‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ finale recap: your hair is winter fire

Winter fire

The sinister fog that’s been peppered throughout the show’s marketing has arrived. Though I’m not too sure of its effect beyond killing foliage and being mildly toxic to breathe. In fact, do the people of Derry just stay the whole time indoors? Because by the time Pennywise highjacks the school’s intercom and Deadlights the school (Pattycakes and all), then hitches this floating parade of comatose children to the back of It’s wagon, there’s not a soul in sight to say, Hey, what’s going on?

Anyway, the gymnasium trap was a buffet, if not gluttonous if this is It’s hibernation stockpile. (Panic buying, are we?) Ronnie, Lilly and Marge arrive on the scene to find Principal Dunleavey’s decapitated head (after his body was used as a meat puppet), after finding the base of the standpipe excessively covered in the missing posters of their peers. Ronnie finds a blood-splattered poster for Will. After Richie, the girls don’t want to lose another one of their mates. “I want to kill that fucking clown,” says Marge.

The dagger’s powers, beyond repelling It, remain a mystery. But the effect it has on Lilly is giving Gollum My Precious vibes; Taniel didn’t have that disposition, though. Marge and Ronnie gang up on Lilly, that she’s being suspicious about needing to hold the dagger. She snaps out of it, quickly enough, when Ronnie says she’s essential to the group as their lifeboat.

“What scares the man without fear?”

After getting a call from Big P, Leroy goes begging to Hallorann that he needs his help one last time. Hallorann, on the other hand, is wrought and has been suicidal since Pennywise pried open his mind box, the voices of the dead telling him to join them. Putting the pistol in his mouth, Leroy implores him with, “It’s got Will!” That means nothing to Hallorann at this point, so he hilariously moves the gun to his temple. “Help me find my baby, please,” says Leroy. A lesson, then, not to bring the man without fear’s family along for the relocation.

Charlotte is losing it when Leroy tells her that It’s got Will, rightfully so. But the power that will bring him back, he says? The bond of mother and son – the strongest in this world. Rose proposes that they use Hallorann’s abilities to find Will and Shine battle It. She gives him a cap of Maturin root tea (again, the great celestial turtle being that’s It’s archnemesis) that shuts up all of the voices and allows him to use his powers again. (I hope she gave him a take-home packet for the road to England.)

Hallorann sees through Marge’s eyes and says Ronnie is also en route. “Ronnie? My baby Ronnie?!” says Hank in a panic. (This man could not give a damn about anything unless Ronnie is mentioned – just saying.) Rose proposes that they get the dagger and bury it in the Deadwood, the farthest point in town before Pennywise can escape. The adults head off in the car towards the Deadwood, installing a sweating Hallorann deep in his trance in the back seat like a GPS.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Richie in the baby carriage!”

All roads lead to the frozen river as the kids and adults close in on Pennywise’s parade of comatose children. The girls come wielding the dagger, which does its job, but Pennywise keeps running circles around them, calling them, “The fool, the freak, the failure”. Pretty sure Lilly is the freak, but the other two titles are up for grabs. It grabs Marge by the ankles and does one of the craziest things this season: It confirms that Marge is Margaret Tozier, so is Richie’s mother in the IT movies. “Tozier?!” she says. It also shows her a missing poster with Finn Wolfhard’s photo on it.

Obviously, that name means nothing to her; I get it, we have half an hour to wrap up the easter eggs and confirm theories. It goes on a spiel that Marge will give birth to one of the Losers Club members, who eventually kill It. This really only says that It experiences the past, present and future simultaneously, and that it theoretically could kill Marge or Lilly’s ancestors to ensure they don’t exist. But wouldn’t it be super weird to find out this way that, for instance, the Tozier in the grade above you is your future baby daddy?

RIP Taniel and General Shaw

Before It can sink its teeth into Marge, Hallorann and the adults arrive, locking the entity in a Shine reality where he’s back at the carnival as Bob Gray. All the floating kids drop like flies and Will joins the girls in their crusade. Just as Taniel and Leroy got a hold of the dagger, of course, the military was stationed at the other side of the river to stop anyone from sabotaging their plans. Taniel was instantly killed as the soldiers shot at them.

With Pennywise frozen, General Shaw decides to walk up to It, reassuring It that the US military will help. Meanwhile, in Hallorann’s mind reality, the carnival ringleader starts slapping Bob Gray, saying he needs to lay off the spirits. “I am a god! An eater of worlds!” It says. This would have really benefited from showing and not telling. Anyway, when Hallorann loses his hold on Pennywise, Shaw tries to convince the entity that they’re there to help him. “I remember a smell,” It says to Shaw, before shapeshifting into his fear of a diseased-looking man and chomping on his face.

