With the end (of S01) of IT: Welcome to Derry, another threat by Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) has been successfully thwarted.
Missed a review? Episode 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7
“Winter Fire”, the finale, is penned by co-creator Jason Fuchs and directed by co-creator and showrunner Andy Muschietti (IT and IT: Chapter 2), and proves to be a solid wrap up for the events of 1962. It also leaves enough dangling plot points that blatantly hint at where another season could go, which – considering the viewership numbers – is all but guaranteed.
Thankfully the finale is also a very exciting hour. “Winter Fire” adopts a ticking clock narrative wherein every main character is pressed into service to stop Pennywise from escaping his cage.
Would it be a stronger episode if it didn’t rely on some pretty silly/frustrating narrative and character developments? Sure! But as mentioned in episode 7 (and before), the series has never quite figured out what to do with its military storyline and that’s where the most egregious frustration lays.
The hour begins with IT taking the entire school hostage with a deadlights stage performance after enveloping Derry in a thick mist. Considering we see the fog’s corrosive/killer power when it kills all of the leafs it touches, it’s a little sad it’s mostly just there for visuals (considering how many Easter Eggs are in the episode, why not give more of a nod to The Mist?)
Anyways, the beheading of the school principal and, later, the image of teens floating in a line behind the carnival wagon is pretty awesome. This also sets off a chase of sorts as our new Losers – Marge (Matilda Lawler), Lilly (Clara Stack) and Ronnie (Amanda Christine) – set off in pursuit of Blake Cameron James‘ Will, who is at the front of the hypnotized band.
Meanwhile the adults realize that their children are missing and their only hope of stopping Pennywise is to reinstate the caged perimeter. Rose (Kimberly Guerrero) and Taniel (Joshua Odjick) provide some helpful exposition, along with maps and visuals of the dead tree at the river’s edge that marks the spot the alien dagger must be planted and then it’s full steam ahead.
Well…sort of.
The two frustrating developments include personifying the dagger, which we’re told will “fight” its owner and eventually corrupts both Lilly and Will, prompting them to lash out at their friends at different points in the episode. More interesting is seeing the children struggle to force it forward collectively, but lacking the strength to do so.
Is it a little expected and slightly manipulative to bring back the ghost of Rich (Arian S. Cartaya) to help in the wake of his death last week? Sure…but it’s also a very satisfying moment for arguably the show’s most charismatic young actor, so who cares?!
Of course, throughout all of this there’s battles with both Pennywise and the Army. The latter randomly appear on the shore to shoot Taniel (fatally) and Leroy (Jovan Adepo), which feels like an obvious narrative stall tactic in order to draw out climax. Compare this to the far more successful development when Dick Halloran (Chris Chalke) freezes Pennywise in Bob Gray’s memories. Whereas the former simply feels like plot mechanics, this development is visually and narratively interesting.
There’s some satisfaction to seeing (or implying, since Muschietti cuts away) the death of General Shaw (James Remar) at the jaws of Pennywise. But really, the more exciting developments occur as Charlotte (Taylour Paige), Rose, and Leroy blow off Pennywise’s head as IT first skips, then flies towards the children to prevent them from reactivating the cage. The entire climax makes great use of slow motion and IT’s moment of defeat features some excellent goopy FX as the creature’s many faces are peeled away like paint.
In the end, “Winter Fire” is 3/4 great and 1/4 “oh come on!” (see also: crashing the milk truck), but that’s a pretty solid score considering there were a lot of moving pieces in play going into this finale.
- Finale Grade: 4/5
- Season Grade: 3/5
Other Observations:
- Seriously: slow skipping Pennywise was not on my 2025 BINGO card, but Skarsgård played up these moments so well. This sequence was so mesmerizing; it felt like I’d been hit with the deadlights.
- The autonomous will of the dagger was also far too reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings, which is a comparison that will make any text look worst for.
- Chalke did what he could with the material, but watching Dick struggle with the ghosts (nearly to the point of suicide) until Leroy and Rose provided him a McGuffin elixir was not as interesting as Fuchs thought it was. Still, the acknowledgement that passes between he and Leroy in the coda was a nice moment.
- Curious to see how viewers respond to the aforementioned coda, which is nearly ~10 minutes and offers a nice pat resolution to most everything. Sidebar: do we really believe that Leroy, Charlotte, and Will would stay in Derry to as the new gatekeepers if Will didn’t have to become Mike’s father from IT?
- Speaking of ties to other King properties, most of them result in groaners masquerading as Easter Eggs. One might have been fine, but with all of these, it feels like overkill:
- Dick’s wink, wink, nudge, nudge exit line (“How much trouble can a hotel be?”)? TERRIBLE.
- Rose’s “This isn’t the end of the story, you know?”? It’s a bit meta, so I’ll allow it.
- Pennywise baiting Marge with a tease of her future as mother to Ritchie? Good.
- Sidebar: this is very clearly how Welcome to Derry could return for another season. The suggestion that Pennywise experiences time in non-linear fashion implies that a narrative could be set even earlier than this one, while still referencing the events of 62 and 89. Now whether this would be interesting to watch is another question (but the ratings…)
- The most “oh…huh” Easter Egg, however, is a cameo by Beverly (a surprisingly still age appropriate-looking Sophia Lillis) at Juniper Hill. It’s nice to see Lillis, who didn’t get the career bump she should have in the wake of IT‘s success <casts side eye at Jaeden Martell>. Still, this is only here because it directly connects to our future Losers Club.
- Speaking of Juniper Hill, that’s where we get our sole glimpse of Ingrid (Madeleine Stowe) after she’s carted away from the wreckage of the Black Spot. In hindsight, Ingrid is a sort of significant character in terms of Bob Gray’s backstory, but it’s hard to argue that IT: Welcome to Derry misused a talented actress in a thankless role.
IT: Welcome to Derry has now finished airing S01 on HBO
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