The first episode of It: Welcome to Derry has finally aired, and it's safe to say that the horror spin-off's opener scared us silly. It kicked off with a bloody bang, setting the tone for the rest of the spine-tingling, kind of unhinged season – and deepening the franchise's lore in ways that would make world-building maestro Stephen King proud.
Naturally, as the new show connects itself to It (2017) and sequel It: Chapter Two and brings not-yet-adapted moments of King's 1986 novel to life for the first time, there are plenty of Easter eggs to catch – and don't worry, you're not as risk of getting caught in some devastating factory accident if you go hunting for 'em. You may well have missed a bunch, though, if you were cowering behind a pillow for most of 'The Pilot's' runtime…
It: Welcome to Derry Easter eggs
Episode 1 "The Pilot"
The Music Man: In the show's very first scene, Derry locals can be seen watching the 1962 musical in the town's Capitol Theater. Not only is it era-appropriate but it's also amusingly fitting, in the sense that the movie centers on a traveling conman whose schemes of creating a boys' marching band are bamboozled by a suspicious librarian. Maybe we're reaching here, but you could argue that shapeshifter Pennywise is like Robert Preston's eponymous deceiver while bibliosoph Mike Hanlon is the equivalent of Shirley Jones' character.
The Capitol Theater: Despite Welcome to Derry being set almost three decades before the events of It (2017), a cinema glimpsed in the movie plays a key role in the show, too. It's where Matty Clements – more on him later – flees from in the prologue, and a place the local police keep coming back to in their investigation of the missing kid. The name could be a nod to the theater in Burlington, Iowa that was closed down in 1977 due to disrepair. The last film that screened there was Carrie.
Paul Bunyan: The name 'Paul Bunyan' is glimpsed a couple of times in episode 1; on the sign welcoming people to Derry in the prologue and in a newspaper article that states the city council are "pressing forward" with a monument of the mysterious man. In the book and movies, the statue of Bunyan is the base for a bunch of spooky goings-on, including Richie Tozier's run-in with Pennywise. The actual statue resides in Bangor, Maine.
Teddy Urines: HBO managed to keep most of Welcome to Derry's character names under wraps in the run-up to the show's premiere and now that we've seen the first episode, it's clear why. A bunch of 'em are linked to the Losers Club, including Mikkal Karim-Fidler's Teddy, if our theory that he's related to Stan Uris is correct. In episode 1, we see Teddy's locker desecrated with the words, TEDDY URINE SUCKS BALLS. The similarity between the words 'urine' and 'Uris' is what first made us reckon so, but our thoughts were backed up when Teddy returns home later on in 'The Pilot' and it's revealed his family are Jewish. Being Jewish is a big part of Stan's characterization in both the book and the movies.
We can rule out that he's his father, given that Teddy doesn't make it to the end credits alive, but it's worth noting that he's shown to have a brother in a couple of scenes. Maybe he's Stan's uncle?
Matty Clements: Matty Clements' screentime in It: Welcome to Derry is short, with the poor pre-teen getting killed off in the opening 10 minutes of the very first episode – but fans of King's original novel will know his name all-too-well.
After being chased by an usher out of Hank Grogan's cinema having tried to "catch a freebie" in the show, Matty hitches a ride with a family out of Derry. All seems fine at first, but things soon turn sinister; the daughter starts munching uncooked liver chunks, the show-off son starts spelling out increasingly dark words like 'necrosis', 'kidnapping' and 'strangulation', and the mother… gives birth to a demonic, two-headed baby with bat wings. The creature flies around the car causing the others to erupt into a fit of laughter, while Matty sticks in the candy pacifier he got at the flicks, shuts his eyes, and covers his ears. The car goes quiet passing over a bridge and the baby lunges at the ill-fated boy, seemingly decapitating him as the pacifier plops into the river below.
