It: Welcome to Derry Season 1, Episode 1
"The Pilot"
Writer: Jason Fuchs
Director: Andy Muscietti
Cast: Miles Ekhart, Clara Stack, Mikkal Karim-Fidler, Jack Molloy Legault, Amanda Christine, Jovan Adepo, James Remar, Rudy Mancuso, Matilda Legault
With his two-part It film adaptation, Andy Muscietti delivered one iconic Stephen King movie … and It: Chapter Two. Now he returns with the writer of Argylle for a prequel series set during the nameless entity's previous stirrings. Recall that, like a cicada, It hibernates and then resurfaces after so many years; in this case 27. Unlike a cicada, the ageless menace uses its awake time to murder children through broad-spectrum hallucination. The films covered It's emergence in 1988 and 2016, respectively. That means, adjusted for inflation, we're now looking at the early 1960s with the new cinematic timeline. Though it's likely to touch on some material from the novel, this is really an Amazon Prime Rings of Power grab-bag situation. Virgin territory, so to speak. Ew. But we are talking about the Ritual of Chüd here. If any of the proper nouns in this paragraph give you pause, girl, same.
The Flicker Show
It's early January of 1962 in the town of Derry in Maine. A young runaway, Matty Clements (Ekhardt), ducks the custodian for a moment's warmth in the Capitol Theater. Up on screen, Robert Preston stirs moral panic in River City. In reality, The Music Man wouldn't technically debut until June. We'll forgive the creative license, as it makes for a terrific thematic motif. Derry, the quintessential American microcosm, is a sick place beset by hatred. The musical refrain of "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" heralds not just the return of the malevolent entity beneath our feet, but the paranoia and violence it (It) inspires.
Hard to ignore Matty's affectation. In quiet moments he sucks on a pacifier, an item sure to return as an eerie totem throughout this tale. This is our paper boat in the gutter.
The beam of the flashlight finally finds him, so Matty hightails it to the lobby. The projectionist's daughter, Ronnie Grogan (Christine), does him a solid, misdirecting the custodian so he can make his escape. This will get Ronnie's dad in hot water later when Matty goes missing, as Mr. Grogan, a Black man, is presumably the last adult to have seen a truant white boy in 1962.
In actuality, the hitchhiking Matty is taken in by what the boy, at first, perceives as a non-threatening nuclear family—a phrase the Musciettis repeatedly highlight in interviews. The white couple and their two children purport to be headed for Portland. Despite the family's odd patter, Matty is content to be headed anywhere outside of Derry. That is, until the daughter attempts to smear what looks like blood from her sodden Tupperware snack onto his face. The son, a precocious speller, deconstructs each passing word of the increasingly unsettling conversation, from S-Y-M-P-H-O-N-Y to N-E-C-R-O-S-I-S, to its constituent letters. As if in direct response to a bulletin on the car radio about nuclear era mutations, the mother goes into labor. Her latest offspring, a one-winged imp with the lolling head of an absorbed twin, flutters violently around the interior of the car. It finally slams into Matty, sending his pacifier through the glass and into the night.
The War at Home
Major Leroy Hanlan (Adepo) and Captain Pauly Russo (Mancuso) arrive in Derry for their new posts at the Strategic Air Command base. Hanlan, grandfather to Mike of the eventual 1982 Loser's Club, is a pilot still looking for closure after the Korean War dissolved without a definitive victory. Under General Shaw (Remar), he's to oversee tests of an experimental B-52 bomber, and it's alluded that other secret projects are also afoot at the base. Hanlan also has to contend with pushback from his predominantly white underlings.
One night, three assailants clad all in black with gas masks attack a sleeping Hanlan, demanding information about the bomber. He refuses and they continue their assault. Russo overhears and comes to his friend's aid, sending the mysterious men running into the night.
Proto-Losers, If You Will
Four months later, two children struggle to make sense of Matty's disappearance. Lily Bainbridge (Stack) last saw the boy at the standpipe, a town landmark used as a clubhouse by Matty and his friends. Lily and Matty came together as social outcasts. Though we can safely assume Matty's home life wasn't great, that tale is yet to be told. Lily lost her father in a horrific factory accident. No sooner does she return from a mental health facility, then her classmates start loading up her locker with pickle jars, charging that her father's digits are still turning up nestled in with gherkins all across New England. She and Matty nearly kissed up on the standpipe balcony, but she pulled away. This doesn't feel like a "January embers" situation, more like two lonely kids looking for friendship. Still, she worries that her rejection pushed him into danger. This fear heightens when she hears Matty's voice lilting from her sink drain, accompanied by one bloody, beckoning finger.
Teddy Uris (Karim-Fidler) was more of a fair weather friend to Matty, and the guilt over neglecting that bond weighs on him all these months later. Fellow dweeb Phil (Legault) isn't as chaffed by that burden, more concerned with bucking the Comics Code Authority with their delightfully gory collaboration. Teddy's dad isn't at all pleased with his son's preoccupation with violence, hurling his copy of The Flash #123 across the room during Shabbat. Published in September 1961, the iconic "Flash of Two Worlds!" issue is both a period-appropriate allusion to multiverse theory and a grim reminder of Muscietti's previous filmic misadventure. Of course, it's not comics on Teddy's mind, but Lily's assertion that she heard Matty in the plumbing. Could his friend be locked away in the sewers beneath Derry, chained up by some maniac? Vexed by such questions, the elder Uris reminds the boy that his grandparents escaped Buchenwald, where less fortunate jews were skinned to make lampshades, a visual that actually manifests on Teddy's bedside table later that night.
What would any self-respecting 1960s child murder investigation be without a trip to the town library's microfiche reader? There, Teddy and Lily learn about Ronnie's involvement with the case. When they go to her for more information, she initially refuses to get further involved. Understandable, given the local constabulary's attempts to pin this on her dad. But when she overhears Lily's mention of the voice in the pipes, she reports hearing something similar. They decide to recreate the events of Matty's disappearance at the Capitol Theater after hours, a plot contrivance with no real logical merit if we're being honest. Phil's little sister Susie (Legault's real-life sister) tags along to increase the body count.
Ronnie works the projector as Lily, Teddy, Phil, and Susie watch from the audience. This is a very special screening of The Music Man, however. Amidst a crowd scene, they all recognize Matty carrying what appears to be a baby covered in a blanket. That can't be right. Of course, these kids have never seen Ringu or any of its variations before, so they have no idea the extent to which they're f#%@d.
"That spells trouble! Here in River City!"
Matty approaches the screen, towering above them in perspective. The bundle in his arms stirs and the mutant baby from earlier bursts forth, through the screen and into the physical realm. It's much larger now, maintaining the scale it was on screen. It clambers across the tops of the seats, a blind, misshapen fury. It makes quick work of Teddy and Phil, ragdolling them through the air, crushing them like juice boxes—though tetra brik packaging wouldn't be mass-produced until 1963. Hidden beneath the seats, Lily tries to pull Susie to safety, but the thing drags the little girl out of reach.
Wafer-thin reasoning for any of this, but it's an undeniably strong setpiece. Especially since we just lost three of our proto-Losers in one hell of an opening twist.
Ronnie hurries downstairs and grabs Lily, barring the doors behind them. Soaked in her friends' blood, Lily can only stammer that they're all gone. Thankfully, Ronnie couldn't see much of the carnage from the projection booth, so she asks her what she means. Lily looks down and realizes she's still holding Susie's hand. And just her hand. She screams.
We won't have long to wait to see what happens next. Episode 2 is out on Friday—that's Halloween!—a few days ahead of the usual schedule of Sunday releases. See you then, different IT time, same IT channel.
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