The first episode of IT: Welcome to Derry recently aired on HBO, and it brings fans back to the sinister small Maine town first created by Stephen King in the 1986 novel IT. Welcome to Derry wastes no time in reminding viewers exactly how Derry works and what sort of sinister horror awaits them in this outwardly cheerful and charming town. Its first episode is a tour de force of horror that perfectly teases what sort of scares viewers can expect in the rest of the season.
This article contains SPOILERS for Episode 1 of IT: Welcome to Derry.
Derry's Got Trouble: Episode 1's Unexpected Musical Beginning
Episode 1 of IT: Welcome to Derry begins with a screening of the 1962 film The Music Man in Derry's only movie theater. Showrunner Jason Fuchs, who wrote Episode 1, revealed to The Best War Games why he made that choice: "Because they're all in...trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble!" He enthused, briefly breaking into the hit Music Man song "Ya Got Trouble." Fuchs chose to begin the series with a clip from a colorful, cheery musical because it "felt surprising in terms of an opening." It's unexpected, and keeps viewers off-balance as they nervously wait for Pennywise to strike.
Fuchs explained that his and co-showrunner Brad Caleb Kane's love of movies and movie musicals in particular helped to inspire the opening scene:
"We're movie-crazy, and we have a character who is movie-crazy. Hank Grogan, the projectionist, is this profound cinephile. So once we knew we were going to have a movie sequence, we looked at Warner Brothers films that came out during that time. And we came across The Music Man, and it was a lightbulb moment — because the characters in the show are in an awful lot of trouble."
The use of The Music Man doesn't just create an unexpectedly cheery opening scene to disarm audiences. Later, after the shapeshifting menace It has claimed Its first victim, It torments the child's friends by singing "Ya Got Trouble" through their bathroom pipes. Much of the first episode revolves around gaining access to the theater's copy of The Music Man to figure out if the film itself is haunted—a quest with terrifying and tragic results.
It Embodies 1960s Fears (And Saves Pennywise For Later)
Opening with Robert Preston singing "Ya Got Trouble" is not the only way Welcome to Derry's first episode subverts audience expectations. Fans are waiting on the edge of their seats to see Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown—and it doesn't happen, at least not in Episode 1. Instead, fans are treated to It taking the form of a cheery 1960s sitcom-esque family in their van, with the "mother" eventually giving birth to a demonic baby hungry for flesh.
Fuchs explained that the decision to focus on forms other than Pennywise came from the fact that they had eight episodes to work with, rather than a duology of movies. "With long-form storytelling, we can delve more deeply into character, which informs the fears and the scares and the horror," Fuchs said. He continued,
"I think the scariest horror set pieces are the ones that take advantage of characters we care about and an understanding of what scares them."
As for why Fuchs settled on the zombie-devil hybrid baby born from a seemingly TV-perfect family, the showrunner and writer explained that it came from a desire to ground the show in its 1962 setting and the fears and moods of the time:
"The fears of that time are of nuclear war and nuclear radiation. What do horror and sci-fi look like in the 1950s and early 1960s? A big part is stories about mutants. So having a mutant baby be one of our first manifestations of It felt very appropriate... The flip side is that picture-perfect Norman Rockwell family, which really speaks to a more timeless theme of the gap between the idealized image of America on the surface versus what lies beneath."
Welcome to Derry's Focus On Body Horror Is Immediately Apparent
The encounter with the "Normal Rockwell family" and their mutant baby provides an excellent contrast with the iconic opening scene of the first IT film, where Pennywise lurks sinisterly in the sewer and lures young Georgie Denbrough to his doom. The scene is also extremely bloody, with the way the demonic baby devours its prey not left up to the imagination in the slightest. This sets the tone for Welcome to Derry's greater focus on body horror compared to IT and IT: Chapter Two.
Fuchs and Kane were excited to be able to include more body horror and intense scenes in Welcome to Derry. "Because we're working in television and not film, we don't have a ratings board," Kane said with a grin. "We can make the scares that much more intense. We really took the guardrails off and tried to give the most shock, the most bang for our buck, in a way that film can't do."
Beginning with The Music Man and ending with bloody, intense body horror is a perfect way to introduce viewers to Welcome to Derry. As the show continues, a mix of original characters, returning characters from the broader Stephen King canon, such as The Shining's Dick Halloran, and ancestors of Derry residents seen in the films will fight against the ever-increasing terror It unleashes on the town. Fuchs and Kane hinted that viewers can look forward to many more terrifying manifestations of Its shapeshifting power, including forms based on their own fears and, of course, the return of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
The first season of IT: Welcome to Derry will air for eight episodes. Andy and Barbara Muschietti, who came up with the idea for the show alongside Fuchs, currently plan to produce two more seasons, moving back in time and covering the events of two previous "cycles" where IT terrorized Derry. If this first episode is a sign of things to come, then future episodes and seasons of the show will be an absolute fright-filled delight for Stephen King fans, as well as general horror fans who just want a real good scare, to enjoy.
- Release Date
- October 26, 2025
- Network
- HBO
- Directors
- Andy Muschietti
- Writers
- Jason Fuchs, Stephen King, Austin Guzman
- Franchise(s)
- IT
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, James Remar, stephen rider, Matilda Lawler, Amanda Christine, Clara Stack, Arian S. Cartaya, Peter Outerbridge, Chris Chalk, Rudy Mancuso, Alixandra von Renner, Dmitry Chepovetsky, Eli Katz, Mark MacRae, Lochlan Ray Miller, Maya McNair, Maya Misaljevic, Hannah Storey, Thomas Mitchell, Chad Rook, Michael Koras, Robert Clarke, Brittany Spiteri, Sean Sansom
- Creator(s)
- Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, Jason Fuchs
