SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for the first episode of IT: Welcome To Derry. If you have not yet watched it, proceed at your own risk!
IT: Welcome To Derry is an exciting series for Stephen King fans, as it’s not really a traditional prequel (in that it doesn’t tell a story centered on a particular character with whom we’re already familiar). Instead, what the show is really about is canon expansion: it takes what we already learned from the horror in IT: Chapter One and IT: Chapter Two and builds on it while also taking a step backward in the timeline. The result of this is not only a cool structure, but also many awesome opportunities for fun references and canon ties.
If you’re a Stephen King fan, you probably caught a lot of the special nods featured in the IT: Welcome To Derry pilot (which is now available to stream with a HBO Max subscription), but just in case you missed some, we’ve put together this piece to catalogue all of the ones that we saw. From big connections to tiny little easter eggs, we did our best to catch them all:
Catching A Movie At The Capitol Theater
While the Capitol Theater is featured in the background of some scenes, IT: Chapter One doesn’t feature a memorable confrontation from Stephen King’s novel that sees members of the Losers Club go toe-to-toe with Henry Bowers and his goons after the former are spotted while watching a movie. But IT: Welcome To Derry brings the Capitol Theater back into play in a big way and has sequences in the location bookend the pilot: it’s the place where Matty (Miles Ekhardt) is last scene, and then it ends up being the setting of extreme carnage.
Some Notable Downtown Derry Locations
It would seem that there isn’t a lot of business turnover when it comes to downtown Derry, as there are a number of locations that fans will recognize from Stephen King books and the IT movies. Looking at various storefronts and signs, you’ll spot Jade Orient (the Chinese restaurant featured prominently in IT: Chapter Two), Keene’s Pharmacy, Nan’s Luncheonette and more.
The Hanlons Arrive In Derry
This section isn’t so much highlighting an Easter egg so much as it is making note of a significant event in the big picture history of Derry, Maine. In the IT: Welcome To Derry pilot, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) officially moves to town, putting down stakes in a place that multiple generations of his family will call home. Leroy is the grandfather of Mike Hanlon (played by Chosen Jacobs in IT: Chapter One and Isaiah Mustafa in IT: Chapter Two), and we’ll soon get to meet his wife Charlotte (Taylor Paige) and his son Will (Blake Cameron James).
A Derry Descendant In First Airman Donahue?
We’re likely to hear a lot of last names that sound familiar as we watch IT: Welcome To Derry, and that includes names that are just mentioned in passing. For example, when Leroy fellow airmen, one individual he is introduced to is named Donahue. Could he maybe be related to Kitty Donahue, who was the wife of crime boss George Bradley, who was gunned down during Pennywise’s terror campaign in 1935? We may have to wait until Season 2 of the show to find out.
Bert The Turtle And The Turtle Charm
Before I go any further, I should note that Bert The Turtle was a real character from a 1950s propaganda movie about nuclear war – but its existence is quite convenient for IT: Welcome To Derry, and the significance of the animal is further accentuated via the charm that Lilly (Clara Stack) gets from a Cracker Jack prize exchange with Matty. Turtles are quite a big thing in the history of IT and the larger Stephen King canon, as the great foe of the entity also known as Pennywise is a shelled amphibian called Maturin (one of the creators of the universe). Whether we’ll actually see Maturin in the new Stephen King series is an open question for now.
The Introduction Of Dick Hallorann
The pilot episode of IT: Welcome To Derry doesn’t exactly shine a light on Dick Hallorann, but he is introduced when he is driving Leroy Hanlon around the base, so it feels appropriate to highlight him. Played by Chris Chalk, the character is the same man who will eventually travel to the town of Estes Park, Colorado and get a job as the head chef of The Overlook Hotel (from The Shining). His inclusion in the new show isn’t random, as Stephen King features Hallorann in the flashback interlude from IT that is being used as Season 1’s main source material.
Curly hair? Check. Jewish family? Check. Locker graffiti from a bully dubbing him “Teddy Urine”? Check. If you clocked all of these details, you probably figured out that we’ve characters related to Teddy before, and that’s because he is a branch in the same family tree as Stanley Uris (memorably played by Wyatt Oleff in IT: Chapter One and Andy Bean in IT: Chapter Two). It’s not clear exactly what the connection is, but “great uncle who Stan never got to meet” is probably a safe guess.
Creature From The Black Lagoon And More In Teddy’s Bedroom
Looking around Teddy’s room in the IT: Welcome To Derry pilot, one notes that he is definitely a science-fiction/horror nerd – and that fits him into the world quite nicely. From the Creature From The Black Lagoon poster to the UFO iconography, to the Space Cadet comic, Teddy’s tastes are basically an amalgamation of all the classic material that inspired Stephen King to write IT.
Finger In The Drain
With It a.k.a. Pennywise making a home in the Derry sewers, there are plenty of drain-related horrors in the Maine town, but the scene where Lilly is terrorized by a finger coming out of her bathtub may be referencing a different Stephen King work – specifically “The Moving Finger.” Featured in the collection Nightmare & Dreamscapes, the short story is about a man who finds himself terrorized one night by an elongated finger that comes crawling out of his bathroom sink.
Alvin Marsh Love Graffiti In The Bathroom
Alvin Marsh is one of the most detestable characters in IT: Chapter One, as fans will remember him as the abusive, predatory dad of Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis)… but decades earlier, he was apparently nice enough to earn someone’s affection. In the quick scene where Lilly and Marge (Matilda Lawler) are together in the girl’s bathroom, viewers paying attention will notice that there is a bit of love graffiti dedicated to him.
The Terror Of Juniper Hill
There are a whole lot of really bad places where you don’t want to end up in Derry, Maine, and one of the more traditional is Juniper Hill: the local mental hospital. In IT: Welcome To Derry’s pilot, we learn that Lilly spent some time there when she was recovering from the unexpected and horrible death of her father, and fans of the IT movies and the book will remember that it was the place where Henry Bowers got locked up in IT: Chapter Two (where he was played by Teach Grant).
Research In The Derry Library
It’s hard not to feel a nice dose of nostalgia seeing research performed in the Derry Library, as the building is a special haven in IT: Chapter One and IT: Chapter Two respectively for young Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and adult Mike. In the pilot for IT: Welcome To Derry, the library is once again put to good use, as Lilly, Teddy, and Phil (Jack Molloy Legault) go there when they are seeking more information about Matty’s disappearance.
The Bowers Family Gets Namechecked
Speaking of the research performed at the Derry Library… remember what I was saying about familiar last names earlier? If you do some pausing and reading in the pilot when the kids are reading the microfiche, you may note the name Clint Bowers. This is very likely a relative of both Henry Bowers and Oscar Bowers (Stuart Hughes from IT Chapter One).
News That The Paul Bunyan Statue Is Being Erected
Anyone who has seen IT: Chapter Two will not soon forget that Derry, Maine has a Paul Bunyan statue, as Pennywise memorably brings it to life as a giant, unholy terror when he is going after adult Richie (Bill Hader). In 1962, however, it doesn’t exist yet! A newspaper shown on screen briefly in the IT: Welcome To Derry pilot promotes the news that construction of the sculpture is just beginning, meaning that we’re likely going to see it built before the end of Season 1.
That’s a lot of Easter eggs and references… but this is only the beginning! The second episode of IT: Welcome To Derry will be airing this Friday, October 31 on HBO, and I’ll be right back here on CinemaBlend cataloguing all of the various nods and ties it features to the larger Stephen King universe.