🎈 We All Float Back Here: A Crippled Cryptid’s Love Letter to IT: Welcome to Derry 🎈

Welcome back to The Crippled Cryptid, where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday sorcery gather under the same soft lamp like friendly ghosts sharing secrets.
Or tonight, like kids huddled together, pretending not to hear something breathing just beneath the floorboards.

On today’s menu: IT: Welcome to Derry.
If you hear singing, no- you didn’t.

🎈 Trigger Warnings / Content Notes ⚠️

This post and IT: Welcome to Derry include discussion of:
• Child harm and child death
• Graphic violence and body horror
• Racism and racial violence
• Domestic abuse and institutional abuse
• Psychological horror and hallucinations
• Fire-related violence
• Death, grief, and suicide
• Clowns
• PTSD, trauma responses, and dissociation

Read safely. Take breaks. Skip sections if your nervous system says nope.

🎈 TL;DR / Quick Take (Spoiler-Light)

• IT: Welcome to Derry is a prequel to the original IT, set in 1962 Derry, Maine.
• Pennywise is back. Bill Skarsgård reprises his role- equal parts nightmare, mischief, and dark humor.
• Young Dick Hallorann shines bright, tying this show into the King multiverse.
• Horror, trauma, and small-town rot abound; moments are funny, horrifying, and deeply human.
• Subtle nods to the original mini-series appear: Tim Curry’s Pennywise remains canon, small-town aesthetic echoes the 1990 adaptation, and other Easter eggs anchor it firmly in King’s universe.

“They all float down here. And you will, too.”
“Hiya, Georgie!”

TL;DR: It’s terrifying, heartbreaking, and brilliant- watch if you dare, but maybe keep a nightlight on.

🎈 Why IT Matters to Me

IT has been part of my life since middle school. I once tried to do a book report on IT– my teacher was not pleased. She sent me to the principal’s office. But I got an A. She genuinely thought I was too young to understand the material at 12. I laughed at her.

I think she didn’t understand who she was dealing with.

I was a traumatized 12-year-old kid, living in a body that was failing me, going through abuse at home. Yeah, I think I understood the source material a little bit too well.

Sick kid life meant carrying a book everywhere. Gym class was optional but bullying and isolation were mandatory. Books became friends, windows, lifeboats. Horror became a language for trauma. It let me look at characters as scarred, broken, afraid, and still alive- mirroring my own experiences in ways that made sense when nothing else did.

Clowns? Not friends. Pennywise, neon nightmare, taps into something primal: the uncanny, the wrongness of a thing pretending to be human.

Fun Fact: My first pet hedgehog was actually named Pennywise the Clown.

Mini-series insight: Tim Curry’s Pennywise was “cheerfully evil,” a combination of charm, menace, and childlike unpredictability. That portrayal shaped an entire generation’s nightmares. Skarsgård honors that legacy while adding the layered menace King wrote into the book.

And here’s something every reader should know: Stephen King was not sober when he wrote IT. That seeped into the chaotic, layered narrative in ways you feel but can’t ignore. Derry’s horror doesn’t just creep- it bleeds into reality, alive, unpredictable, suffused with personal and societal trauma.

“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years- if it ever did end- began, so far as I know, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.” -Stephen King, IT

“We all float down here, Georgie.”
-Mini-series Pennywise

🎈 What Welcome to Derry Is (Spoiler-Light)

• Prequel to Stephen King’s novel IT and the 2017–2019 films
• Set in 1962, showing Derry’s small-town rot before the Losers’ Club
• Pennywise returns, Bill Skarsgård delivering humor + horror + menace
• Young Dick Hallorann appears, showing the Shine and tying this story to the wider King universe

“Fear, after all, is a gift. It is nature’s warning system.”
-IT: Welcome to Derry

🎈 Stephen King’s Cameo & Easter Eggs

• King doesn’t appear on-screen in Welcome to Derry like he did in IT Chapter Two (blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shopkeeper cameo).
• The antique shop Second Hand Rose returns with Rose behind the counter, nodding to King’s original cameo.
• King reviewed scripts and gave feedback during development- his influence is woven into Derry’s mythology.

And I will say, I was a little sad we didn’t see him on-screen. I was waiting and watching for him in every episode!

Other nods to the King universe & original mini-series:
• Shawshank bus / early military references
• Fizz-O-La soda, a recurring King world drink
• Maturin the Turtle connections (from IT and The Dark Tower)
• Visual callbacks to Tim Curry’s Pennywise: red balloons, small-town carnival vibes
• Posters, book covers, and children’s drawings that mirror the 1990 mini-series aesthetic

🎈 Pennywise, Reimagined

Bill Skarsgård is a nightmare made flesh. Curry’s Pennywise was “cheerfully evil”- charm + menace + childlike unpredictability. Skarsgård honors that while adding the layered dread King wrote on the page.

• Punisher and prankster in one
• Uses fear, imagination, and deadlights to control Derry
• Equal parts hilarious and horrifying
• “We all float down here” isn’t just a catchphrase- it’s a promise

“IT is not dead. IT is not alive. It is here, and it is hungry.”
-Stephen King, IT*

“Want a balloon?”
-Mini-series Pennywise

🎈 Trauma, Cycles, and the Horror of Derry

Derry isn’t a town- it’s a wound. Generational abuse, racism, institutional failures, and the supernatural all feed on human suffering. Watching this as someone with chronic illness and PTSD resonated. Trauma doesn’t age out. It echoes. Horror reminds us: the small-town monster isn’t just supernatural- it’s real, persistent, and generational.

