{"id":173022,"date":"2025-12-08T03:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/173022\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T03:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:22:08","slug":"it-welcome-to-derry-episode-7-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/173022\/","title":{"rendered":"IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry Episodes 1-7.<\/p>\n

The Augery is upon us: hide your kids, hide your wife. <\/p>\n

Every Pennywise cycle ends in a horrible mass casualty event and, of all of them, the burning of the Black Spot is probably the most well-known to fans thanks to its connection to the Hanlon family and prominent mentions in Andy Muschietti\u2019s It: Chapter One. Muschietti returns to the directors\u2019 chair this week at a critical juncture for the show and, befitting the bizarre alchemy of the show\u2019s horror, drama, and King fan service, the stuff that works best about the first season\u2019s penultimate episode might surprise you.<\/p>\n

Though \u201cThe Black Spot\u201d has last week\u2019s cliffhanger ending to get to, the episode prologues with another substantial flashback to 1908 and the traveling circus that visited Derry, where the local kids are delighting in the stylings of one Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd). But this is not your grandpappy\u2019s shapeshifting monster: after a very brief appearance last week, Welcome to Derry finally gives It fans their first real look at Bob Gray, the performer whose whole vibe It decided to co-opt all those years ago. And what a vibe it is.<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/a>The beaver’s the only one with the buck teeth… for now.<\/p>\n

Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd\u2019s performance of the human Pennywise is a rousing high-wire balancing act unto itself, one which not only evokes the scary intensity the character\u2019s famous for but, more impressively, modulates the form of the demonic dancing clown into a believably human, turn-of-the-century performer whose glory days are long past. Skarsg\u00e5rd cavorts around with Pennywise\u2019s signature ragdoll fluidity but tones the throaty voice down, preserving the aesthetic shape of Pennywise and yet filling it with a sensibility that may still feel off-kilter, but probably no more off-kilter than some of the other clowns running around in 1908. Special mention has to go to the costume design and makeup departments, as well: Bob Gray\u2019s Pennywise looks great. While the outfit is cleaner, it\u2019s the ill-fitting hairpiece and lighter makeup that really sell what a reality-based Pennywise would be like. <\/p>\n

This entire dynamic is captured as Pennywise performs an Up-style pantomime for the group of assembled children, which hints at the early death of his wife and performing partner, who went by, say it with me now, Periwinkle. Young Ingrid (Emma-Leigh Cullum) helps her dad by pulling strings behind the scenes, giving Pennywise\/Bob the chance to snatch at growing flowers (some nice, clean thematic imagery right there) before tearfully saying goodbye to a floating marionette dress and collapsing in tears at his wife\u2019s grave. You know, kid stuff! While the children are fascinated by Pennywise\u2019s performance, they still bum rush him and try to beat the snot out of him, which does reveal Bob\u2019s resentment towards his current circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“Show me the bow!”<\/p>\n

But in perhaps the most shocking twist of the whole season\u2026 Bob Gray seems to be a genuinely loving father to Ingrid, even if he hits the bottle a little too often. Bob delights in the painted face and costume with which Ingrid presents him, awkwardly passing his late wife\u2019s Periwinkle moniker on to her before realizing that Ingrid may want to pick her own name. But Ingrid loves this idea, excitedly taking on the mantle. The sensitivity and affection between these two gives the moment where It takes Bob a surprising sense of tragedy, as a poorly lit vagabond child leads Pennywise the Dancing Clown to his death in the western woods. As Dick Hallorann once said, \u201cIt all comes around. Ka is a wheel<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The action moves to back to 1962, with Clint Bowers (Peter Outerbridge) leading his armed, masked lynch mob into the Black Spot demanding Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) in return for the rest of the patrons\u2019 safety. Though Hank\u2019s ready to give himself up, the Black airmen here aren\u2019t about to let these good ol\u2019 boys take Hank without a fight\u2026 but that\u2019s exactly what they get and it does not go their way. Chaos erupts as Bowers and his mob lock the doors and firebomb the place, giving way to stressfully choreographed long takes where Muschietti catches glimpses of airmen and their dates being shot through the windows, hit with Molotov cocktails, and succumbing to smoke inhalation. And that\u2019s all before Pennywise enters the fray and starts to feed while the place is still in flames. <\/p>\n

