How much Stephen King can we get in a year? Welcome to Derry is a prequel series to the “IT” movie and sequel, following a new cast of characters surviving the eldritch horror of the It entity. I liked Andy Muschietti’s first film, but was entirely divided by the second. After sticking with the first season of Welcome to Derry, my split emotions persist. It felt like for every great decision came an equally aggravating decision.
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To start positively, the new group of young characters were a nice fit with this story. I liked how their relationship with each other was rife with conflict with the looming threat of the shapeshifting monster. Out of all of them, Lily was the most interesting and sympathetic but I felt they all worked well with some impressive performances from the young actors.
On a similar note, Bill Skarsgård is unsurprisingly excellent as Pennywise. While his presence felt limited, he gives the most menacing interpretation of the character yet. I also would like to credit Chris Chalk’s performance as Dick Hallorann (yes, the same Dick from Stephen King’s The Shining). He was almost identical to the form of Scatham Crothers, but made the character very interesting to follow.
I felt like I was getting tossed around like a ragdoll between the many competing subplots of Welcome to Derry. When trying to follow along with the central threat of It, there would be a distracting pivot towards a less enticing story or character. The show makes attempts at time-appropriate social commentary through these subplots, but lets me down in weaving it into the fear and paranoia that I was expecting to build from the influence of It.
However, the worst aspect was how the military subplot was developed. The marketing reveals that the military’s intent early on in the season, and I wasn’t wholly sold on it. That said, this subplot devolves into sheer stupidity by the seventh episode (ironically my favorite episode of the season). For every great thing that Welcome to Derry does, there’s a disaster and a letdown waiting around the corner. Stephen King fans will like the nods to his work, but the narrative risks don’t always pay off.
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