It: Welcome to Derry Season 1, Episode 3
"Now You See It"
Writer: Guadalis Del Carmen & Gabe Hobson
Director: Andy Muscietti
Cast: Clara Stack, Amanda Christine, Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Blake Cameron James, James Remar, Kimberly Norris Guerrero, Joshua Odjick, Chris Chalk, Stephen Rider, Matilda Lawler, Arian S. Cartaya, Peter Outerbridge, Violet Sutherland, Diesel La Torraca, Peter Schoelier, Emma-Lee Cullum
Derry, Maine, 1908
Fifty years before General Shaw (Remar) begins digging for a cosmic superweapon on the outskirts of Derry, an adolescent Shaw (La Torraca) goes to the circus. There, he encounters a gaunt, lanky man (Schoelier) who gives him the willies. Though the “Skeleton Man” of this lurid sideshow is likely harmless, he’s sufficient nightmare fuel for It, who later adopts his form and chases young Francis Shaw through the woods. It takes some creative license, contorting into a nightmare out of Guy Davis's lost sketchbook.
We also get a glimpse of an eerie child clown, who I’m guessing is a character listed on IMDb as “Young Periwinkle” (Cullum). She looks like a Fairy type Pokemon that would evolve into Pennywise somewhere down the road. Don’t hold me to it though.
Francis meets a girl named Rose, part of an indigenous group I think we’re calling the Children of Maturin. She uses his slingshot to distract It and rescue him from a patch of woods where the entity is particularly strong. They enjoy the summer together swimming in their skivvies (as seemingly all Losers are wont to do), but Francis’s father moves them away by season’s end. Rose knows as well as we do that leaving Derry comes with an amnesiac effect, so she’s surprised to see a much older Francis, now a general, return so many decades later.
Slingshot Maneuver
In 1962 Rose (Guerrero) is proprietress of a shop called Secondhand Rose, which we actually saw last week. When Shaw enters, he remembers her quite well and there’s still a tenderness there. He does lie right to her face though, saying all that digging has to do with irrigation. Even if that were true, the military is still intruding on sacred ground, something that has younger Children of Maturin like Taniel (Odjick) increasingly angry. At this stage, Rose prefers to go through proper channels rather than resorting to violence, but I think she may change her tune once she accepts that her old sweetheart is attempting to weaponize the evil beneath Derry to win WWIII.
Speaking of which, Shaw’s people determine that the vehicle unearthed in last week’s episode is a remnant of the 1935 Bradley Gang massacre, making it part of the entity’s previous cycle. Shaw decides to amplify his human divining rod, sending Dick Hallorann up in the air with his old slingshot. I think it’s neat that he keeps it in a box like it’s the Lance of Longinus. It works though. Dick’s shine typically allows him to probe around in other people’s heads. This time, the entity gets into his. Dick finds himself in the same sewer we see in the movies, a cold, dark, liminal space of floating children. He also sees Pennywise’s circus wagon, and our best glimpse yet of the clown, even if it’s shrouded in darkness. Mostly, he sees the Deadlights. The illusion is so convincing, he begins turning what he thinks is a hatch wheel to escape the sewer, but is actually the cargo door at the rear of the helicopter. Fortunately Leroy is able to stop him just in time. Back on the ground, Dick suggests to Shaw that they may be out of their league with this thing.
Later, Dick visits Leroy for dinner with Charlotte, who still misses her involvement with the civil rights movement. Leroy recognizes the feeling he gets when Dick attempts to read his mind from the night he was attacked by masked assailants. Dick confirms he was one of the men and describes his bewilderment at Leroy’s apparent lack of fear. The inevitable confrontation between Leroy and Pennywise is going to be pretty interesting.
Kids on Bikes
Remember when Lilly got sent back to Juniper Hill last week? That doesn’t amount to quite the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest arc I was expecting. It’s unclear just how long she was in there between episodes, but her mother arrives to retrieve her presently. Gifted a bespoke charm bracelet by a nurse, she returns to Derry with a mandate to exonerate Hank Grogan.
We visit the jail to see Chief Bowers berating poor Hank with the threat of violence once he reaches Shawshank. For those playing at home, ol’ Andy would still be cooking the books for Warden Norton until at least 1966.
Lilly and Ronnie enlist Will and Rich — who remain the most precious nerds this side of Castle Rock — to help procure photographic evidence of whatever ghoul or goblin actually killed their classmates. Rich suggests the culprit may be an orixá or evil spirit. Desperate to make new friends, he contrives a Santería ritual to summon such spirits at a local graveyard. The girls take issue with Rich’s plot and Will’s unspoken disbelief in the supernatural, abandoning their circle of candles, pedaling off into the night.
It is a non-denominational horror though, and even the pretense of a ritual is enough for it to manifest. The graveyard stretches out into an endless maelstrom of smoke, graves erupting in hellfire. It’s a decidedly weightless set piece, conjured digitally into something out of Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Lilly’s camera changes hands multiple times, allowing them to snap photos of phantoms taking the forms of Teddy and Susie. Will is even able to get a shot of Pennywise they’re able to develop in the school lab. Pretty clever episode title, huh? Now you see IT?
Will any of these Kodak moments be enough to save Ronnie’s dad from the slammer? Or will a batch of photos of their dead friends and a blurry clown earn them all a one-way ticket to Juniper Hill? We’ll have to see what develops next week.
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