King’s text amplifies this: Derry itself is complicit, silent, cyclical. Every generation sees the same patterns repeat- a reflection of trauma’s longevity in real life.

“It’s the children who are most alive in Derry. And the children who are most dead.”
-Stephen King, IT

🎈 Hallorann, the Shine, and the King Multiverse

Young Dick Hallorann appears, showing his Shine and revealing part of his backstory. Watching him navigate his power, burden, and heroism tied the series into the larger King multiverse.

• Hallorann slaps Pennywise- memes have been born, my soul cheers.
If you’re on TikTok and Facebook, I know you’ve seen the memes. By far one of my favorite moments in the entire season. I don’t think that anyone has ever slapped IT before, but it looked like he factory-reset him for a moment- and it makes you wish you could be a fly on the wall in the monster’s mind then.

• Shows connections to The Shining and Doctor Sleep, reinforcing King’s interwoven universe
• M&M and I have to plan a full King marathon now. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Hallorann’s Shine connects him to psychic lineage and powers throughout King’s work. Seeing young Hallorann shine on screen echoes that perfectly.

🎈 Spoiler Warning: Descend into Derry 🎈👁️

Everything below contains full spoilers:
• Rich’s death
• Marge as Richie Tozier’s mother
• Lilly’s fate
• Leroy’s wife’s death
• Pennywise / Bob Gray / Deadlights
• Elfrida Marsh / Beverly / fan theories
• Losers’ Club foreshadowing
• Time-bending chaos of Pennywise

🎈 Spoilers Begin: The Full Derry Madness

Rich and Marge

Rich dies tragically, leaving Marge (later Richie’s mom) to navigate grief, small-town trauma, and the aftermath. Watching this, M&M and I immediately felt the weight- he was lovable, heart-driven, a protector. His death hurts because he mattered, and Marge surviving creates canonical connections that reshape Richie Tozier’s story.

The interplay of children, humor, and horror echoes Curry-era IT: friendship + terror = amplified stakes.

Lilly and Leroy’s Wife

Lilly survives but is forever changed; fan theories suggest she may reappear under another name. For a long time, I thought she might be Beverly’s mother- but as we all know, Beverly’s mother dies of cancer in the book. So, I’m not sure how that would even work.

Leroy’s wife dies off-screen somewhere between Welcome to Derry and the first movie, reinforcing that ordinary humans rarely escape untouched.

Pennywise / Bob Gray / Deadlights

Pennywise experiences past, present, and future simultaneously- manipulating events, predicting outcomes, and surviving generation after generation. Deadlights remain incomprehensible and terrifying.

And I will say this- I was so excited to see Bob Gray, the real one, on-screen for the first time ever. Learning more about who he was before Pennywise made the whole thing feel more whole, more human, and more important to me. I also loved the subtle nods that it seemed as though IT couldn’t get Bob Gray’s Pennywise quite right because he wasn’t wearing his wig when he killed him and assumed his form- and that he seemed to take the buck teeth from the stage props of Bob Gray’s circus show.

“The terror, the screaming, the sudden blindness- he could not remember it, but it had been him, it had been IT, all along.”
-Stephen King, IT

Elfrida, Beverly, and Fan Theories

Elfrida Marsh’s suicide and Beverly’s future spark theories: could Lilly be living under a new name? Does Pennywise feed on timelines as well as fear?

Mrs. Kersh’s cameo-her final role before passing- adds poignancy. It was amazing that Joan Gregson got to reprise her role from IT: Chapter Two for IT: Welcome to Derry before she passed in 2025. May she Rest in Peace.

The Losers’ Club Connections

Hints of Richie, hallucinations, and deaths tie 1962 Derry to the 1980s timeline, deepening canonical chaos. Ronnie’s fate (Veronica) raises questions- does she die in a previous cycle, or is it another girl entirely?

Because if you recall, in IT Beverly hears someone claiming to be Veronica through the drain before a geyser of blood erupts. So, is it fair to say that she dies somewhere off screen, or did she make it out of Derry with her father?

“They float because they are unafraid. Fear is the glue that keeps us here. Fear is the soul of Derry.”
-Stephen King, IT

🎈 TL;DR / Spoiler-Filled Summary 🎈

• Pennywise manipulates time, feeds on fear, and terrifies generations
• Rich dies; Marge survives and is Richie Tozier’s mother
• Lilly survives, permanently altered; Leroy’s wife dies off-screen between Welcome to Derry and the IT movies
• Hallorann shines bright and delivers justice
• Fan theories: Elfrida, Beverly, time loops, Losers’ Club connections
• Easter eggs: Second Hand Rose, Shawshank bus, Maturin, Fizz-O-La, Tim Curry callbacks
• Derry’s horror is generational, cyclical, and impossible to outrun
• Terrifying, heartbreaking, canon-bending, and deeply satisfying

We all float here- and so do we all in the fandom.

I don’t know what the next seasons are going to bring, especially now that it’s been greenlit for a second and third season.
And now, there’s even talk that they’re somehow going to have an IT: Chapter Three movie alongside the IT: Welcome to Derry show- but I don’t see how that would even work when you think about it, because then the Losers would need to be somewhere in their 50s.

IT wakes up to feed every 27 years.
That is… unless he gets woken up early.

Especially with the recent passing of James Ransone. Finding out about his passing hurt, and I hope that his family finds peace, he was an incredible actor.

What do you think? Did you watch the show?
The movies? The mini-series?

© The Crippled Cryptid- Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

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