'IT: Welcome To Derry' Episode Seven Spoiler-Free Review
Image Source: The Wrap
Last time on Welcome to Derry! Rich and Marge learn what freedom tastes like. Leroy Hanlon doesn’t work particularly well under pressure. Ingrid Kersh has some daddy issues that seriously need to be resolved. Dick Hallorann may need to cut back on his alcohol intake. And Lilly Bainbridge’s vocal cords are stronger than most metal singers.
We're almost at the finish line, Derry citizens! Time really does fly when you're having fun. As Welcome to Derry wraps up its first season next Sunday, we’ll take a closer look at the penultimate episode.
This week's episode is not only remarkable in its own right, but it’s also the series's best episode yet and one of the year's standout TV episodes overall. Episode 7 (titled The Black Spot) is the brainchild of Andy Muschietti (who returns to the director's chair for the first time since episode 2), along with series showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane as writers. If last week's episode leaned more towards character development with scares taking a back seat, The Black Spot cranks up the scares while maintaining its emotional depth. It's a horror masterpiece from start to finish, with Muschietti, Fuchs, Kane, the cast, and composer Benjamin Wallfisch firing on all cylinders.
RELATED:
Image Source: Esquire
The episode starts in 1908, following last week's revelation that Ingrid's therapist, Ingrid, believes her father is IT. Bill Skarsgård plays Bob Gray, a circus clown who goes by the name Pennywise. What was assumed was going to be a sinister opening turns out to be unexpectedly heartwarming. The scenes with Bob Gray and a young Ingrid create a sense of calm before all hell breaks loose. Bill Skarsgård shines in a completely different role in this universe. At the same time, Emma-Leigh Cullum's portrayal of a young Ingrid is even more impressive than Madeline Stowe and Tyner Rushing's performances as the older versions of the character. We’re also treated to another cameo from director Andy Muschietti as a circus carney.
What makes this week’s cold open so engaging is that it gives Ingrid Kersh a sense of humanity. Ingrid hasn’t been a significant presence on the show until last week, when it was shown that she has become obsessed with Pennywise. Instead of making Ingrid just some crazy broad with no character, it gives her a sense of tragedy. Ingrid continues the show’s thematic throughline of characters dealing with strained or unresolved relationships with their fathers: Ingrid Kersh and Bob Gray, Lilly Bainbridge and her late father, Will and Leroy Hanlon, Ronnie and Hank Grogan, and even Teddy and his father in The Pilot. And while we don’t know Dick Halloran’s relationship with his father, it’s established in episode 5 that his grandfather wasn’t the best man out there. It seems like an oversimplification to call Welcome to Derry “Daddy Issues: The TV Series!” But that title isn’t too far off from some of the show’s central themes. Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane really pack an emotional punch this week, especially regarding the episode (and the series’s overall) most important and tragic sequence.
Image Source: BleedingCool
If you went back and watched Andy Muschietti’s IT duology before Welcome to Derry started, then you would’ve caught two fleeting mentions of a location known as The Black Spot. In a scene where the Losers Club assembles near the local movie theater, Ben Hanscom mentions three “big events” that happened in Derry: The Ironworks Explosion in 1908, the Bradley Gang in 1935, and the Black Spot in 1962. These events were mentioned to reveal to the protagonists and the audience that IT attacks once every 27 years. These events are also mentioned a handful of times in the original Stephen King novel.
As Andy and Barbara Muschietti stated before the premiere of Welcome to Derry, the series is planned to have three seasons, each set 27 years earlier than the last. Naturally, the Black Spot fire was going to be showcased in Welcome to Derry. And it did not disappoint. If I had a nickel for every horror TV show with an extended oner sequence set amid mass chaos, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right? After the remarkable one-shot sequence in the 4th episode of Stranger Things 5 Vol. 1, in which Mike Wheeler protects his friends from a rabid Demogorgon wrecking the military, we are treated to an even longer oner in The Black Spot.
