There's a reason Stephen King's most iconic book is called "It", not "Pennywise". While the Dancing Clown is synonymous with the novel and its subsequent adaptations – in part, because red-nosed circus performers are easier to market and merchandise than orbs of otherworldly energy – the eponymous cosmic entity is, notoriously, a shapeshifter. "The monster showed itself to them, in the shape of the things they feared the most," says a young Taniel (Joshua Odjick) in the latest episode of HBO's spin-off It: Welcome to Derry, explaining the lore of "The Galloo" to his auntie Rose (Kimberly Guerrero) and, subsequently, the audience too.
He's speaking of a fatal run-in his great ancestors had with the ever-changing It, recounting a story he's been told by members of the Shokopiwah tribe many times before. It's a flashback inside a flashback sequence, and a memory telepathic Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) has crudely muscled his way in on in an attempt to find out what the heck It's deal is.
I'm confused, then, as to why some horror fans (read: loudmouths on TikTok) are criticizing the show for its lack of Pennywise. For me, its commitment to recreating the weird, wacky ways in which the titular antagonist terrorizes the unfortunate youngsters who reside in Derry, Maine is one of its biggest strengths – not only cementing itself as the most faithful adaptation of King's seminal work yet but showcasing why TV is the perfect medium to bring the sprawling, pretty gonzo classic to life.
Juggling act
Despite my decades-long love of horror, I was regrettably late to King's literary works, having kicked off my inevitable new obsession with Salem's Lot last Halloween. Now, I'm currently 100 pages away from finishing It for the very first time. Having seen Andy Muschietti's It and It: Chapter Two a bunch, I didn't anticipate so much of it to make me feel so warm and fuzzy; I often find myself grinning widely during scenes where Bill, Ben, Richie and co. are hanging out, which makes me look admittedly rather odd when strangers notice the cover in public.
I also wasn't expecting It to have so many forms. He may favor the painted face and pom-pommed suit over his other disguises but, across those 1000-plus pages, he also presents as the moon, a werewolf, a mummy, flying leeches, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and more. Hell, he's not opposed to borrowing the faces of his victims' nearest and dearest, either, as a couple of the Losers' Club members are unlucky enough to find out. In the films, he switches up his look occasionally, sure, but even when Bill Skarsgård's baddie turns into a spider-like creature, he still keeps Pennywise's head. After Mike hallucinates all the burning bodies trying to claw their way out of a chained-up butcher shop, he sees Pennywise's silhouette in the shadowy doorway. The clown is on screen a lot, essentially, and it never really lets loose like the show, which has more time to play around with such things, does.
After all, the things that frighten the heroes in King's novel play a huge part in helping us get to know them as individuals – and understand their motivations. Hypochondriac Eddie, for example, sees It as a man with oozing pustules and a slobbery mouth in the book, while Beverly, who's secretly harboring anxiety about growing up and puberty, is plagued by visions of gushing blood. It's so much more interesting, then, to see the likes of Welcome to Derry's Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) be haunted by her father's severed head in a pickle jar or Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) dragged down into the Canal by a zombie-like version of his pops. In a particularly dark moment in episode 1, ill-fated Teddy found himself hiding from a lampshade made out of human faces.
Freak show
Where Pet Sematary, Cujo, and Misery are dripping with dread; steadily, relentlessly building to heartbreakingly bleak crescendos, It's length allows it to shift tonally as often as its villain does faces. The result? A surprisingly fun Halloween-y read peppered with chilling scares that's told largely through the eyes of its innocent, hopeful protagonists. Something the show nails.
Of course, Welcome to Derry has the benefit of having a little distance – and therefore, more creative freedom – from the source material, using the interludes in King's novel as springboards for a more original narrative. That, combined with showrunner Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Cane's ballsy swings, makes for some incredible standout set-pieces and boy, is it great not being able to predict what's going to happen from one moment to the next. "When you're doing several episodes, you have to make every episode pack a punch," producer Barbara Muschietti previously told SFX magazine. "That was the hardest balance, to be able to hide Pennywise, but at the same time, create new incarnations and new fears that had a level that could get to a Pennywise level of fear. Andy [Muschietti] did a truly incredible job at that. We don't see Pennywise for a while, but the things that we see are pretty damn incredible. And there's so much more!"
As revealed by It: Welcome to Derry's mid-season trailer, Pennywise makes his return in the upcoming episode, 'Neibolt Street', and I'm looking forward to it. I just hope that once he shows up, the show doesn't forget that he can be so many other things. "Clowns are scary. There's just no way around that," King explained to Yahoo! back in 2017. "They go to hospitals and try to cheer up sick kids. I mean, if I were a sick kid and I saw a fucking clown coming [in], all the red lines would go off on my gear, because I'd be scared to death!" Children, perhaps, but adults not so much – and the adult characters in Welcome to Derry are more conscious of It than most other grown characters seen in the horror's earlier It-erations (The Losers' Club in 1985, aside). In short, it's got to adapt. It's got to get… personal.
"It generates debilitating fear in anyone who comes near it," General Shaw (James Remar) explained to Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) in episode 2. "In theory, it could scare a man badly enough to kill him where he stands." If It ever tried to break me out in a cold sweat, it'd likely manifest itself as a blank page and a looming deadline. It's neat to know that that wouldn't be out of the question in It: Welcome to Derry.
It: Welcome to Derry is streaming now on HBO Max. New episodes air every Sunday on HBO in the US, before broadcasting on Mondays on Sky Atlantic/NOW in the UK. For more, check out our picks of the most exciting new TV shows heading our way or our ranking of the best Stephen King adaptations.
