparatus Of Our Planet’s Function, we find that the show has gone back to focusing on what it does best – building racial tension and knocking our socks off with gonzo, freakish visuals that push the boundaries of what you’d expect to see on the small screen.
To be fair, it’s still proving to be something of a symbiotic relationship as the latter tends to tag in when the human stuff starts to get a little thick. Obviously, the movies primarily concerned themselves with the Losers Club discovering and ultimately defeating Pennywise with Derry’s disturbing history only really acting as a backdrop to cement just how malignant it’s evil truly is. However, as the prequel series is now centred predominantly about that history, Episode 4 tends to work best if you already know where all the threads are leading. I’m fact, the events that lead to the central disaster that marks out Derry of the 60s are now being plainly laid out as we set out on the tragic road that leads to the fire of the Black Spot club. In fact, we see the origin of that ill-fated place this very episode as Dick Halloran and his army buddies are handed a rundown place they plan to fix up and make into something special.
Elsewhere, the business with Hank Grogan is getting ever stickier with the intervention of Charlotte Hanlon as she pushes for his rights; however, with racial tensions in town at an all time high, Hank realises that if he comes clean about his relations with a white woman, it would actually mean that things would turn out even worse for him than if he actually did kill those kids on the first episode. If you wasn’t aware of Derry’s history, you might find yourself wondering why we’re still waiting the full-on arrival of the creature’s most iconic form, but as the weeks continue and the racial pressure cooker gets ever more strained, you’ll find that it’ll all count.
Of course, we soon get what we pay for when the shape-shifting shit once again hits the fan, but if the show has excelled in anything, it’s that holding back on Bill Skarsgård’s grease-painted ghoul means we’ve gotten a far better understanding of what Pennywise truly is without falling back too hard on his clown form. In fact, while I’ll be just as happy as anyone to see Skarsgård again, I’ve really been enjoying the anything goes, Lovecraftian insanity the shows been presenting us with. In fact, watching Marge’s eyes suddenly bulge out thanks to an insectoid affliction that makes her eye bulge out like slugs and then watching her try to cut them out with a bandsaw maybe the most out-there the show has gotten – maybe even more so than the womb monster a couple of installments to go. However, most interestingly is that while we’re still waiting for an origin story for the Pennywise persona, we do manage to get a rather in-depth look at the creature’s early years as it runs up against the Native Americans who dubbed it The Galloo after a creature from their folklore. Watching it get up to it’s usual tricks in a time before Derry as we knew it even existed is fascinating – especially as it takes the forms of appropriate fears such as a monstrous elk or a what appears to be a Christian priest.
With Pennywise’s appearance all but set, Episode 4 gives us yet another timely reminder that there’s more strings to the shapeshifter’s bow than just a drooling clown. However, as we pass the halfway point, it may be time for the human stuff to contract as the proto-Losers Club, the military and the racial issues plaguing Derry all need to pick up some purpose before the (dead) lights go out.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 