IT: WELCOME TO DERRY — Why You Won’t See Much Pennywise, And Why That’s The Point

Written by Klep Napier for WeAreCritiX.com

The New York Comic Con panel for IT: Welcome to Derry made one thing crystal clear. This series is not a Pennywise parade. It is about the fear he leaves behind, the town that absorbs it, and the people who shape it. The creative team and cast kept returning to the same idea: hold the clown back, build tension, and make his arrival unpredictable.

The Plan: Play the “Jaws” game with Pennywise

Executive producer Barbara Muschietti said it outright. “He is our shark.” Director Andy Muschietti backed it up, explaining that the show is designed to delay the full Pennywise reveal. The goal is to avoid audience comfort, keep us guessing, and make every appearance count. Expect manifestations, hints, and other forms of It working the edges of the story. The clown shows up when you least expect it. Not before.

In Stephen King’s original novel, the clown is a guise, not the whole monster. It is a shape-shifting predator that takes whatever form best exploits fear. Pennywise is simply the most effective lure for children. The true creature hides behind those faces, existing as something the human mind can’t completely comprehend. On the page, the clown is unforgettable but never constant, the horror spreads through multiple forms, stories, and generations of Derry residents.

King often leaves Pennywise offstage for long stretches to focus on the town’s dark history through Mike Hanlon’s “Interludes,” a series of fragmented records about Derry’s past tragedies. It manifests as other shapes — even a giant bird — and the evil becomes part of the town itself. That approach makes Derry feel haunted, cursed, and complicit, which is exactly the spirit the series aims to honor.

The show’s creators also follow King’s “27-year cycle,” placing this first season in 1962. That keeps the story closer to the book’s 1950s atmosphere while exploring how fear, racism, and repression in that era fuel the creature’s influence. It’s not just about the clown; it’s about how people feed him.

In short, Pennywise matters, he’s the face fans never forget but he doesn’t carry every scene. The dread in IT has always come from how widely the evil seeps into a community, and Welcome to Derry is embracing that. The clown will appear when it counts, not when expected.

The Story Frame: King’s Interludes as a blueprint

Andy described going back to Stephen King’s novel and zeroing in on Mike Hanlon’s Interludes. Those fragmented Derry histories were treated as a puzzle that was never meant to be complete. The team used that spirit to build a story told backward, toward the era when It became Pennywise. It is less origin-myth-as-flashback, more community-portrait-as-haunting.

Why 1962

The series is set in 1962, a prior 27-year Pennywise cycle on the timeline established by the films. That choice pulls the texture closer to the book’s 1958 spirit while opening new corners of Derry: bloodlines, ancestors, and a social climate where fear and division are already in the air. Co-showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane leaned into that setting to stitch character drama to cosmic menace.

Characters First, Scares Second

From the stage it was clear this is a character-rich show. Kimberly Guerrero’s Rose is a keeper of memory with deep Indigenous knowledge tied to the land. James Remar’s General Shaw carries Cold War weight and a lifelong fracture from an early encounter with It. Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann appears at a raw, earlier stage than the version fans think they know. The cast kept circling back to family, community, and responsibility. The scares grow out of that.

Watch our full NYCC panel video here

Prefer to watch the panel? Hit play, then come back for the highlights.

What Fans Should Expect

• Less clown, more dread. Pennywise is used sparingly, by design.

• Presence without comfort. It will surface in other forms and influences.

• Mythology that breathes. The series fills in emotional and cultural spaces King left suggestive rather than literal.

• Connections without repetition. Expect meaningful ties to the films and the book, without re-running familiar beats.

Bottom Line

If you came for wall-to-wall Pennywise, that is not this show. If you came for a creeping study of how evil roots itself in a place, how communities remember and forget, and how fear passes down through generations, Welcome to Derry looks locked in.

IT: Welcome to Derry begins October 26 on HBO and Max. Mark your calendar and keep your porch light on.