‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ episode 2 recap: new kids on the block
Ronnie and Lilly are the two left standing; Hanlon's family arrives; General Shaw's motives are revealed. This is everything that happened in episode two of 'It: Welcome to Derry'
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN! If you’re on the sofa instead of at a party, HBO has released episode two of IT: Welcome to Derry a few days early for your spooky night in. (Regular scheduling will resume from November 10 in Australia.)
Anyway, the premiere’s bait and switch has now left us wondering: who are the new Losers Club in 1962 Derry? Lilly and Ronnie’s relationship is beginning to strain when Lilly makes a quasi-statement to Chief Bowers that lands Ronnie’s father back in jail. Hanlon’s family arrives as they adjust to a superficially tolerant community. And General Shaw’s motives are revealed about why he wanted Hanlon in Derry in the first place.
Below, we recap this week’s episode of IT: Welcome to Derry.
Spoilers abound! Read our recap on the previous episode here.
Harrowing POV
Doubling down on the series premiere’s bait-and-switch finale, episode two starts with Lilly’s POV of the harrowing ordeal. “See, I told you there was weird shit going on over at the airbase,” said Phil, ever the conspirator, “They made a giant fucking mutant baby!” Teddy is the first to go: dragged, bitten, and thrown at the projector window. Phil gets tackled to the ground. Then it’s sweet Susie’s turn, the mutant baby biting a chunk out of her arm as she tried to reach for Lilly’s hand. But Lilly was just reliving it as a nightmare, waking up in bed with her arm stretched out.
After the first episode aired, conspiracy theorists on TikTok were quick to credit the turtle charm on Lilly’s bracelet as Maturin, the god-like cosmic being and Pennywise’s archnemesis, for how she got away. Viewers also remember the turtle mascot in the hallway handing out flyers about nuclear bomb evacuations; Bert the Turtle was a real-life program in American schools during the Cold War.
Who has the Shine?
Others have theorised that Lilly might have the Shine. AKA Stephen King’s term for the psychic ability – spanning telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, pyrokenesis, etc. – that appears throughout his books and the film adaptations. Think Carrie or Danny from The Shining. The original Losers Club also had the Shine, which is why the connection is made here again. The ability will be explored further with the introduction of a character from The Shining crossing over into the series. More on that soon.
Anyway, there are cops parked outside of Ronnie’s apartment as they’re looking to pin the “all blood and no bodies” scene on her father, Hank Grogan, who works at the theatre. His alibi goes that he was in bed at night watching the Griffith Show. But being Black, in the ’60s, and in Maine, the cops stationed outside are nothing but an intimidation act to give in.
Hey, new kid on the block
After his near-death experience in the Korean War, Major Leroy Hanlon took the posting in Derry as a “slice of normalcy” and to be back with his family under one roof. When his family arrives, he gifts his bookish son, Will, with a telescope by his street-facing window. A helpful tip-off from his wife, Charlotte; if he had it his way, Leroy would’ve liked to give his son a baseball glove.
The quietude of Derry is something Charlotte will have to get used to as she resumes her life as a housewife. Doing her errands around town, the people of Derry are tolerant, but, of course, she is still the only Black person on the street.
A smoking chef greets her with good morning; the cleaver-wielding butcher welcomes her to town, noting how nice it is to see the “variety” of people walk through his door. She walks past an alley way, where years later, her grandson Mike will have a run-in with It. (Yes, Mike is Will’s son. The show is less facsimiles and more Ancestry.com.) But as a group of boys beat up a bespeckled classmate on the street, Charlotte can’t help but step in, only for everyone to look at her as though she was the crazy one. “Boys will be boys,” the butcher said.
With his cold welcome on his first day of school, Will joins our new cast of (outcast) heroes. His first brush-up is with his teacher, who he contradicts on her idea of relativity and tardiness. He’s smart. We also meet Rich, who strikes a bond with Will after noticing his top-notch cedar pencil. He’s one of the only Latino kids in school, in town even; Rich eats his empanada with milk after band practice.
Don’t be an outfit rememberer
Being a ‘Pattycake’ is embarrassing, just look at the titular Patty and her posse. Socially ambitious Marge is still torn between becoming a fully risen Pattycake and staying friends with Lilly. When questioned by authorities as to the events of the night, Lilly omitted the flying mutant baby and emphasised that she was unsure if Ronnie’s father was there. Worried about being thrown back into the Juniper Hill asylum, she was brought back into questioning again, this time by police chief Bowers (yes, parricidal Henry Bower’s grandfather). Pressured by a councilman to arrest Ronnie’s father, Lilly’s unsure admission was enough to warrant the arrest.
Mother!
