This week’s lack of action and focus on backstory delivers little excitement but a massive character reveal.
Photo: Brooke Palmer/HBO

When will I learn my lesson? Praising a very uneven show for getting back on track, as I did last week in my Welcome to Derry recap, means it’s bound to veer wildly off course in the next episode. After finally finding some much-needed forward momentum, the show backslides with “In the Name of the Father,” an hour that’s almost entirely about inaction. Aside from one big reveal (undermined by the fact that we figured it out last week), we spend an awful lot of time with characters refusing to do the things they’ll inevitably end up doing. You could argue that this is the series putting the pieces in place for the final two episodes, but it’s still a slog to get through, and a reminder of the larger problem of dragging this story out over the course of eight episodes.

To his credit, Will Hanlon is ready for action. When Leroy dresses down his son for disobeying him and getting Pauly killed — I think Leroy is maybe a bit more culpable there — Will says he won’t stop fighting back against the creature with his friends. “You always told me that a man should never hide from trouble, that what makes life count are the friends you make and the risks you take,” he tells his dad. Then he makes an unwise comment about Leroy letting his friend die and gets hit. It’s an unpleasant moment, but I appreciate the show recognizing a darkness within Leroy. (He didn’t seem particularly kind or loving toward his grandson, Mike, in the 2017 It.) The situation is just as tense over at the Standpipe. Ronnie is on edge: “Wanted” posters for Hank are being distributed across town, and armed vigilantes are patrolling the streets. When Lilly points out that the dagger seems to be the one thing Pennywise is afraid of and suggests they go back to the sewers, Ronnie snaps at her and calls her crazy. (I know I complained about the inaction of this episode, but these kids really should do some more planning before marching into danger once again. The Losers Club spent a lot of time studying the threat!) “All I wanted was to help you, and a lot of good it did,” Lilly fires back. Ronnie counters, “And I wish I never met you, Lilly Bainbridge.” As Rich smartly deduces, a rift between them is exactly what the clown wants, but the damage is done once Ronnie says Lilly should still be in Juniper Hill and storms off.

I’m sorry to keep comparing Welcome to Derry to It, but it’s hard not to. The sudden fight that breaks up the group in this episode plays out in much the same way as the fight in the 2017 movie, but it hits harder in It because there’s a sense that the Losers Club members are real friends. Here, the group feels much less cohesive — Marge only joined last week, for one thing. While the show is now trying to establish real bonds between them, it may be too little, too late. Even so, we get a scene of Ronnie and Will’s budding romance after he chases after her. She admits she’s tired of being scared and they come very close to kissing, but Charlotte arrives just in time to disrupt her son’s love life. She drives Will and Ronnie to the requisition shed Dick and his pals have been clearing out, now rechristened as the Black Spot, a makeshift clubhouse for Black airmen. It’s also where Charlotte has stashed Hank after he was delivered to her by Ingrid at the end of the last episode. Ronnie is thrilled to be reunited with her father, and Hank vows they will never be separated again. (I don’t feel great about that promise.) It’s not all good vibes at the Black Spot, though: Dick, still visibly haunted by what he experienced in the sewers, isn’t happy about his clubhouse being turned into a hideout for a fugitive. When Charlotte thanks him for his help, he tells her to leave him out of it.

