What To Know
- It: Welcome to Derry‘s latest episode finally introduces Pennywise in his classic clown form.
- Here, the cast and creators of the show talk about key scenes in the episode, including two whose fates are quite tragic.
[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Welcome to Derry Episode 5.]
It was time to go back into the sewers in the newest episode of It: Welcome to Derry… and guess who finally made his triumphant debut with the new “Losers”? That’s right, Episode 5 finally brings Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) into the mix, showing It in its most familiar form to torment the children who’ve made way into its squelchy lair.
“We decided to delay the introduction of Pennywise,” Andy Muschietti told TV Insider of the show’s decision to hold him back through the first four episodes. “It is introduced in a wide spectrum of different incarnations [beforehand], so we hint at him many, many times.”
For cocreator Barbara Muschietti, Pennywise is the show’s “shark.” “You don’t want to allow the audience to become familiar with him. It loses its power, we believe. So it’s very important to be strategic about his appearance. And we have the great tool that he’s a shape shifter.”
Indeed, we do see It appear as everything from a mutant dragon baby to a man made of sliced up pickles… before It finally returns as young Matty Clements (Miles Eckhardt), who steadily transitions into the clown in a truly creepy dance moment.
To prepare for the scene where he’s inhabited by It, Eckhardt consulted with Skarsgård: “That was something I talked with Bill about beforehand, as we were figuring out the dynamics of that transition. And he is a very good actor. I was basically just spinning around a pole on progressively higher and higher boxes, so I could match his height, slowly going from this timid little guy to, really, just my best impression of what Bill Skarsgård would sound like. There’s just so much energy everywhere, and what he’s doing is much of this slightly twisted clown whimsy. I did watch some of his performance before some of the takes I was doing up there, so I had some general impression of what he was doing, but a lot of that was just my guesswork of what clowning is like.”
Matty wasn’t the only casualty of the visit to the Neibolt house, either. The airmen in the top secret mission were also sent down below the well house, and Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso) didn’t come back in one piece. After seeing that his partner, Leroy, was about to shoot his own son in a moment of confusion, he stepped in front of the gun and took the shot to protect the child.
“He’s struggling because he’s not seeing it himself, and all he knows is a very strange thing happening that is not only mysterious and unpredictable, but surreal. It goes beyond real life,” Mancuso said of his character’s perspective in his final moments. “If he’s to trust anybody’s perspective, it’s Leroy’s. So now you have the only person in the world you trust telling you that he’s seeing things that aren’t there. It’s confusing, it’s tense, it’s stressful, it’s frightening. But then, in a moment of instinct, Pauly realizes, ‘Wait a minute, if my partner is seeing things that I can’t, and I am seeing this thing, it must be real.’ And it’s almost like he taps into the analytical side that Leroy has sort of inspired him to have, and he’s solving a problem quicker than he realizes. And yes, it results in tragedy, but it’s necessary.” By the end of the episode, poor Pauly was left wandering the woods as a ghost in Dick Hallorann’s box-open vision.
To break down all the biggest moments of this episode of It: Welcome to Derry, TV Insider caught up with the show’s cast and creators, including the Muschiettis, Eckhardt, Mancuso, Chris Chalk, Kimberly Guerrero, Jovan Adepo, Clara Stack, Matilda Lawler, Amanda Christine, Blake Cameron James, and Arian S. Cartaya. Watch the newest Episode 5 aftershow above, and be sure to check out our previous aftershows for Episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4, too.
It: Welcome to Derry, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO