{"id":254630,"date":"2025-11-10T09:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T09:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/254630\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T09:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T09:35:06","slug":"it-welcome-to-derry-recap-ep-3-now-you-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/254630\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It: Welcome to Derry\u2019 Recap, Ep. 3: \u2018Now You See It\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n The series keeps pulling back each time it comes agonizingly close to showing Pennywise. Just let us see the clown already!
\n Photo: Brooke Palmer\/HBO\n <\/p>\n

As someone who has read It multiple times, I appreciate that Pennywise is so much more than a clown. Adaptations have an opportunity to show off the myriad forms he can take, and Welcome to Derry has done a (mostly) good job of that so far. But it\u2019s a little weird that we haven\u2019t seen Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd yet, right? \u201cThe idea behind the delayed appearance is the buildup of expectation,\u201d Andy Muschietti explained in a Hollywood Reporter interview<\/a>. \u201cWhen and where the clown is going to appear was a game that I wanted to play with the audience.\u201d While I respect that rationale, the constant teasing of Pennywise is really starting to grate. \u201cNow You See It\u201d presents multiple chances for the dancing clown to pop up, only to pull back. Even as the show\u2019s disparate story lines begin to cohere, it\u2019s hard not to feel frustrated by this increasingly tedious restraint.<\/p>\n

Take the opening sequence, which flashes back to a 1908 carnival. It\u2019s only natural to expect we\u2019re about to get our first glimpse of Pennywise, but the sole clown we see is a boy watching the proceedings from a distance. (The familiar makeup suggests this may be a younger version of Pennywise, whose form It will eventually assume, but doesn\u2019t that timeline seem off?) A boy named Francis visits a freak show and gets the crap scared out of him by a one-eyed old man, then runs out of the tent and straight into his father. \u201cDon\u2019t be a damn sissy,\u201d his dad says, before presenting Francis with the slingshot he won for him. Soon enough, Francis has traded the slingshot to some Indigenous kids for the water they\u2019re selling on the side of the road. He ends up befriending them, particularly a young girl named Rose. (As you may guess, she\u2019s the same Rose we met last week, the proprietor of the secondhand shop the Hanlons frequent.) Francis later fails to heed Rose\u2019s warning not to enter the forest, where he encounters the same old man from the freak show. The sequence starts off creepily enough with the creature lurking behind the trees, but once he morphs into a CGI monster who chases Francis on all fours, it presents the same bland scares as the It movies do at their worst \u2014 with the added disappointment of a carnival-based manifestation that\u2019s not a clown. Francis is saved by Rose, who fires the slingshot directly at the monster\u2019s head, giving both children time to escape.<\/p>\n

Back in 1962, Lilly leaves Juniper Hill with a higher dose of medication, which seems like the best-case scenario given the threat of lobotomy in the show\u2019s opening titles. Her one ally, the as yet unnamed head of housekeeping, played by Madeleine Stowe, advises Lilly to make things right with Ronnie. She also offers some much-needed support on the flying-demon-baby front when she says, \u201cIf you tell me that you\u2019ve seen the impossible, then I believe you.\u201d (As refreshing as it is to hear this from an adult in Derry, I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s the best policy for a person who works with mental patients.) Regardless, making amends with Ronnie is harder than Lilly would like. Things are not looking good for Hank, with Chief Bowers conjuring up another witness who swears she saw him lurking in the shadows near the Capitol Theater that night<\/a>, and everyone at school assumes Ronnie is the daughter of a serial killer. Rich says since Hank was arrested, the cops must have had evidence. \u201cThis is America, you can\u2019t just throw people in jail for nothing,\u201d he notes in one of the episode\u2019s most darkly funny lines. \u201cAre we talking about the same country?\u201d Will astutely responds. But as Lilly explains to Ronnie, telling the truth now won\u2019t do anything to absolve Hank \u2014\u00a0everyone already thinks Lilly is crazy. They\u2019re going to have to get proof of the supernatural being that has been tormenting them, and snapping a photo with Lilly\u2019s camera may just be their best bet.<\/p>\n

