Since Welcome to Derry premiered, the Creature has taken many forms to scare the residents of the small town: a demon baby, a lampshade made of human meat, a bed that’s also your dead mother after giving birth to you, the dismembered parts of your dead father inside of a pickle jar… And more recently, a priest and a baby crowned with thorns coming out of his belly as a representation of colonization, physical and spiritual violence from the colonizer as native people’s ultimate fear.
The dancing clown Pennywise, the Creature’s most popular form, has only been teased so far… Until two groups of people go to the sewers below Derry and everything changes. After Taniel is tortured by Hallorann, the military creates a plan to reduce the size of the “cage” that traps the Creature in Derry and use IT to win the war. They start preparing for the action.
The native people are also worried about IT; some of them gather to discuss the current cycle of the Creature, and how people in Derry are becoming more aggressive as the Augury, one last big, bloody event that marks the end of a cycle, approaches. After this, the city is expected to get 27 years or so of peace.
| “Neibolt Street” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Joshua Odjick as Taniel. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Meanwhile, after telling everyone that Lilly had nothing to do with her accident and just tried to help, Marge joins the other kids in their private club in the tower. There, they find Matty — the kid from the opening sequence — now pale, hair grown, looking sick, hiding in a yellow tent after weeks in the sewers. According to him, the Creature sleeps during the day and feeds at night, so he found a way to escape. Also, Phil is still alive down there, though he can’t move. The kids try to convince Matty to show himself to the police, as this could help them believe Hank is innocent. But Matty doesn’t want any adult to know he is alive, as they would return him to his family, and he’d rather return to the sewers than return home.
Trying to find a solution, Lilly goes to Madeleine Stowe’s character once again to ask for help. This time, she seems less suspicious and more honest about being worried for Lilly, discouraging her from going down the sewers, and even making her promise she won’t do it. Her husband interrupts them; he is Stan Kersh, the butcher from episode two. He is rude to his wife, and Mrs. Kersh seems uncomfortable when he is around. That’s an interesting scene: Is Mrs. Kersh being genuine when she shows concern for Lilly? Or by saying she shouldn’t go down, she expects to do a reverse psychology trick and put this idea in the child’s mind? However, if she has any connection with the obscure things happening in Derry, would she be stuck in a seemingly bad, loveless marriage? Mrs. Kersh remains one of the most complex, intriguing characters from this show — and this episode has even more to offer about her.
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| “Neibolt Street” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Madeleine Stowe as Ingrid. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Hank is attacked before getting on the bus to the Shawshank Prison. As a man tries to kill him, Charlotte has a vision of the Creature as a creepy, smiling police officer. As Charlotte grows suspicious about the dark truth behind the town, Leroy moves with his family to the military base, expecting to keep Will away from his friends in Derry. But the child has other plans, lying to his mom about going for a walk to explore the new place and escaping to the tower. Once there, he joins the other kids in their mission to go down the sewers to find and rescue Phil.
Meanwhile, Rose visits Francis and demands to see her nephew; after trying to discourage the General without success, she convinces him she wants to help. Rose gets to talk to Taniel and gives him a piece of the star, a black, pointed stake — that is the only thing powerful enough to protect him, the only thing that can hurt IT.
Inside the sewer, the soldiers lose track of each other. Leroy has a vision of Charlotte that disturbs him, and he ends up shooting her, but his friend Pauly Russo doesn’t see her; Taniel runs away, dropping the stake into the water. And Dick is taken by the Creature to a (mental?) place where he is tortured with visions of his grandparents — his grandfather wants to forcefully open a box that should be kept locked.
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| “Neibolt Street” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Matilda Lawler as Marge, Amanda Christine as Ronnie, Blake Cameron James as Will, Clara Stack as Lilly, Arian S. Cartaya as Rich. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Nearby, the kids discover that Matty is actually the Creature, who transforms into Pennywise in an iconic singing sequence — the showrunners were so right leaving this to the middle of the season, making it a special moment. While the children run from Pennywise, Lilly stays behind. She ends up trapped in a dead end. Pennywise is ready to kill her. But when the clown tries to go for her, IT fails because of the stake left by Taniel, which protects Lilly when she needs it the most. Realizing what happened, the girl grabs the piece of star.
While the kids are running from the clown, they bump straight into Leroy and Pauly. Major Hanlon thinks he’s seeing the Creature disguised as Will, just like he saw Charlotte earlier, and prepares to shoot him. But Pauly is seeing Will as well this time, and realizing what is about to happen, gets in front of the bullet, dying shortly after.
Not that far from there, something causes Hank’s bus to crash, and he manages to escape. Mrs. Kersh finds him in the back seat of her car, and after taking him to the woods nearby, it’s revealed that they are lovers, meaning Kersh is the married woman who could be Hank’s alibi if not for their shared secret. They make a plan for him to escape, and Hank decides to ask for help from the only one who showed him some empathy. That way, the episode ends with Madeleine Stowe’s character going to the military base to talk to Charlotte; as they meet for the first time, she finally introduces herself to Charlotte (and the audience) as Ingrid Kersh.
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| “Neibolt Street” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
For anyone lost about what this name could mean, It: Chapter Two showed the Creature taking the form of Mrs. Kersh, a seemingly kind old woman. During this sequence, it’s suggested that Kersh is the daughter of Bob Gray, one of the biggest mysteries behind the Creature disguised as Pennywise. Could Ingrid be the daughter of the Creature? Or is she related to the human who inspired IT’s favorite disguise? Curiously, IT got to spend such a long time as Matty to trick the kids — what else can IT do when it comes to disguises? And for how long? We’ve seen the Creature as a “normal” person before, but this time it took a while for IT to reveal itself…
All in all, Neibolt Street gets it all right, with a striking introduction for Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise and interesting revelations about Ingrid Kersh. The kids remain charismatic, Marge’s introduction to the group finally making it whole. Talking about her specifically, it’s nice to watch her progress after the last episode, a sweet moment shared with Rich making it hard not to root for them to make it out alive. We also have a compelling main character in Dick Hallorann, who now finds himself having to deal with an unthinkably powerful creature — can’t wait to see what he is going to do to fight back. How is Charlotte going to help Hank? And how will Leroy deal with what he did? In conclusion, next week can’t take any longer — but for now, Welcome to Derry offered enough to keep me more than satisfied.
Feel free to leave a comment with your impressions and thoughts, and thanks for reading!