In his defense, Dick is clearly going through it. He spends much of the episode drinking himself into oblivion, and with good reason — being sober and coherent means reckoning with the terrifying aftermath of his Pennywise encounter. Leroy pays him a visit, revealing that Shaw is still eager to find those pillars. (Does Shaw have any superiors? You’d think some military higher-ups might be having second thoughts about Operation Precept after the mysterious deaths of several soldiers.) Dick refuses to help, though he does at least explain his current state. As a child, he saw dead people everywhere, to the point that he wasn’t able to sleep. Seeing his distress, his grandmother taught him how to keep unwanted spirits in a mental lockbox, and now that Pennywise has opened it, he’s once again surrounded by ghosts. As long as he ignores them, they don’t seem to notice him, but if he tries to communicate with them, he won’t be able to shut them up. “They know things,” Dick says. “Things we don’t, things the living aren’t meant to know.” Leroy wonders if that includes where to find the pillars. It’s frustrating to see Leroy so single-minded in his mission — this is a day after shooting and killing his best friend, mind you — but it’s not especially entertaining watching Dick wallow in misery either. Leroy threatens Dick with arrest if he doesn’t do his duty, then heads home to find Charlotte packing. (Not his best day.) She’s getting Hank out of Derry, and then she’s taking Will back to Shreveport. Whatever they were running from there is less scary than what Leroy is doing here. It sounds like her mind is made up, even as she urges her husband to make things right with their son.

Amid all the conflict, we get another look at puppy love as Rich shares a private moment with his crush, Marge. They meet at the Standpipe, where he helps her remove her bandage and apply a fresh one. (I’m still confused about what Marge actually did to her eye, because the damage, however gnarly, now appears to be limited to her eyelid.) As with Will and Ronnie, it’s sweet seeing the early stages of tween romance, but it’s hard to feel all that invested when this is the sixth episode of an eight-episode season, and these aren’t characters we’d be following in a theoretical season two. Still, it’s cute watching them continue to test the boundaries of their relationship at school. Rich gives Marge an eye patch that belonged to a corsair his ancestors knew in Cuba. For her part, Marge finally stands up to Patty and the Pattycakes, proudly identifying as a “freak” and exposing her goopy eye wound for emphasis. But as much as the two might want to continue awkwardly flirting with each other, they have a more urgent task at hand. Rich is certain the creature isn’t done with them yet, and he knows they’ll have a better chance if they stick together. Marge agrees, while also recognizing that convincing Ronnie to go back to the sewers with them is a tall order. They decide to head to the Black Spot with Will to talk to her. (It does seem a bit strange that Charlotte trusts all these kids with Hank’s whereabouts, and by the end of the episode, it’s clear that information should have been treated with more secrecy.)

Lilly, meanwhile, is isolated from the others and still being tormented by It, who again takes the form of her dead father (by way of an octopus) for a classroom jump scare. Her teacher seems far more bothered by Lilly leaving without permission than by her screaming at her desk and wielding a glowing dagger, but I guess that’s par for the course in Derry. Without knowing where else to turn, Lilly heads to Ingrid’s, and those of us who realized she was Mrs. Kersh in the last episode know that’s not the best course of action. No one answers the door, so Lilly lets herself in (also a bad idea) and heads up to the attic (an even worse idea!). She ends up flipping through a photo album and eventually lands on photos of young Ingrid and her father, who looks suspiciously familiar. He is, of course, Bill Skarsgård — or, more accurately, Bob Gray. Mrs. Kersh arrives before Lilly can put the pieces together, but when Ingrid embraces the tearful girl, Lilly spots a photo of Ingrid’s father in his clown makeup. He’s the clown from the sewers. Ingrid clocks the look of recognition. “Have you seen him?” she asks breathlessly. “I know you don’t understand, but you brought him back.” Lilly’s growing horror worsens when she spots a clown costume that belongs to Ingrid. It turns out the figure Will snapped a photo of in the crypt was actually Ingrid in her finest carnival attire. She’s been following the kids in the hope of seeing her dad again. “My fadder was a carnival performer,” Ingrid explains. “He called himself Pennywise the Dancing Clown. I adored him, and he was taken from me.”

