It: Welcome to Derry Season 1, Episode 5
"29 Neibolt Street"
Writer: Brad Caleb Kane
Director: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr.
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, Lazelle Gelias, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, Bill Skarsgård
Between this and Alien: Earth, I seem to be Pop Heist’s eye trauma specialist of late. Last week’s shop class horror hasn’t done Lilly’s reputation any favors, but it didn’t land her back at Juniper Hill either. Fortunately for Marge, she just needs to wear a patch under her glasses and there isn’t an extraterrestrial intelligence piloting her body from her left orbit. If anything, the ordeal has only brought the two girls closer.
Meanwhile, Dick gets what he needs from his psychic infiltration into Taniel’s mind, which takes a visible toll on both of them. Kid fought for his life trying to keep the location of the 13 pillars a secret, but was no match for the Shine. Leroy is deeply disturbed by all this and crashes out on General Shaw, furious to have unknowingly endangered his family by moving them to Derry. Shaw authorizes Charlotte and Will to temporarily relocate to the base, outside of the entity’s reach. We’re unfortunately robbed of Leroy’s explanation of the situation to his wife, though James Remar and the actors making up the Children of Maturin valiantly tag-team the lore dump in respective scenes. Whenever Shaw mentions the “13 pillars” I’m reminded of Vincent Price’s opening narration to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, which really isn’t the worst thing.
Rose realizes there’s no shaking Shaw from his doomed plan of weaponizing the entity. To give Taniel the best shot of surviving an expedition beneath 29 Neibolt Street, she retrieves the 400-year-old dagger from a safe in her closet and delivers it to him at the base. We also get the implication that Shaw took some kind of unnamed MKUltra shot at some point in his adult life, which unlocked his childhood memories of Derry. Sure?
Shawshank Minus the Hank
Despite the best efforts of Phil and Susie’s aggrieved dad, Hank Grogan survives the short perp walk from Derry’s jail to the bus. But if you were looking forward to that excursion to Shawshank State Prison, you’re out of luck. The bus is involved in a deadly crash and Hank manages to escape. He meets up with Ingrid Kersh (Stowe), the friendly housekeeper who befriended Lilly at Juniper Hill. She’s also the married woman Hank was with the night of the Capitol Theatre massacre. We first met her husband, a butcher, earlier this season.
I’ll also remind you that an elderly “Mrs. Kersh” features prominently in It: Chapter Two. We’ll file that away for later.
For now, Hank’s a wanted man, and Ingrid’s desperate to keep him alive. He suggests she seek out Charlotte, who’s now living on the airbase. More on that next week, presumably.
Dick and the Box
Lilly invites Marge to join the rest of the Losers at the standpipe and they’re surprised to find Matty camped out there. He explains that Pennywise has been keeping him alive down in the cistern and he only managed to escape while it was out hunting. He saw it feed on Teddy and Susie. Phil, though unable to move, was still alive when he last saw him. This seems to confirm Will’s theory that the entity feeds on fear. They all agree to follow Matty down into the sewers to rescue Phil.
The kids’ rescue mission coincides with the military’s expedition down the well inside 29 Neibolt Street. The area is evacuated with a public warning of a gas leak. Taniel makes a run for it and the men following him immediately open fire. The dagger falls out of his backpack and he’s unable to find it in the rushing graywater.
Meanwhile, the kids pop some of Lilly’s mom’s antidepressants–three small tablets each–in order to combat the entity’s psychic attacks. This only results in a sleepy haze. Of course, “Matty” transforming into Pennywise–a delightfully creepy sequence that makes the half-season buildup more than worth it–sobers them up real quick.
Elsewhere in the sewers, the entity manifests as a ghoulish Uncle Sam to devour a couple of disoriented soldiers.
As Leroy and Pauly make their way through the dark, Leroy thinks he sees Charlotte calling out for help. Fortunately Shaw forewarned them about the entity’s dirty tricks, so Leroy is quick to open fire on the illusion.
The Losers split up in their flight from Pennywise. He advances on an isolated Lilly, his face contorting into that horrific wall-eyed visage of a million jagged teeth. Just in time she spies the glowing sigils of the dagger in the sewage by her feet. She grabs it and Pennywise makes a swift retreat.
When Leroy sees Will leading the rest of the children out from the darkness, he assumes it’s another manifestation of the entity. So much for the whole Man Without Fear thing; Leroy’s been glistening with flank sweat for the entire episode. Pauly has the presence of mind to recognize he’s seeing the same thing as his friend and Leroy’s about to make a huge mistake. He lunges in front of the gun, shielding the children. Pauly slumps against the sewer wall as Leroy ushers the kids toward the exit. Leroy watches his best friend die, promising he’ll make it worth it.
When he finally emerges from the sewer, he’s greeted by a phantom of Pauly. That’s not cool at all, entity. Not Pauly as Leroy remembers him from wartime!
Meanwhile, Dick finds his own mind palace under threat from the entity. He’s trapped in his childhood bathroom in telepathic communication with his grandmother. Together they confront Dick’s grandfather, a cruel man who always feared their gift with the Shine. He pulls a gun from his waistband and shoots the old woman, demanding that Dick open a lockbox. If you’ve seen Doctor Sleep, you know what kinds of horrors people like Dick (or Danny Torrance) can trap inside boxes like this.
And now it sits open. But what has the entity unleashed on Dick’s mind? On the world?
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