Some adults, it turns out, are well aware of the paranormal threat. Over at the Derry Air Force Base, Colonel Fuller confirms to General Shaw that the car they pulled from the dig site<\/a> belonged to the Bradley Gang, but they haven\u2019t been able to find anything hidden inside it. We learn a lot here, namely that they know about It (or \u201cthe entity\u201d) and that it can take on different forms and operates in 27-year cycles. I\u2019m not sure how I feel about the military being this knowledgeable, but much of it seems to come from what Rose told Shaw back in 1908. Yes, he\u2019s the grown-up Francis, and he has the slingshot to prove it. Because they\u2019re running out of time to find the Cold War\u2013ending weapon they\u2019re searching for, Shaw suggests sending Dick Hallorann up in a plane above Derry, where he may be able to use the slingshot \u2014\u00a0an object that put its mark on the entity 54 years prior \u2014\u00a0as a guide.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Leroy and Pauly are the pilots tasked with getting Dick in the air, and they\u2019re advised to think of him as a \u201chuman compass\u201d and go wherever he tells them. On the plane, Dick clutches the slingshot and begins sweating and muttering to himself before becoming unresponsive. When Leroy radios the base to ask for permission to return, he\u2019s told to stay the course. Meanwhile, things are getting weirder for Dick. He starts moving to the back of the plane and looks down to see that his feet are in water. As a metal door closes behind him, he suddenly finds himself not high above Derry but beneath it \u2014 he\u2019s in the intersection of the sewers known as the cistern, which movie fans will recognize instantly as Pennywise\u2019s lair. Once again, we come agonizingly close to seeing the clown. His circus wagon opens, and from the darkness, two yellow eyes gleam back. But Dick\u2019s grandma, hovering above with Pennywise\u2019s levitating child victims, floats down with a warning: \u201cHe\u2019s coming, Dickie, get out of here now.\u201d There\u2019s a close call when Dick opens the cargo door and nearly jumps out of the plane, but Leroy stops him just in time. Back on land, Dick has a warning of his own for Shaw. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t supposed to see us; it wasn\u2019t supposed to know,\u201d he says. \u201cI got a feeling we keep on like we\u2019re doing, something bad is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not sold on Welcome to Derry\u2019s military story line yet, I do appreciate the way the show now connects Dick to the Hanlon family. After last week\u2019s overly scattered installment, things are beginning to feel a bit more streamlined. Dick joins Leroy and Charlotte for dinner, where we learn more about the family. Charlotte was a history teacher back in Shreveport, but she has yet to find comparable work in Derry. There\u2019s also the matter of her civil-rights activism, a clear source of tension between her and her husband. As Charlotte explains, barely suppressing her resentment, Leroy is concerned that her commitment to the cause could stall his ascent at work. Dick is sympathetic to Leroy\u2019s perspective, noting that being Black in the military means having your personal life scrutinized, which is little comfort for Charlotte. Thus far, she may be the most compelling character on the show, particularly given that her natural inclination toward calling out injustice clashes with the deep-seated bigotry of Derry that Pennywise feeds on. I\u2019m hoping we see more of her in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, our focus is mostly on Dick and Leroy. The latter realizes Dick was one of the men who broke into his room in the first episode because he could feel Dick reading his thoughts. \u201cStay out of my head,\u201d Leroy cautions. \u201cWe clear?\u201d Dick, who was able to instantly suss out his inability to feel fear, assures Leroy he\u2019s not the kind of person Dick would ever want to cross.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s check back in with Charlotte and Leroy\u2019s son. Will is enjoying burgers and milkshakes with Rich at the Derry Grill when Ronnie and Lilly show up asking for help. Knowing Will\u2019s interest in science, Ronnie has correctly reasoned that he may be able to develop any photos they can snap. The boys don\u2019t believe Ronnie and Lilly\u2019s story about a kid-killing creature, but they agree to help anyway. (Rich calls out that Will may be motivated by his crush on Ronnie, which feels a little sudden until you remember they\u2019re 12.) Over at the Derry Standpipe, Will smartly asks how they\u2019re going to get the being to appear. Lilly says they could simply wait \u2014 or they could try to conjure it. When she points out that it\u2019s appearing as their dead loved ones to scare them, Rich suggests it might be an orix\u00e1. His t\u00edo was a babalao (a Santer\u00eda priest) who could conjure a spirit known as an orix\u00e1 that could then take the form of its targets\u2019 ancestors. The last thing we need is additional mythology here, and traditionally speaking, an orix\u00e1 is more divine than evil, but it does give the 1962 Losers Club some direction. Rich believes he can mimic his t\u00edo\u2019s ceremony to draw out the spirit, so they head to the cemetery with candles in tow.<\/p>\n