It’s here that we get a black-and-white flashback to Ingrid’s backstory, expanding on a tease that forms the episode’s cold open. We don’t find out what happened to the human Pennywise — I assume they’re saving that for the 1908-set third season — but we pick up with Ingrid choosing to stay in Derry. She eventually gets a job at Juniper Hill, where she hears a little girl named Mabel talk about her visions of a clown named Pennywise who lives in the pipes and is trying to lure her down to the basement. No one believes her, of course. Well, no one except Ingrid, who late one night takes Mabel down to the basement herself. There, they encounter Pennywise, a distorted but still recognizable version of Ingrid’s dead father. Sadly, it’s not exactly a moving family reunion, as he soon reveals his rows of sharp teeth and attacks. Ingrid and the little girl make a run for it, but Mabel falls behind, and Ingrid can only watch in horror as Pennywise eats her. When the creature emerges again, however, he’s taken on the human form of Bob Gray. He tells Ingrid that he’s missed her and that he can explain everything. Back in the present, Ingrid shares that she knew it was her father, changed by whatever he had experienced. “Suddenly, I felt whole again, for the first time since that awful day,” she says. Since then, she’s been doing everything in her power to see him again, because she believes she can free him from whatever hold the “shadow” has over him. It’s not entirely clear what Ingrid has been up to, though the short answer is “nothing good.” She assures Lilly she would never let anything hurt her, but she doesn’t seem to feel similarly protective over the other kids. When she invites Lilly to come with her that night, Lilly slashes Ingrid’s hand with the dagger and runs. It’s the smartest choice she’s made on this show so far.

As for where Ingrid is headed when we see her suit up in her clown costume, my money’s on the Black Spot. That is where many of our characters have convened, along with many Black service members and their dates. When Will, Rich, and Marge arrive, the club is bumping. Will tries to reason with Ronnie and Hank, though Hank is much more interested in whatever is going on between these kids. Again, it’s completely logical for Ronnie to refuse to go back to the sewers — and for her dad to want to keep her close — but this is yet another scene of a character stopping the plot momentum dead in its tracks. Hank does approve of Will, at least, telling the boy, “If anything were to happen to me, it’s good to know someone of your character is looking out for my baby girl.” Will insists that he won’t let anything happen to Hank or Ronnie on his watch, which is as woefully naïve as Hank assuring Ronnie they’ll never be separated again. Trouble isn’t just on the horizon — it’s at the front door. Back in town, Clint Bowers has learned where Hank is hiding, but since he’s been relieved of his duty, he’s shared his intel with the angry townspeople at the bar so they can take matters into their own hands. The episode ends as the men arrive at the Black Spot, faces hidden by cheap Halloween masks but guns proudly displayed.

• I’m not sure if the show intended for Ingrid’s identity to be a surprise, though I’d guess plenty of more casual viewers didn’t automatically jump to the familial connection. Note that she calls Pennywise her “fadder,” just as Mrs. Kersh does in the book It and in It: Chapter Two.

• There’s another subtler connection. When Lilly says that her father is dead, Ingrid answers, “No one who dies in Derry really dies.” Mrs. Kersh says the same thing in King’s novel and the 2019 adaptation.

• At the time, Ingrid is trying to lure Lilly to her side with the promise of Lilly seeing her beloved father again. In the book, Mrs. Kersh transforms into Beverly’s far less beloved father, who taunts Beverly about his incestuous desire for her.

• I’ll confess that this whole story line is falling flat for me, in part because it’s an overly literal take on a character who was really only meant to be an alternate form of Pennywise. It’s true that It has often used humans to do his bidding — Henry Bowers in It, for example — but Welcome to Derry going all in on a “Pennywise’s secret daughter” twist feels like bad fanfic.

• We get a fuller explanation of the lockboxes from Doctor Sleep, though in that book and movie, they are designed to trap specific spirits, not to prevent someone from seeing dead people at all. Regardless, Dick drinking heavily to cope with the ghosts mirrors Danny Torrance’s alcohol abuse.

• Speaking of drinking, I hadn’t noticed that the bar in Derry is the Falcon, which eventually becomes an under-the-radar gay bar, as mentioned in It. (Can’t imagine Clint Bowers would love that.)

• Impossible not to think about Sinners in that final sequence, right? I kept waiting for Dick to start seeing dead people from different time periods grooving to the music.

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