‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Ending Explained – Nobody Ever Stays Dead

There are two constants in Stephen King’s work: Fear and evil. Both are eternal. The very idea of Pennywise – or “The Entity”, or simply “It”, whatever you prefer – is cyclical. It causes untold carnage, preys on humanity’s worst fears, impulses, and prejudices, then has a nap and does it all again 27 years later. It evolves in each cycle to more effectively manipulate the latest contemporary terrors, like Cold War nuclear paranoia and ‘60s race relations. But it can never truly be defeated because people will, en masse, always be frightened and awful. This is good news for It: Welcome to Derry and HBO, since the one constant of our current entertainment landscape is that the ending of any big-budget show based on a mainstream money-spinning IP must necessarily devote its runtime to setting up sequels and teasing spin-offs in post-credits sequences. This is the way.

And thus, here we are in Episode 8, “Winter Fire”, a bumper, almost feature-length finale in which the resolution of the very tight and effective horror story that this season has been telling chafes unavoidably against the responsibilities of franchise-building busywork and cutesy callbacks to King’s entire oeuvre. It’s overstuffed and messy without a doubt, but it’s also big, muscular event TV of a kind we don’t get all that often, which probably shouldn’t go unacknowledged.

It isn’t scary, I’ll grant you. But it’s full of fun spectacle and earnest emotional sentiment as the surviving kids – Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge initially, though with Will a bit later – unite with the few forward-thinking adults in Derry to take on the fear-eating cosmic clown who is now close to being unleashed on the world at large.

Cold Snap

After the U.S. military stupidly opened up the Shokopiwah’s cage keeping Pennywise imprisoned, the killer clown decided to forgo its 27-year nap after the massacre at the Black Spot to instead wreak even more havoc, now at something resembling full power. The opening scene – calling back to that tendency to really torment children established way back in the premiere – finds Pennywise ensnaring all of the young kids at Derry High School with a performance that firmly cements Bill Skarsgard as the modern era’s finest on-screen monster.

With all of Derry plunged into a wintry fog, Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge try to figure out what to do with the crystal dagger, while Leroy and Charlotte, realising Will is missing, enlist Dick and Rose to help them figure out where the kids are and what Pennywise might be doing. Dick is still reeling from the events at the Black Spot, but thanks to some homemade tea – just run with it – he’s able to quiet the voices for long enough to figure out that the kids are in possession of the final crystal.

And just like that, we have our big finale framework. The dagger needs to be implanted in a very old tree that forms the final pillar point in Pennywise’s cage, which will re-trigger the ancient protection and keep Pennywise chained up. But they have to do it before Pennywise reaches a boundary point on the map that will find him outside the cage’s area of influence. Oh, and in the meantime, possession of the dagger – since it’s formed from the meteorite that Pennywise crashed to Earth on – will drive the holder bonkers, like the One Ring, so the kids have their friendship intensely tested when Lilly starts going mad on the way to the tree.

On Thin Ice

The bulk of the ending of It: Welcome to Derry takes place atop Derry’s flash-frozen river, with the kids trying to get the dagger to the tree before Pennywise kills them, and the adults trying to help without being shot by the army, who are still trying to recruit Pennywise to scare ordinary citizens away from burgeoning liberal politics (or something). All of this is pretty cool. It looks great, Skarsgard is dribbling his way to some sort of award, and it’s full of small character moments and important worldbuilding details.

For instance! At one point, Pennywise corners Marge and shows her a glimpse of her future. At some point, she will give birth to a son named Richie Tozier – yes, the one from the Losers Club – who will ultimately bring about Pennywise’s demise. And he’d quite like to avoid that, even if he can’t quite figure out whether his demise is really his birth, since Pennywise doesn’t conceive of time chronologically, and his past and future are all kind of collapsed into one. But Marge is Richie’s mum, which is the important thing.

There are major deaths, too. Poor Taniel, who has taken quite a licking this season, gets gunned down by the military, and even Leroy catches a non-fatal bullet. But the foolishness of General Shaw’s plan is made obvious immediately when he tries to entreat with Pennywise and immediately gets terrorised and eaten. I love this about Pennywise. Even with access to the wider world right there, he just can’t resist preying on the nearest victim.

Matilda Lawler, Clara Stack, Arian S. Cartaya, and Amanda Christine in It: Welcome to Derry | Image via WarnerMedia

From the Grave

In Derry, nobody ever really dies. This is a sentiment that we’re reminded of in the post-credits scene of It: Welcome to Derry – more on this in a moment – but the strongest example of it comes about in the showdown on the ice, as the kids fight the dagger’s power to drag it over to the tree while Pennywise haunts them from behind, first in a giddy skip and then, after being shot to bits by Leroy, after turning into a bat-dragon (just roll with it).

In a big moment, just when it seems like the kids aren’t going to make it, Richie is escorted from the spirit world to provide a clutch assist for his friends, who all feel his ghostly presence on the shard, giving them the final push they need to implant it in the tree and reduce Pennywise down to his true energy form. He scurries off back to his lair to rest for the next 27 years.

But he’ll be back, obviously.

Time Is A Flat Circle

Part of the reason why Pennywise is never truly defeated is that people prefer delusions of peace and normality. This rampage affected the entire town and a swathe of America’s defence apparatus, but barely anyone even acknowledged it, and those who did were turned into pariahs. Even in the aftermath of Pennywise’s defeat, Derry returns to normal, its “normal” being determined, proud ignorance. Everyone just acts like nothing weird ever happened.

Those in the know have to wait. They can plan and prepare for Pennywise’s inevitable return, but 27 years down the line, it will no longer be their fight – it’ll be someone else’s. Their children will take on the burden. And nobody will believe them, either. The cycle is endless. The fear is perpetuated indefinitely. Welcome to Derry.

But there are sweet goodbyes and payoffs in the meantime. Leroy, Charlotte, and Will all decide to stay in Derry and become part of Rose’s inner circle, helping to ensure that Pennywise’s prison is never interfered with. Hank and Ronnie leave for Canada, though not before the latter shares a smooch with Will. Dick stops hearing the voices, mostly, and decides to leave the military for a new career in hospitality. What could go wrong?

In a final pre-credits coda, we see Ingrid imprisoned at Juniper Hill. When we flash forward to 1988, she’s still there, now an elderly lady drawn into the corridor by screams emanating from a nearby room. A patient has taken her own life, and her husband and daughter are wailing at her dangling feet. The daughter turns to face Ingrid and reveals herself to be Beverly Marsh.