The first season of the HBO horror series IT: Welcome to Derry concluded with a finale that creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti called both “haunting and magical” and “spectacular”. The final episode saw the child heroes facing Pennywise in a fog-covered Derry, resulting in a tense battle with major consequences for the show’s future and the entire IT story.
The season, which started streaming on HBO Max, is a prequel to the IT films from 2017 and 2019. It is set in the year 1962 and follows a new group of children and adults as they discover the evil of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The finale answered key questions while setting up a plan to explore more of Derry’s terrifying past.
THE FINAL BATTLE IN THE FOG
The final episode, titled “Winter Fire,” begins with Pennywise free and spreading a strange, icy fog across Derry. This fog is a physical part of the monster, representing its power and its ability to lure children. The clown targets Derry High School, where he makes a brutal appearance at a school assembly.
The child characters—Lilly, Marge, and Ronnie—along with adults like Leroy Hanlon and psychic Dick Hallorann, race to stop the creature. Their goal is to use a special dagger, made from the same material as the pillars that trap Pennywise, to seal him away again.
“I wanted to use the fog to visually illustrate the expansion of the clouds that surround the Dead Lights,” said director Andy Muschietti, explaining the visual choice for the finale.
The climax of the battle was a complex sequence to film. Barbara Muschietti explained that production had to move to a soundstage due to weather changes, and crews worked for weeks misting the set to create the endless fog environment.
A MAJOR TWIST ABOUT TIME AND FAMILY
The finale revealed a critical secret that changes how viewers see the IT timeline. While taunting the young girl Marge, Pennywise reveals that she will grow up to have a son named Richie Tozier. Richie is a key member of the Losers’ Club who fights Pennywise in the 1989 story told in the original films.
Pennywise tells Marge that her future son and his friends will cause his “death” or “birth”—the monster, being an ancient entity, gets confused by linear time. This means Pennywise experiences the past, present, and future all at once.
“He said to him the past, present and future are all the same,” Marge later tells her friend Lilly, trying to understand the monster’s words.
This twist creates entirely new stakes for the prequel series. It suggests Pennywise isn’t just sleeping through history but is actively aware of his future defeat. He could be trying to change the past to save himself in the future.
CONNECTIONS TO THE IT MOVIES AND BEYOND
The finale includes a post-credits scene that directly connects to the films. The scene flashes forward to 1988, one year before the events of the first IT movie. It shows a young Beverly Marsh, played again by Sophia Lillis, encountering an elderly woman named Mrs. Kersh.
This is the same old woman who terrifies the adult Beverly, played by Jessica Chastain, in IT: Chapter Two. The actress Joan Gregson reprised her role from the film for this scene. The series also reveals that Mrs. Kersh is the daughter of the original human Pennywise the Dancing Clown, which explains her dark connection to the monster.
Another connection involves Dick Hallorann, the cook with psychic “Shining” powers famously played by Scatman Crothers in The Shining. In this series, a younger Hallorann, played by Chris Chalk, survives his encounter with Pennywise. The finale shows him planning to leave Derry for a job as a cook in London, beginning his journey that will eventually lead him to the Overlook Hotel.
THE SHOWRUNNERS’ VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Andy and Barbara Muschietti, along with co-showrunner Jason Fuchs, have a clear plan for the series, though HBO has not officially announced a second season. They intend for the story to move backwards in time.
The creators have said they plan for a potential second season to be set in 1935. This would explore another 27-year cycle of Pennywise’s awakening, likely involving the massacre of the Bradley Gang mentioned in Stephen King’s book. A potential third season could go back even further to 1908.
This reverse chronology is tied to Pennywise’s unnatural experience of time. Because the creature sees all eras at once, the show’s creators felt telling the story backwards was the right approach.
“Our first pitch to Stephen King was to tell the story backwards,” said Andy Muschietti.
Jason Fuchs explained that knowing Pennywise survives into the future presented a creative challenge. The solution was to introduce the idea that the monster could manipulate time, thereby raising the stakes for the past characters and making their fight meaningful.
HOW TO WATCH THE FINALE
All eight episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1, including the finale, are available to stream on HBO Max in the United States. Viewers in the United Kingdom can watch the series on the streaming service NOW.
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