It's a horrific scene but interesting, too, in how it seems to combine the source material's Clements with an older kid who is also killed by Pennywise: Eddie Corcoran. You see, Matty – or Matthew, as he's referred to in the book – is only three years old when he's taken by the dancing clown in 1958. He's a minor character whose death occurs off-page, but he's name-dropped a fair bit and his voice is one of the ones heard coming from the drains in Beverly Marsh's bathroom. We're assuming, then, that the candy pacifier is a neat nod to Matty's younger iteration in the book.
Matty's age here, the shiner he's sporting ("Leave 'im be. You ever see that boy's damn family?" Grogan tells the usher), and the fact that he's running away from home ties him closely to Corcoran, too, who comes face-to-face with Pennywise while sleeping rough one night after his violent stepfather murders his younger brother. Appearing to him as the Gill-man, It chokes Eddie and tears his head off. Sound familiar?
Vintage movie posters: We get a brief glimpse at posters for the 1954 sci-fi horror The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Earth vs. Flying Saucers (1956) in Teddy's bedroom.
Detective Comics: In a later scene, Teddy can be seen reading a DC comic. From its Batman and Robin-themed cover, it's easy to identify as #298, an issue written by Bill Finger, which introduced the second incarnation of Clayface, Matt Hagen in December 1961.
Major Hanlon: Unlike with Mikkal Karim-Fidler's mysterious character Teddy, we've known that Jovan Adepo was playing 'Leroy Hanlon' for a good few months now, but it still felt appropriate to mention him here given his ties to one of the most important members of the Losers Club. It's not been explicitly confirmed yet how Leroy relates to Mike Hanlon, but it's pretty obvious that he's his grandfather. While the youngster doesn't appear in episode 1 outside of a blink-and-you'll-miss-it photograph, army pilot Leroy will soon be joined in Derry by his son, who introduces himself to another kid as 'Will' in the official teasers and trailers – and well, in the book, Mike's father is called Will...
Additionally, Leroy explains to his superior, General Shaw, in one scene that he comes from a family of farmers. In Muschietti's movies, Chosen Jacob's Mike explains that he's lived on his grandfather's farm ever since his parents died in a house fire.
The standpipe: The Derry standpipe is a key location in King's novel, but has yet to heavily feature in an onscreen adaptation. Welcome to Derry makes it a focus right away, with the show cutting from the snowy prologue to Jack Molly Legault's Phil tracking army planes from its balcony in the spring. Later, Matty takes Lilly Bainbridge there in a flashback, before Lilly returns there once again with Phil and Teddy. In the book, Stan Uris first encounters Pennywise at the standpipe. It's a foreboding structure, often symbolizing the town's misery and death.
Alvin Marsh graffiti: When Lilly tells her friend Marge that she heard Matty talking to her from the plughole in her bathtub, the latter drags the former into one of the stalls in the girls' bathroom and urges her not to make a fool of herself in front of the Pattycakes. If you look closely at the wall, you can see 'Alvin Marsh' written inside a heart, a reference to the abusive father of Losers Club member Beverly Marsh.
The turtle: If you've not read It, Welcome to Derry's turtle references will likely mean nothing to you. It's not something we're going to explicitly dive into just yet since Muschietti has already confirmed that the series will shine some light on the hard-shelled cosmic being Maturin – but let's just say, it has big beef with Pennywise.
Episode 1 nods to Maturin with a couple of mentions of the sea-faring reptiles, from Derry High School's mascot being 'Bert the Turtle', who urges students to "duck and cover" in the event of a nuclear fallout. Later, when Matty and Lilly are hanging out at the standpipe, they open two Cracker Jack boxes. Lilly is gutted to get a rocket ship toy, which prompts a smitten Matty to offer her his: a turtle. Lilly takes the charm with a grin.
Episode 1 of It: Welcome to Derry is streaming now on HBO Max in the US and Sky/NOW in the UK. Episode 2 airs on Sunday, November 2 at 9pm ET. 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.
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