{"id":111845,"date":"2025-11-02T19:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/111845\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T19:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:35:08","slug":"welcome-to-derry-episode-2-reveals-the-true-horror-of-hbos-it-prequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/111845\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Derry episode 2 reveals the true horror of HBO’s It prequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That theme runs rampant through HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry<\/a>. With only two episodes released so far, we have already seen the long and strange history of Derry, as well as the violence, bigotry, and supernatural history it carries. There is nothing more chilling, though, than the cruelty on display from the citizens of this cursed Maine town.<\/p>\n

Sometimes that cruelty is shown in the form of inaction, as Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige) discovers this in Welcome to Derry episode 2, when she sees a group of children bullying another kid on a busy corner, with nobody bothering to act. Charlotte\u2019s history as an activist pushes her to intervene, and the fact that she just moved into town with her husband and son<\/a> means she unfortunately doesn\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n

When she goes to stop them, allowing the victim to escape, the young bullies intimidate her before chasing after the boy. The onlookers, who initially ignored the bullying as a \u201cboys will be boys\u201d moment, suddenly turn their attention to Charlotte, as if whatever had just happened was her fault.<\/p>\n

\"Charlotte
\n Photo:\u00a0Brooke Palmer\/HBO<\/p>\n

Paige tells Polygon that the scene felt both timeless and particularly relevant today, when most people seem more comfortable recording injustice on their smartphones than actually stepping in to help. She adds that it\u2019s just one more example of how Welcome to Derry is expanding the story\u2019s horror to encompass more than its iconic killer clown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond It the clown, what could be more insidious to humanity than turning the other cheek?\u201d Paige says. \u201cWhen we do what’s wrong in the name of justice, when we do what’s right, and it’s because it\u2019s what everybody else is [doing], it grows. It’s the mentality of evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

She views instances like this as unnatural, which aligns with her character’s family background. The Hanlons have just arrived in Derry, and unlike the locals, they see inaction as a cause for concern.<\/p>\n

\"1-it-welcome-to-derry-taylour-paige\"
\n Photo:\u00a0Brooke Palmer\/HBO<\/p>\n

\u201c[We] have a sense that it just doesn’t have to be this way. That’s unnatural, someone’s hurt, and everyone is not doing anything,” Paige says. “And we live in that world where we can agree on what’s right and what’s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Welcome to Derry is a prequel set decades before the original \u2014 and even further removed from its sequel \u2014 the town\u2019s horrors feel reflective of our modern world. At a moment when the U.S. government is pursuing near\u2013Gestapo-like tactics to detain undocumented immigrants and ensnare actual citizens in the process, while many others simply look on and film it with their smartphones, the show\u2019s portrayal of passive bigotry and bullying feels uncomfortably relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s nuance in conversation and thinking, but we know when something’s wrong and right, and we become so disgruntled and fragmented in our response, it’s very confusing, and that is actually the scariest thing of all,\u201d Paige says.<\/p>\n

Just as the original It reflected the anxieties of the 1980s, both eras reveal a common truth: no matter the decade or the progress made, hatred, whether simmering quietly or erupting violently, always lurks beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt leads to quite a hysterical society,\u201d Paige says.<\/p>\n

It: Welcome to Derry episodes 1 and 2 are streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air on Sundays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The more things change, the more they stay the same. That theme runs rampant through HBO’s It: Welcome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-111845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}