How the IT: Welcome to Derry Finale Brings the Movies Full Circle

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By the time the final episode of Andy Muschietti’s Welcome to Derry begins, General Shaw’s (James Remar) ill-advised choice to destroy a magical pillar belonging to the Shokopiwah tribe has stirred It from its sleep and given it a chance to break free from Derry. It then uses its terrifying Deadlights form to abduct all the freshmen at Derry High, and attempts to escape.

Luckily, the dagger Lilly found in the sewer – made from the same otherworldly material as the pillars – can re-seal the cage holding It, but only if they can find the right place to plant it before It escapes. However, the dagger is actually a piece of the comet that brought It to Earth, and it’s drawn back to the crash site where Neibolt House now stands. This means the further the kids carry the dagger away from Neibolt, the more it messes with their heads and the harder it becomes to control. This makes their mission incredibly difficult.

The situation gets even more complicated when Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge try to save Will from the Deadlights’ grip on the frozen river. We discover It has a hidden agenda. Disguised as Pennywise, It separates Marge from the group and shockingly reveals her future: she will marry a man named Tozier and become the mother of Richie Tozier, a member of the Losers Club (played by Finn Wolfhard as a child and Bill Hader as an adult in the IT movies). Pennywise even shows Marge a missing person poster of her future son. He chillingly tells her, “Your child and his friends will be the cause of my end—or is it my beginning? Time doesn’t matter to Pennywise.”

Essentially, It believes that by killing Marge in the past, it can stop Richie from ever being born and prevent the formation of the Losers Club, thus avoiding its eventual defeat. While it doesn’t quite add up – It could have simply eliminated Will to prevent Mike Hanlon’s birth – we’re accepting this as its motivation.

Despite Pennywise’s threats, Dick Hallorann uses his special ability, ‘Shine,’ to briefly control the creature and save Marge. Unfortunately, things escalate when the adults reach the frozen river. The military starts firing from the shore, tragically killing Taniel and wounding Leroy. Shaw then commands his soldiers to rescue Dick, inadvertently releasing Pennywise from Dick’s mental control. Shaw soon realizes Pennywise is uncontrollable when it viciously attacks him, biting off his face. This distraction doesn’t help the kids for long, as they continue to struggle with the dagger’s power while trying to plunge it into the deadwood on the opposite side of the river.

When things look their darkest, Dick sees the spirit of the Indigenous woman he met during the fire at the Black Spot. She’s led the ghost of a young boy named Rich – clearly the inspiration for Richie’s name – to assist his friends. With Rich’s help, Will, Lilly, Ronnie, and Marge manage to plant the dagger into the roots of the deadwood, re-seal the cage, and force It back into a 27-year slumber.

After Marge shares her experience with It on the ice, it becomes clear where the story is headed. The show, planned over three seasons spanning 1962, 1935, and 1908, suggests that It understands time differently. Marge explains that for It, the past, present, and future are connected, implying It will try to stop the Losers Club from defeating it in the 2016 timeline of the movie IT: Chapter Two by altering events in the past. Marge wonders if It could even go back in time to eliminate the Losers’ ancestors, potentially preventing the Losers Club from ever being born.

“I guess it will be someone else’s fight,” Lilly tellingly responds.

The season concludes with a glimpse into the future, subtly linking the show’s events to the IT movies. In October 1988, an elderly Ingrid Kersh (played by Madeleine Stowe in the 1960s and Joan Gregson in the 1980s) is nearing the end of her life at Juniper Hill Asylum. Fans of the IT movies will recognize Ingrid as the unsettling older woman Beverly Marsh (played by Sophia Lillis as a child and Jessica Chastain as an adult) meets when revisiting her childhood home in Derry in 2016. The scene shows Ingrid overhearing a disturbance and discovering a grieving father and daughter mourning the suicide of Elfrida Marsh, another patient at the asylum.

As the daughter looks away from her mother’s body, she’s revealed to be a young Beverly Marsh, with actress Sophia Lillis playing the role again. Ingrid then says the very first version of a chilling phrase she’ll repeat to Bev decades later: “Oh, dear. Don’t be sad. You know what they say about Derry. No one who dies here ever really dies.”

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2025-12-15 07:06