I’ve mentioned a handful of times that, despite the best efforts of Andrew Bernstein, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr., and Jamie Travis, Andy Muschietti is operating on a completely different level. While Muschietti’s work on The Pilot and The Thing In The Dark is worthy of praise, his direction in The Black Spot is his most outstanding directorial achievement since IT Chapter 1. After the release of Muschietti’s much-maligned Flash film in 2023, many DC fans have made it their personal mission to get him fired as the director of the upcoming DCU Batman film, The Brave and the Bold. While many will continue to use The Flash as their sole example of why Muschietti is a bad director, Welcome to Derry does the opposite.
The fluid camera work, constant sense of danger, visual prowess, and emotional depth would all be impressive if any of these elements were the central aspect of the Black Spot sequence. However, putting them together and pulling it off takes real skill. The icing on the chilling and violent cake is seeing Pennywise at his very scariest. Seeing the iconic clown surrounded by hellfire, taunting literal children, is frightening imagery to make you not want to sleep at night. Whether his next film is his long-in-development live action adaptation of Attack on Titan, the science fiction film Drift, or The Brave and the Bold, Welcome to Derry is a sign that Andy Muschietti needs to return to the movies as soon as possible.
This week's acting is, as usual, a tour de force. Chris Chalk, Amanda Christine, Blake Cameron James, and Stephen James continue to shine as Dick Hallorann, Ronnie Grogan, Will Hanlon, and Hank Grogan, respectively. However, Arian S. Cartaya and Matilda Lawler stole the show this week. A budding romance between Rich and Marge was hinted at all the way back in episode 2, where Rich is shown being mesmerized by Marge as she walks by. The pair has been a constant source of scenes that make the viewer go “Aw!” since roughly episode 5. Cartaya and Lawler’s chemistry is insanely palpable, and they deserve mad props for helping bring these characters to life. A specific scene with the pair during the Black Spot fire is an emotional gut-punch that will have you tearing up if you care about this cast of characters at all. The way the showrunners and filmmakers have made the audience care about these characters in just 7 (soon to be 8) episodes is a testament to their storytelling and the cast's talents.
Image Source: IMDb
If there is any downside to the episode, it’s the lack of Bainbridge time. Due to the heavy focus on Pennywise, Ingrid, the Grogans, the Hanlons, Rich, and Marge, Lilly isn’t given much to do this week. Our young heroine finally got a break, appearing in only two scenes and having two lines. It’s a shame that Lilly missed out on such a masterful episode. Still, considering that Lilly’s constant suffering has become a topic of internet memes across social media, I think she deserves the rest. The same cannot be said for Leroy Hanlon, who finds himself uncovering what the military wants to do with the Pillars.
It’s a harrowing scene that hits too close to our real-world horrors right now. It really goes to show that not everything tragic and scary that happens in Derry is Pennywise’s doing. Sometimes, humanity creates absolute horror. And who is humanity’s greatest enemy besides humankind itself? The series has thankfully not shied away from the time period it's set in, where the horrors of racism and bigotry are as constant and chilling as anything involving monsters. It should also be said that Benjamin Wallfisch has been truly killing it in the latter stretch of the show. A handful of music cues this week are very reminiscent of the more orchestral, heavy, Danny Elfman/Alan Silvestri-inspired music from the IT movies, which Wallfisch also scored. It almost feels like Wallfisch is auditioning to score The Brave and the Bold once that gets in front of cameras. If it was, he succeeded.
Welcome to Derry may very well stick the landing if this episode is an indication of the quality of the next. Andy Muschietti flexing his directing skills, Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane making names for themselves as intelligent and thoughtful horror writers, the cast's winning performances, and the intense score by Benjamin Wallfisch all help make Welcome to Derry the most entertaining television show this year. As our final adventure with Lilly, Hallorrann, and the rest of our heroes awaits us in just six short days, we can only hope that the destination is worth just as much as the journey. Considering how spectacular the journey has been so far, it probably will be.
Rating: 10/10
IT: Welcome to Derry, Season 1, Episode 7: The Black Spot is now streaming on HBO Max. The season finale episode will air Sunday, December 14th, on HBO.
READ NEXT:
Latest News
Featured
