It: Welcome to Derry showrunner says that surprise movie cameo was a "very, very last-minute" decision, and it changes the context of a terrifying Pennywise scene in It: Chapter Two

It: Welcome to Derry co-showrunner Jason Fuchs says that surprise Losers Club cameo in episode 8 wasn't in the original script... though now it makes one particularly harrowing scene in It: Chapter Two even more so.

Warning: Spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry episode 8 below!

"That was a very, very last-minute decision," Fuchs, who also wrote episode 8, tells GamesRadar+. "That scene came about in reshoots. Reshoots are a normal part of any big show or any film, but we were at the tail end of everything. And that was a scene that had been talked about a few times, just generally, like how do we have one more piece of architecture linking us to the films? We certainly had the Rich Tozier missing kids poster that popped up, but what was one other piece of the puzzle that could sort of build a bridge to the films and make it feel like this really takes you in many ways to the doorstep of It: Chapter One?"

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The cameo in question is none other than Sophia Lillis's Beverly Marsh, who is crying on the floor of a hospital room at Juniper Hill, staring up at her mother, who has tragically hanged herself. At the end of the season finale, we fast forward 27 years to an elderly Ingrid Kersh who, despite causing the deaths of over 20 Black residents of Derry at the hands of racists, suddenly seems like some kind, quiet old lady. It doesn't stay that way for long, however, as Ingrid hears the commotion down the hall and cheerfully goes to investigate. She finds Beverly on the floor next to her abusive father, who pulls away from her. Beverly looks up at Ingrid in tears, only for Ingrid to creepily say, "No one ever really dies in Derry."

You might recall that, in It: Chapter Two, Pennywise appears to an adult Beverly as an old woman known as "Mrs. Kersh." It's an awful scene, where Bev is made to feel guilty about the abuse at the hands of her father – the thing she fears most in this world. Well, now we know that Mrs. Kersh was more than just a random guise for Pennywise.

Continues Fuchs: "It also changes the context of that scene in It: Chapter Two, because now you're understanding, 'Oh, wait, the reason that It takes that guise in Chapter Two is not just about tormenting Beverly as it relates to her traumatic relationship with her dad.' It's actually scratching a very deeply repressed piece of trauma in the back of her brain, which is Mrs. Kersh, the person she met the day she suffered the most traumatic event of her young life to that point, which was the suicide, obviously, of her mom."