Across eight episodes, director Andy Muschietti can draw out the gory horror scenes in television’s breathing room. A goal with the show, Muschietti has said, was to dispel the fact that It was just Pennywise the Clown. As it’s demonstrated so far, the cosmic entity can create whole scenes of horror.
For Ronnie’s horror scene, It took the form of her mother, who presumably died giving birth, wearing a wedding dress (the reference: a photo Ronnie keeps on her bedside table). Her bedsheets turned into the inside of her mother’s womb until she was given birth to. Ronnie fought as the still attached umbilical cord was reeling her into the monster’s mouth, a pair of yellow glowing eyes staring at her. The ordeal ends when her father bursts in, hearing her scream. Which makes me wonder what the outside POV would be when It is capturing another victim.
Anyway, back at school, Ronnie blames Lilly for telling to the cops that her father may or may not have been at the theatre. Cussing, this gets her a ticket to detention, where she meets Will for the first time. He’s serving time for allegedly throwing the stick bomb in the hallway. The two are immediately smitten with each other, talking about stardust and whatnot.
The Native American mythologies in It: Welcome to Derry
It: Chapter Two was the first proper incorporation of Native Americans in the story of Derry. Before the settlers, it’s revealed that the indigenous tribe had been fighting It for centuries, taking the form of large mythological beasts. In Welcome to Derry, we meet Rose, the antique shop owner from whom Leroy bought Will’s telescope. Charlotte pays her a visit, looking for more furniture to help fill out her new house.
Later, three Native American men with motorcycles are spying over a large excavation site on the outskirts of Derry. How the tribe and the military’s presence will entwine will likely surround their unwarranted digging on sacred grounds.
Enter: Nick Hallorann
Andy and Barbara Muschietti (the It films and series producer) aren’t in the business of multiverses, as some TikTok theorists have deduced the appearance of Dick Hallorann in Welcome to Derry. Making his on-screen debut in the 1980 film The Shining, Hallorann was the head chef at the Overlook Hotel. A possessor of the Shine, he telepathically bonded with young Tommy, mentoring him, too. With the show taking place in 1962, Chris Chalk plays a younger Hallorann.
He shows up in episode two chilling at a bar with two military friends as they make fun of his operation he can’t talk about. Chief Bowers tells the barkeep to kick them out. Returning to base drunk, they’re waved through, a show of Hallorann’s special privileges that lets him move freely around town as a Black man, much to the dismay of the racists around him.
In terms of those with the Shine, Hallorann is a grown man who might have already mastered his powers. Working closely with General Shaw, Hallorann’s role is perhaps as a spirit guide.
Lilly’s supermarket find
More on wondering about the outside POV when someone’s being attacked by It, Lilly has her second run-in at the supermarket. Our main girl has just been questioned again by Chief Bowers, where he’s pressured her into giving a quasi-statement for the cops to arrest Ronnie’s father. Things take a turn as the shelves shift and enclose her like a hedge maze. Adults who It has taken the form of creep behind her. The loudspeaker blares: “Lilly Bainbridge, have you lost your marbles?”
Closed off, she’s confronted with cereal boxes with Matty, Susie, Phil and Teddy’s faces on them, and, lo and behold, jars and jars of pickles. At this point, It’s manifestations aren’t scary, they’re taunting. Pushing it further, pieces of her father’s body are trapped in the jars, pushing themselves on the floor until they come together like a puzzle. Octopus tentacles grab Lilly, only when her screams get loud enough does the illusion shatter. The bow-tied man from earlier walks up to her, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
It might not even be trying to eat her anymore, but send her back to Juniper Hill entirely – which her mother does by the end of the episode.
The attack on Leroy was a test
So, Masters was not there that night during the attack on Leroy. But why was he locked up in the stockade? It seems it was just a cover for General Shaw to carry out a test on Leroy. The tell was that Masters couldn’t cock the Makarov PM, a Soviet pistol, as fast as the attacker. Knowing this, Shaw reveals what he wanted out of that night: to test Leroy’s fear instincts. To Shaw’s delight, Leroy has none. Courtesy of a damaged amygdala, a structure in the temporal lobe that processes emotions, sustained from the Korean War.
Shaw definitely knows that It exists, and that the entity feeds on fear. Where Leroy fits in is that he’ll be leading the squad to retrieve these “beacons” that make It’s territory. But knowing the US government, Shaw is looking to control It as a weapon against the Soviets. This naivete is so on brand for the military.
Operation Precept
Episode two ends when Fuller and Hallorann come back with news that they’ve found something at the excavation site. It’s an old car, maybe from the 1910s-20s, with four passenger skeletons inside. The car isn’t the same style as the one that kidnapped Matty. Hallorann gets satisfaction from this, saying, “We’re close.
Related:
It: Welcome to Derry episode 1 recap: who are our heroes?
The best Australian horror films to add to your watchlist this spooky season
