Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 4.
When it was announced that Bill Skarsgård would play the iconic Pennywise the Clown in Andy Muschietti‘s big-screen adaptation of Stephen King‘s IT, many fans were skeptical. After all, Tim Curry had knocked it out of the park for the 1990 TV miniseries version, so Skarsgård was going to have some mighty big shoes to fill — but, oh, did he succeed, as the first IT especially was a huge success, with critics giving it an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences showing up for a mind-boggling $720 million worldwide haul on a $35 million budget.
That could have been it for Skarsgård, but with King’s legendary novel leaving so many untold stories up for grabs, Muschietti returned with the prequel HBO series IT: Welcome to Derry. There was no show if Skarsgård didn’t come back as well, so thankfully he did, but through four episodes so far, we have yet to fully see Pennywise. That’s a huge risk to take, but the reward has been a well-rounded horror story that’s about so much more than a clown.
The Entity Has Appeared in Other Terrifying Forms on ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’
What’s fascinating about IT and Pennywise is that this isn’t some straight-up slasher about a killer clown. Instead, it’s so much more, with the monster being an entity that can shapeshift into whatever its victims are scared of most so that it can feed on that fear. For kids (hell, for a lot of adults too), what they are scared of is a creepy clown. Pennywise is what the entity takes the shape of most of the time, but that’s not its only form. In the novel, the 1950s setting boasts old-school monsters like a mummy and a werewolf, as well as a giant bird. In Muschietti’s movies, the entity takes the form of a leper, a burnt kid without a head, a rampaging giant Paul Bunyan statue, and the rotting corpse of poor Georgie Denbrough. All of these have worked not to scare the creature’s victims, so why should IT: Welcome to Derry be any different?
The HBO prequel series shows off the entity’s power by reminding us what it’s capable of. A flashback scene with General Shaw (James Remar) as a boy (Diesel La Torraca) sees him being chased by a one-eyed man in the woods after being scared by the real individual at a local carnival. In the river, Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) is pulled down into the water by what looks like his own burnt father (Jovan Adepo). For Teddy Uris (Mikka Karim Fidler), after his father tells him a terrifying story about a Nazi who made lampshades out of their victims during the Holocaust, his own bedroom lamp turns on him, while Lilly (Clara Stack) is terrorized by a pickled octopus that looks like her father after the audience learns her dad was killed in an accident at a pickle factory. Most shocking of all is what happens in the very first episode, when four kids are killed by a winged demon baby.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Has Only Offered Teasing Glimpses of Pennywise — So Far
Pennywise hasn’t fully shown up yet (at least not in that familiar clown form), but he hasn’t been forgotten. Instead, Andy Muschietti is having a heck of a time teasing the audience with minor glimpses here and there. The Killer Clown is there in animated form in the show’s spectacular opening credits, with “A Smile and a Ribbon” by Patience and Prudence serving as both a wink to the past and what’s to come, but the past two episodes have only pushed the show’s eventual reveal of Pennywise even further, with Episode 3, “Now You See It,” using a clever play on words to announce his arrival… sort of.
When Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) uses General Shaw’s childhood slingshot like a compass that will point him toward the entity in his mind, he finds himself in the sewers underneath Derry, where he discovers a circus wagon with Pennywise’s name on it. There’s no dancing clown, but rather two eyes shining in the darkness, as well as Skarsgård’s deep voice, saying, “Who are you?” Later, in the cemetery, Will also successfully snaps a photo of something that flashes by him in the crypt — something that suspiciously looks like a clown.
With the entity already showing what it can do in other forms, and the teases set, Episode 4 of IT: Welcome to Derry, “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function,” starts reeling viewers into the trap about to be sprung. In addition to the red balloons that ominously herald Pennywise’s presence, Will even spots the Killer Clown briefly through his telescope, with the episode ultimately ending on a final sting of the Neibolt house. Pennywise isn’t in close-up yet, but these teases seem to indicate that viewers won’t have to wait much longer.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Building Anticipation Is Better Than Too Much Bill Skarsgård
This slow turn of the screw has worked to build anticipation without letting viewers forget that the entity is out there. Despite high anticipation, however, would IT: Welcome to Derry still have worked if Pennywise were front and center in the first episode? If everything viewers want to see is delivered via immediate fan service, where does the show go from there? As great as Bill Skarsgård is as the character, it would quickly get old if every episode had him cracking sinister jokes and killing kids in new, gory ways. That’s a cheap rollercoaster ride, not true terror, and it would have very quickly turned Pennywise into a tiresome Freddy Krueger from the latter, awful Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, a parody of himself rather than something to really fear.
Instead, IT: Welcome to Derry is doing it right, drawing out the tension as long as it can, but Muschietti is offering viewers other things to hook onto and stay invested in, including phenomenal characterization. Lilly is an absolutely tragic lead, and it’s impossible not to root for her through so much hell. Those added layers before Pennywise even arrives make the tension palpable since it would be devastating to watch these new friends meet the same fate as their predecessors in the premiere. Even if you find yourself getting frustrated, hold tight because the red balloon is about to pop very soon on Welcome to Derry, and the wait will have all been worth it.
