IT: Welcome to Derry Completely Changed One of the Book’s Most Terrifying Moments (And Actually Made It Better)

IT: Welcome to Derry, like the two movies that preceded it, had to make some major changes to Stephen King’s totemic horror novel. Clocking in at over 1,000 pages, one of his longest books ever, the original IT is filled with little details, characters, and moments that the movies didn’t have time for, and that’s without even mentioning the changes in the time periods it depicts. The good news for IT fans is that with the arrival of Welcome to Derry, a lot of those details can start to be filled in, with major moments from the book that have never been seen in live-action finally making their way to the screen.

This week’s episode of IT: Welcome to Derry got to one of those moments, a piece of the IT novel that other adaptations have alluded to but never actually shown, the fire at The Black Spot. Readers of King’s original novel know this well, as it’s a big piece of the puzzle for Mike Hanlon in figuring out the rules and details of how “It” works. After almost forty years of waiting for this scene, though, the HBO TV series delivered it in a very surprising way, by not only making it more gruesome than expected, but also changing the entire reason why it happened. Spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry follow.

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IT: Welcome to Derry Totally Changes The Black Spot Fire, But Made It Better

Before we can detail the Black Spot fire itself, we must make a note of what the previous episode of the series set up. Prior to this week’s episode, IT: Welcome to Derry confirmed the backstory of Ingrid Kersh and how her father Bob Gray was the original Pennywise the Clown that IT absorbed. At this point in the story, though, Mrs. Kersh has not become a part of the IT catalogue of faces (like she is in IT: Chapter Two) but is still a regular woman holding on to the delusion that her father is really in there somewhere and that she can reunite with him.

Blinded by this line of thinking, Ingrid rats out the location of escaped convict Hank Grogan to the people of Derry, revealing that he’s been tucked away at The Black Spot. Ingrid does this knowing that the racist tendencies of the town will get the better of them and they’ll all coalesce on the location and cause mayhem, but that’s only the first part of her plan. The second part is that the carnage that will happen at the Black Spot will summon her “father” and she’ll be able to embrace him once again in her Periwinkle clown costume. The plan works; not only do the townspeople of Derry converge and start the fire that takes countless lives, but it also forces Pennywise to take notice and hear the dinner bell. Things don’t go quite as she planned though as Pennywise reveals the deadlights to her, sending her into a catatonic state.

In the pages of Stephen King’s original IT novel, the fire at the Black Spot is carried out by a racist lynch mob, the Maine Legion of White Decency. It’s implied within the text of the story that the reason they went through with this was simply the evil influence of IT/Pennywise that made them carry out this act of violence that killed over 90 people. That said, the influence of Pennywise on them to make this happen was utilized by the creature as a feeding frenzy. This is not only seen in IT: Welcome to Derry but made clear in the book as well, where IT takes on the form of a giant bird to eat some of the victims of the violence.

It’s worth noting that this distinct shift from the book and how IT: Welcome to Derry frames these events may be very different stories, one where the source material was simply making implications, while the TV series is pushing its new narrative even further (while also making IT even more terrifying). This is an instance where the adaptation process has taken the ball and run with it, making a matter-of-fact moment that exists in the margin of the original story something with even more meaning and depth. Though it’s a major change, it’s one that works great within the confines of the IT: Welcome to Derry continuity.