Dick Halloran connects to Pennywise while the kid groups connect as one in It: Welcome To Derry’s third episode: Now You See It.
Welcome back to the weekly check-in/review/analysis/recap/what-have-you on It: Welcome to Derry. As this is a different format than normal, I’ll be discussing aspects of this specific episode, attempting to keep from being too direct in spoiler territory, but I go further than other reviews on the site. We do have direct spoilers for all previous episodes. [Need to catch up? Reviews for Episode 1 and Episode 2]
Episode 3: Now You See It, written by Guadalis Del Carmen & Gabriel Hobson and directed by Andrew Bernstein (shiftig from film director and series developer Andy Muschietti) is another solid episode mainly due to the centerpeice sequence, but also feels like a connective tissue, a little filler, more set up of characters in moving piece around and next round of lore and plot details than pushin forward the plot to a big degree. It has a lot of confirming ideas already discussed, codifying for the audience to be on the same page. An episode like this helps to build the overall tension, tightening the story and the grip even without giving a lot to chew on. For that, it works, although a specific aspect threatens the footing.
The opening is solid, even if it has that overly CG’d filter that hampered many of the outside shots of the first episode. Set in 1908, two cycles back, it opens with a young boy at a carnival having an experience with Derry’s evil. Carnivals already fall into the uncanny valley, and it’s made more so with the viewers all aware of the twisted turns of the town. The sound design of the carnival makes an unforgettable set to the grotesque that follows, along with the expected scare bit. In continued restraint, it features a small child clown character (credited as Periwinkle), perhaps seen in photographs in Chapter II (but as we well know, anything and everything might be Pennywise-sent hallucination), but perhaps further as a character introduced in this episode. Still keeps “Pennywise/Bob Gray” off-screen, but we have a different monster that looks often over-generated, but it does seem like there might be a performer as the basis. I was a little confused about the timing of the scare, thinking I had missed something. It gets worked out, but it is jarring.
So far, the show has had two distinct plot lines, which I’m sure will meet one day, as is the nature of shows: the kids and the military. In the first two episodes, the military, circling around Major Hanlon, further brings in The Shining’s Dick Halloran as a soldier noted to have The Shine and reveals the military is, in fact, looking into Pennywise, aware that something is going on. This half has been trudging along, obviously leading somewhere, but a little dull. I’m glad to say this week took leaps forward in both plot and the characters. I liked learning more about James Remar’s Shaw. A meeting he has with a native american character, Rose of the Secondhand Rose antique store (still existing, run by Stephen King in Chapter II), gives both more character but is very direct with how Derry works, and some of the history seen and talked about just in case people have questions or need it solidified (it’s exposition but it’s good exposition). A meeting with the local tribal council highlights that minorities and people on the edge of society are more aware of the machinations; a concept worth exploring (and setting up a Big Event we’ll see this season). Although talked about in the movies and books, I’ll keep mum.) I do question what constitutes a spoiler – is something that is talked about in the duology of films that happens later in this series a true spoiler? Or are we expected to know something is coming as background information to inform the series? I’ll keep close to the chest anyway for good measure.
The best thing about this episode is this week’s middle scare sequence (our pattern seems to be opening, halfway, and finale). As Halloran Shines Out for Pennywise, the pair connect. As Halloran, the shining star of Chris Chalk, continues to be the series’s most intriguing performer. Halloran has more Shine than anyone Pennywise has encountered; it hits hard and in strange ways for both. And their meeting has a simmering terror of uncomfortableness. I really dug a character moment for Pennywise that was unexpected, a terrifying and terrified dropping of the character It puts on, and builds It up in a way I look forward to seeing how it goes.
The kid’s half is a weak week. The main push is to put the two groups, Lilly & Ronnie and Richie & Will, together to be a second try at the losers’ club of 1962. I’m disappointed the cliffhanger for Lilly, being left at Juniper Hill Asylum, was a nothing. A quick chat with a nurse (played by Madeline Stowe, so I’m sure we’ll see her again). I did notice she removes the turtle charm from the bracelet… hrm. For those who know, The Turtle is the enemy of It in the wider Dark Tower mythos; it factors in the book but not so much besides hints in the movie. There have been turtle pokes in the series: the school mascot and the harm comes to the kid in the first episode, who gave Lilly his turtle charm. 
Anyway, they continue their research with a version of the Ritual of CHUD that sets up a terrible Stranger Things-esque (yes, while Stranger Things started as an adaptation of It, both properties are their own thing; heck, Stranger Things ended up a solid Firestarter adaptation more than anything for season 1) sequence in a graveyard. The effects are atrocious and silly (with far too much throwing a scare at the camera, not the kids, a type that takes me right out) and poorly constructed overall. One of the kid scenes I liked better in Ghostbusters II.
Three episodes in, and I’m enjoying the widening of scope that Welcome to Derry offers. While the kid story was lacking this week (especially the bad action/scare portion), the military/wider-town view widens in interesting new ways, with intriguing set-ups of questions and ideas. I continue to appreciate that it’s not just “the movie, but in a different time” (ka is a wheel after all), even if the kids half might start to slide that way. I trust it’ll stay unique and approach in new ways.
Check back next week for Episode 4! The actor’s strike occurred between the filming of the third and fourth episode, so I’m intrigued in how the show will handle the kids being visibly older.