IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 3 Review

Spoilers follow for IT: Welcome to Derry Episodes 1-3.

Well, it didn’t take long for IT: Welcome to Derry to hit what feels like its first filler episode. The first two installments of this IT prequel packed a lot of plot and characters into two hours, so there’s an air of inevitability to this week’s episode feeling like it has to grind the proceedings to a halt in order to sort it all out. Disappointingly though, Episode 3 (Now You See It) resets the status quo with elements that aren’t all that different from the status quo it already had, leaving Welcome to Derry feeling like its spinning its wheels a little earlier into its run than anyone would want to see.

This episode feels like the first real stumble for the kids’ side of the story, which was undoubtedly the stronger element of the first two installments, immediately doubling back on one of last week’s more disturbing developments: Lilly (Clara Stack) being reinstitutionalized at Juniper Hill after her grocery store encounter with Pennywise. For as much time as that episode spends reinforcing how terrified she is of getting sent back to that place, Episode 3 starts with her being discharged, and from there there’s almost no time spent on exploring what effect going back had on her.

…it starts to feel like déjà vu all over again, and three episodes in, that’s not a promising sign.

Lilly’s so far the most well-drawn of the young characters, so it was really disappointing to see a big development like that have to take a back seat to the plot, which has Lilly, Ronnie, Will, and Rich coming together to clear Hank Grogan’s name for the killings that ended the premiere. Since that brutal rug-pull took three Losers’ Club stand-ins off the board, Welcome to Derry has been working towards reassembling a gang of brave kids to fight Pennywise. But by the time Lilly’s bringing this new gang up to the hideout atop the Derry stand to discuss the source of their torment, it starts to feel like déjà vu all over again, and three episodes in, that’s not a promising sign.

General Shaw’s more of a Derry boy than we thought…

Over on the air base, we’re getting some more context for James Remar’s General Shaw, and why he in particular is leading the charge to learn more about Pennywise. Shaw takes more of the spotlight this week, navigating the delicate politics with the local Indigenous population of digging around sacred burial sites looking for Pennywise “beacons.” With the Cuban Missile Crisis looming, Shaw’s interest in this mission has seemed entirely focused on national security up to this point, so the reveal that Shaw’s got a lot more of a personal connection to Derry than we first realized is a welcome one. Remar plays Shaw with more softness than you may expect of a Kingian military man (say, The Major from The Long Walk), which makes his more aggressive moves like ordering the attack on Leroy to prove his mettle or continuing the dig despite the protests of his old friend Rose (Kimberly Guerrero) all the more intriguing… almost as intriguing as naming a character “Rose” in a Stephen King story.

One of many “Roses” in the Stephen King Universe.

As manager of Derry’s Secondhand Rose pawn shop, Rose has been on the periphery of the action up to this point, but it’s clear from her role here as a confidant to both her community and to Shaw that she’s a force for good. The 1907 flashback set in Shaw and Rose’s childhoods that opens the episode reinforces an idea that Welcome to Derry’s been implicitly driving towards: that Pennywise’s cycles of terror are routinely opposed by a group of brave Derry children. Welcome to Derry has been at its most thematically interesting so far while interrogating the generational differences of how kids and adults have dealt with Pennywise/evil over the years, and if nothing else, at least Episode 3 leaves Shaw and Rose as deeper characters than when we met them.

Chris Chalk turns in another great performance as Dick Hallorann, and through him we’re treated to one of Episode 3’s few bright spots: a Shining-enabled psychic peek into the cistern under Derry that Pennywise calls home. Chalk’s really impressing with his performance, skillfully deploying recognizable tics and murmurs of Scatman Crothers’ to great effect here as his psychic visions lead him down terrifying paths. We have a pretty good understanding of the rules of how Pennywise operates on our physical plane of existence, but because we’re visiting the cistern through a psychic vision, Dick’s encounter with Pennywise feels way more dangerous. That’s underlined by Chalk after Dick’s vision concludes, as his telling Leroy Hanlon “it wasn’t supposed to see us” lands with the gravity that it should.

That said, the Hanlons get stuck without much to do this week. We learn a little more about Charlotte’s desire to be more involved with civil rights activism, and Leroy’s reservations about that, and Will forges closer bonds with Rich, Lilly, and Ronnie. But Episode 3’s focus is much more on building up the mystery of Pennywise’s presence in Derry over time, so the Hanlons’ place in that tapestry gets shelved for now.

The scares this week are sorely lacking, and seem to suggest that the visual effects animating them are going to be an episode-by-episode grab bag. Baby monster from the premiere? No thanks! Lilly’s dead pickle dad from last week? Shiny, briny, beautiful… but the skeleton man skittering around the forest in broad daylight this week? That wasn’t it, Welcome to Derry. There is some good dread generated as young Shaw nervously walks through a carnival haunted house, and in the aforementioned Dick Hallorann/Pennywise meeting, but payoffs here in Episode 3 largely miss the mark.

If only the whole cemetery sequence had this vibe.

Episode 3 falls apart during its cemetery-set finale, as the kids attempt to conjure Pennywise to photograph him in the hopes of absolving Hank. But rather than drawing out the tension and really building up to a moment, all hell breaks loose shortly after the kids begin the rite and the hodgepodge of funhouse surprises that follow take all of the air out of the spooky setting. Here the episode’s visual effects are at their worst, as the kids ride through the infinitely dolly-zooming cemetery and the ground opens up beneath them. Whether it’s the uninspired designs of their ghostly dead friends or the obviously composited shots of the kids riding full speed on their bikes, nothing about this sequence works and, for all its chaos and scale, it’s a total letdown of an ending. The plan does seem to have worked though, and the kids get a handful of photos of their supernatural assailants which I’m sure the adults in Derry will believe are real.

Speaking of which, the 1907 prologue that opens the episode concludes on a pointed shot of a female clown with Pennywise-esque makeup. I wonder if the “Young Periwinkle” character in the episode’s credits knows anything about that… And who in the good gosh is Periwinkle, anyway!?

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