Amidst the morass of adult patrons either dying by fire or gunfire, the kids (minus Lilly) struggle to find their way to safety and we bid farewell to Rich Santos (Arian S. Cartaya), who goes out like the brave knight he always dreamed of becoming, protecting his \u201cfair maiden\u201d Marge with his life. Rich uses the old \u201cthere\u2019s enough room on the door for both of us\u201d trick to get Marge into the only refuge left in the Black Spot – a refrigerator – as the roof starts to collapse. Their final farewell through the door where they confess their love for each other shows Cartaya and Matilda Lawler at their best, each totally unguarded and grounded in their terrifying circumstances. Now feels like as good a time as any to point out that the legacy of Rich\u2019s sacrifice will reverberate for years to come in Derry: \u201cMarge\u201d being short for Margaret, Margaret being the name of Richie Tozier\u2019s mom and all that\u2026 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s in the immediate aftermath of the fire that Derry\u2019s resident nightcrawler Ingrid Kersh\/Periwinkle emerges just long enough for her to introduce her \u201cdad\u201d to her jerk husband Stan Kersh, and for Pennywise to cut Stan\u2019s head in half with his own cleaver. Here, the absence of that genuine love Bob showed for Ingrid finally hits home, but she comes to that realization too late to prevent herself being glamoured by Pennywise\u2019s deadlights. Madeline Stowe plays this dawning horror just fine, but the moment doesn\u2019t really make all that much sense in the context of how much she seems to know about It\u2019s violent proclivities. It\u2019s felt like Welcome to Derry has been kicking the Periwinkle can down the road all season, and, strong though \u201cThe Black Spot\u2019s\u201d prologue may be in its own right, Muschietti doesn\u2019t connect the dots very well here. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s still some hope for Periwinkle in the finale though: that creepy, catatonic glance at Will (Blake Cameron James), Ronnie (Amanda Christine), and Marge (Matilda Lawler) as she\u2019s being wheeled away by paramedics suggests she\u2019s ready to get into her new family\u2019s business. Lilly (Clara Stack) better hold that ceremonial dagger close. After all\u2019s said and done, the Augery proves to be intensely horrific and tough-to-watch, but there\u2019s not a lot of room in all the flame and fury for many affecting scares.<\/p>\n

Despite the Augery now being complete and It seemingly sated, General Shaw\u2019s (James Remar) decision to \u201cleave the cage door open\u201d by melting down the pillar they\u2019ve recovered (encased in a turtle shell, no less) feels like a turn more rooted in squeezing one last big set-piece out of next week\u2019s season finale than in maintaining the believability of Shaw\u2019s motivations, as most of the turns of this plot thread have. Remar has been a steady hand throughout Welcome to Derry, at times the only part of the military machinery that kept this corner of the story worth revisiting, but even he can\u2019t keep the chaos that ensues once Leroy pulls a gun on the soldiers smelting the pillar on the rails. By the time Shaw\u2019s trying to explain why defeating \u201cthe enemy within\u201d America by striking fear into the hearts of homegrown degenerates, it\u2019s hard to care too much about his reasoning. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine looking back favorably on this incohesive military storyline next to the far more interesting goings on in Derry proper. <\/p>\n

Welcome to Derry had some interesting directions to take this thread with Shaw and Rose\u2019s (Kimberly Guerrero) shared history in town, but unless next week features a total rug-pull that completely upends Shaw\u2019s thought process here, it\u2019s hard to imagine looking back favorably on this incohesive military storyline next to the far more interesting goings on in Derry proper. The exception to the overall weakness of the military plot, of course, remains Chris Chalk\u2019s Hallorann, whose brawny performance continues to transcend Hallorann\u2019s otherwise limited role as Shaw\u2019s pillar detector. Hallorann has an important part to play during the Black Spot fire, surviving a face-to-face encounter with Pennywise and helping Hank, Will and Ronnie escape with guidance from Sesqui\u2019s (Morningstar Angeline) spirit. But while we get some nice imagery of the encroaching ghosts plaguing him now that his mental lockbox has been opened by Pennywise, Hallorann\u2019s mostly in the background this week \u2013 here\u2019s hoping Welcome to Derry puts Hallorann\u2019s (and Chalk\u2019s) Shine to good use in the finale. <\/p>\n

With the pillar destroyed, Pennywise is awake for a little mid-hibernation snack, and he\u2019s already got Will in his deadlights and on his plate. Did you know Pennywise slept in a pool of blood and viscera? I didn\u2019t! Looks cool as hell!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry Episodes 1-7. The Augery is upon us: hide your kids, hide your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-173022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}