An extra pair of hands

Even with the general gone, the colonel still won’t listen to Leroy, calling him a traitor. The adults fabulously overpower the military, while the kids make a run for the Deadwood. Just as Pennywise is skipping towards them, Hallorann sees Sesqui send Rich’s spirit to help the dagger into the ground. It seems there are good spirits, too. In Its last ditch effort, it shapeshifts into a giant bat/bird. It all ends dramatically as the dagger connects with all of the other pillars, shooting golden beams into the sky. Again, did the townspeople not see all of this?? “Lively crowd” It says, before retrating back to its hole.

The aftermath

Derry is finally at peace, and Rich’s family and friends have his funeral at long last. Marge gives a speech on behalf of the Losers, talking about how she only knew him for a month, but that was immaterial to the way friends stand up for one another and make us not feel lonely. Hallorann stops by as well, seeing Rich’s spirit with his arms around his father and Will. Rich’s parents can feel something on their shoulders, to which Hallorann confirms it’s Rich, as they take it as a comfort. (That was very Jennifer Love Hewitt Ghost Whisperer of him.) “Who are you, sir?” his father asks. Hallorann replies, ridiculously: “I’m still working on that”. Lilly also stops by her father’s grave, apologising for not visiting very often, but she tells him about her new friends that have kept her so buys.

Later at the Standpipe, Marge and Lilly cheer with some soda as they remark how peaceful the town is, as if nothing had happened. Marge tells her about her one-on-one with Pennywise, and how It told her her future, and how it could kill their parents to stop them from being born. They conclude that It is omnipresent. Lilly tells her not to worry about it, and that the past and future are someone else’s fight – the only sane thing she’s said this season.

“How much trouble can a hotel be?”

The adults are going their separate ways, too. Hallorann tells Leroy that he’ll be leaving Derry. He’ll take a bus to Boston before flying to London to cook in the restaurant of an old buddy’s hotel. “How much trouble can a hotel be?” Har har har. He isn’t referring to the Overlook Hotel, which is where The Shining takes place when he’s much older. So this is perhaps his first in a long string of hotel cook jobs he’ll have until then.

A goodbye kiss

The Grogans are finally making their exit. As far as we know, Hank is still a wanted fugitive in the town as he packs the car for the road to Nova Scotia or wherever. Before they leave, Ronnie and Will share a moment about how he doesn’t want to forget about her. He’ll write and write, just as Shaw and Rose did, but look how that ended. They share the kiss they would’ve had if his mother hadn’t driven past them two episodes ago.

The Hanlons stay

Leroy, who now walks with a cane after being shot in the leg, and Charlotte were also thinking of leaving, because like hell they’re staying after seeing the town turn on Hank. But without Taniel, Rose is selling the farm, and thinks the Hanlons should stay and join her secret committee about the Galloo. She thinks they can do some real good. This appeals to both Charlotte and Leroy, who see it as strengthening their marriage with this “fool mission”. They decide to buy the farm off Rose and raise sheep for the rest of their lives.

These endings are a little too cheery and conclusive, especially since we see in the films that this is just the start of tragedies for the Hanlons. Mike’s father, Will, and mother will eventually die in a brutal fire; Mike’s grandfather, presumably Leroy, a disabled sheep farmer, is abusive. Keeping it isolated to the series is fine, but it’s not looking good for the Hanlons going forward.

The Beverly Marsh cameo

How crazy would it be to work at an insane asylum and see your former coworker be admitted? That’s how we meet Ingrid Kersh again, now a patient wearing a straitjacket at Juniper Hill. As the doctor puts on some calming music for her, the scene time jumps to October 1988, It’s next cycle and when Chapter One takes place. Bringing back Joan Gregson as older Mrs Kersh, she’s busying herself with a painting, until it is interrupted by a screaming nurse. People are gathering by a doorway when we see a female patient has hung herself. Her family is crouching on the floor, the crying father shaking off his daughter. And lo and behold, it’s Sophie Lillis, who played Beverly in Chapter One. “You know what they say about Derry, dear,” Mrs Kersh says to Beverly. “No one who dies here ever really dies.”

Some final thoughts

Truthfully, the cameos served no purpose. We only meet older Mrs Kersh in Chapter Two when Beverly goes back to her old apartment to find her occupying it. (Even then, Mrs Kersh, if she were alive, would’ve been well into her 100s.) The time jump to 1988, frankly, makes no sense, since there isn’t anything else to plumb there, and with the past cycles set up nicely for another season or two. Anyway, the episode title was a bit of a giveaway, referencing Ben’s poem to Beverly.

The operatic ending with the beams in the sky, and how easily everyone walked away from this, has me wondering if every cycle ends with It getting its ass kicked. Does it ever have a breezy end of a cycle where it simply fills up to its heart’s content? And does every cycle have a version of a motley crew out to get it? If so, do they succeed every time? With how strong the series started with killing off Phil, Tommy and Susie, I thought Lilly would end up getting a lobotomy at Juniper Hill; Ronnie dying, hence the Ronnie Beverly hears in the sewers; and Will and Marge survive to have children. Anyway, that’s a wrap on season one. Till the next cycle, losers!