Sadly, this final sequence is the low point of the episode. Even amid some clunky exposition, Welcome to Derry has at least managed to offer compelling horror set pieces to keep heart rates up. The cemetery scene is \u2026 not that. After the orix\u00e1 ceremony fails to conjure anything, Rich admits he thinks it\u2019s made up \u2014\u00a0along with the idea of a shape-shifting monster that has been murdering the children of Derry. Ronnie storms off with Lilly following close behind, but as Will and Rich try to catch up to the girls, strange things start to happen. The ground of the cemetery opens up beneath them, and specters rise into the air. The effect here is not nearly as frightening as it should be, especially on a show whose premiere featured multiple children torn apart. These ghosts, which take the form of their dead friends, are mostly just goofy, with the shoddy special effects and glowy auras giving the whole thing a distinctly Haunted Mansion vibe; critically, the threat never feels real, which undermines any tension. After all the kids have been suitably spooked, Will finds his way into a crypt, where he snaps a pic of the creature advancing on him. \u201cI should have believed you,\u201d he later concedes to Ronnie, prompting a group hug. Back at school, they develop the photos, watching as the ghosts of Teddy and Susie materialize in the images. Will\u2019s crypt photo is last, and while I know we\u2019re meant to gasp at the reveal that it\u2019s a clown, a blurry pic that looks like Pennywise if you squint is a deflating cliffhanger \u2014 and not enough to get this show back on track.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Shaw and Rose reconnect at her store, where the general admits he had completely forgotten about her after he left Derry. She explains that the town has a way of making you forget things the farther away from it you are, a feature of Derry first established in It.<\/p>\n

\u2022 We see the local tribe meeting to discuss the military digs. Rose tells Shaw that her community is concerned about sacred remains being disturbed. \u201cWe can\u2019t allow unmarked burial grounds to be destroyed,\u201d she explains. The Native American burial-ground trope is prominent in Pet Sematary and the film adaptation of The Shining, the latter of which (as I noted last week) has been theorized to be about the genocide of Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The slingshot Rose wounds the old-man monster with recalls the slingshot Beverly Marsh uses to shoot silver slugs at Pennywise\u2019s werewolf form. Because slingshots were much less common in 1989 than in the novel\u2019s late-\u201950s setting, Muschietti left that out of his adaptations.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Chief Bowers taunts Hank by asking, \u201cDo you know what they do to kiddie killers in Shawshank?\u201d Shawshank Prison is perhaps Stephen King\u2019s most iconic setting, most notably thanks to the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and the movie The Shawshank Redemption. But it is mentioned in many other King books and was prominently featured on the earlier King TV series Castle Rock.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Dick tells Leroy about his grandma, who also had the shine, and her spirit sounds the alarm about Pennywise in the cistern. Rose Hallorann\u2019s full backstory \u2014 including the way she taught her grandson about his psychic abilities \u2014 is detailed in the Shining sequel Doctor Sleep.<\/p>\n

\u2022 For true King freaks only: The ball toss at the carnival features clowns and turtles, another nod to the eternal cosmic struggle between Pennywise and Maturin.<\/p>\n

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