This article was originally published on FearHQ.com.
It: Welcome to Derry opens with a young boy, Matty, being chased out of a Derry movie theater by a very dedicated usher. The boy clearly comes from a troubled home, and hitches a lift with a family out of town.
However, the car journey becomes increasingly sinister (and somehow turns back to Derry), with it soon becoming clear that the mother, father, son, and daughter are all under Pennywise's influence. The mom gives birth—in a grotesque sequence—to a two-headed demon baby with fangs and wings. It causes carnage in the car, though we don't see what becomes of its occupants.
We later learn that Matty is missing, prompting local kids Lilly, Phil, Terry, Veronica, and Marge to investigate. They've heard a familiar song playing through the pipes, and realise it's from the movie that Matty watched on the night he disappeared.
He appears on the screen before his friends, and all hell is unleashed when that demonic baby, now quite a bit larger, goes on a rampage. It mauls Terry and tears Phil in half, before brutally attacking the youngest of the children, Marge.
Lilly and Veronica flee to the lobby, and when the former looks down, she sees that Marge's severed hand is in hers. They both scream as the episode ends, confirming that what they went through was real.
So, does Pennywise the Clown appear? In that iconic form, no. At this point in the series, "It" is taking on the appearance of a nightmarish "baby," all the better to torment these children with.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly about the monstrous baby, filmmaker Andy Muschietti explained, "It was very important to pay attention to the fears of the era. There was a pretty widespread panic of nuclear attacks and the effects of radiation and mutations in childbirth."
"There's all these things that I can only imagine what being a child in those years would be like, how your imagination would be spun into horror very fast, not in a good way," he continued. "Also in pop culture, a lot of horror movies from the late '50s are very tied to the horror of radiation. It's a mutant baby that [is] malformed by radiation."
As for where It: Welcome to Derry is going, it's too soon to say. We've seen the next four episodes, and things do become a little clearer in the second instalment (that subplot with the military pays off in a really interesting way). As for when you'll see Pennywise, we can't spoil that, but expect a wait.
Set in the world of Stephen King's It universe, It: Welcome to Derry is based on King's It novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films It and It Chapter Two.
The cast is led by Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, and Bill Skarsgård.
The series, from Warner Bros. Television and developed for television by filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti (It, The Flash) and Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman), will debut on HBO and also be available to stream on HBO Max. Muschietti will direct four episodes of the nine-episode series.
The first episode of It: Welcome to Derry is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes released weekly leading up to the season finale on December 14.