It: Welcome to Derry has been doing some significant remixes to Stephen King’s literary lore, and fans seem to be overwhelmingly (if not completely) happy with it. With Welcome to Derry Episode 5, “29 Neibolt Street”, the TV series finally moved into the most familiar territory yet – literally. The episode saw most of the show’s principal characters head into the sewers under 29 Neibolt Street and stumble upon the lair of Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård). Things didn’t go so well from there, and not everyone made it back out of the sewers alive.
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In their latest after-episode interview, the creative team behind the IT movie and Welcome to Derry TV spinoff, Andy and Barbara Muschietti, made a big reveal: the big twist in Episode 5 was originally one they had planned for the movies!
Pennywise’s Trojan Horse (SPOILERS)
In Welcome to Derry Episode 5, the surviving children who are looking into the strange entity terrorising Derry – Lily Bainbridge (Clara Stack), Ronnie Grogan (Amanda Christine), Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James), Richie Santos (Arian S. Cartaya) and Marge Truman (Matilda Lawler) – get a miraculous reunion. Their friend Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt), who appeared in the opening sequence of the show and was seemingly killed by the flying mutant baby. Matty claimed to have escaped from the entity (“The Clown”) and knows that another one of their friends, Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), is still alive in the sewers, being slowly fed on by the entity. Matty refuses to go back to the sewers until a distraught Lily coerces him into it. But when the kids eventually make their way into Pennywise’s sewer lair, they find they’ve been duped, and it’s a trap. Matty’s body is found floating in the water, as the “Matty” who led the group there goes through a gross transformation into Pennywise the Clown.
According to Jason Fuchs, executive producer and co-showrunner of Welcome to Derry, this entire subplot of Pennywise impersonating a friendly face to lure the group to his lair was one the Muschiettis originally wanted to use for IT Chapter Two. In that film, the adult Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) is the only member of “The Losers Club” who remains in Derry after childhood, retaining his memories of the battle with Pennywise and studying the entity and its history. In one version of Chapter Two, the Muschiettis reportedly included a subplot of Pennywise killing Mike and taking his place, to lure the adult Losers back to Derry and into Pennywise’s clutches.
“So when I was working on IT: Chapter Two, there was a version of that script where Mike Hanlon — who has obviously been guiding our adult Losers the entire time — eventually takes them down into the sewers, takes them down into It’s sanctuary, where they find Mike Hanlon’s body,” Fuchs explained to Decider. “And you realize that the Mike Hanlon we were with the whole journey of IT: Chapter Two was a manifestation of It.”
According to Fuchs, “We thought, ‘Oh, it’s just too much of a departure from the book. We want to be closer to where the story beats.’ And so that went away.”
Yes, it would have changed Stephen King’s canon, but the IT movies did plenty of that anyway. If one were to take a more cynical view, it could be speculated that maybe it was decided that killing off the only major black character in IT, in a major change to King’s canon, wouldn’t have played well. Especially when Mike is key to bringing resolution (and justice) to the subplot of violent bully, Henry Bowers. Regardless of the reason, it’s probably good that the IT movies didn’t go that route.
The Muschiettis would eventually get to still indulge in the idea of Pennywise using a Trojan Horse form, thanks to the opportunity provided by Welcome to Derry. “When we started talking about the journey of the show, and specifically Episode 5, I remember us talking and going, ‘Wait, this is an idea that might actually have found its time and its moment.’” Fuchs explains. “Matty as the guide, Matty in that context, makes a lot more sense.”
Indeed, it did. Let this be a prime example of why patience can pay off, because Pennywise’s return in Welcome to Derry was definitely worth the wait. The show is now streaming on HBO Max.
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