All sides of the story come to a head as Pennywise tries to escape It’s cage in It: Welcome to Derry – Episode 8: Winter Fire, directed by Andy Muschietti
It: Welcome to Derry comes to a close, for season 1 (or Chapter 1 as the end titles call it), at least with the eighth episode: Winter Fire, written by Jason Fuchs and directed by Andy Muschietti, bookending the show by directing the first two and last two. A solid finale, wrapping up what we’ve seen in a decent but not fully satisfying way, and setting up some interesting threads for the future… past?… two planned seasons.
As noted in the previous write-ups: this is spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!
Ending anything is hard. As the pop culture zeitgeist will state, just ask Stephen King. People’s general disappointments with his endings (though when it comes to failing to stick the landing, Bentley Little is king). Hell, it’s even referenced in his cameo in It: Chapter II. Taking all sorts of story threads and building, pulling together and paying off is a huge challenge, especially in an audience-pleasing way that doesn’t feel too cheap or easy. Can a real threat be taken down in a real way without an easy way out? It: Welcome to Derry’s finale is almost there, but it doesn’t completely bring it home.
We open with a creepy fog descending over Derry. Pennywise is awake from a very short nap, with increased power. And he’s not happy. Like any toddler, he wants to go to sleep and is overtired. Thus, he’s a little angry. Perfectly content and sated after his hearty meal at The Black Spot last time, the military has destroyed a lock on his cage. He’s come back, but can have a little more for the road. Interesting to me is that he can leave, just go, can break out before anyone can catch up, but he’s just gotta get some petty revenge, and bring a snack on the road.
The snack? Most of the high school, after a nice gore effect, It Deadlights a nice chunk of the high school (complete with shots from Carrie as he attacks in the gym). Time to take the kids on a walk across the frozen river to his freedom! It’s a really cool set of shots with The Clown Pied Pipering a long string of floating teenagers across the ice, surrounded by a murder fog. I guess HBO learned how to shoot a heavily fogged, nearly night shooting, but still make it visible. (yes, I’m still salty about the nigh incomprehensible Game of Thrones battle).
As a finale, with all parts coming together to fight It: the kids, their adults, Dick Halloran, the Natives… or help it, as Shaw invites Pennywise to leave and kills Taniel to do so (poor kid, I guess he wasn’t the older Native American in the second film like many thought). The kids are trying to use the shard as a new pillar, Pennywise is trying to leave before that can happen, and most people want to keep the cage. I loved Dick getting into Pennywise’s head again. Perhaps he’s the only one to slap the creature across the face, TWICE, and get away with it. Using the Bob Grey personality against him was a great payoff. Along the way, Pennywise takes on each person and group, trying one last time to destroy them. Including an interesting conversation with Marge.
I think many people are misinterpreting the reintroduced (it’s been mentioned before across the franchise, I think; I know it’s in the book) time thing, based on online discourse. At one point, It confronts Margie, telling her about her son Richie’s defeat of the creature in two cycles. It talks about how It sees time differently, all existing at once. The final notes set up how our storytelling is going back in time to the previous two cycles, and it hints that Pennywise might be able to change those cycles. But it’s more of a shift of consciousness than it is, as the internet seems to think, literally living backwards. Especially since when confronting and eating Shaw, It recalls that smell of him from 1908, and all the stuff with Bob Grey and Ingrid.
My issue with the finale is that it’s all so pat. Pennywise is defeated too easily. The kids get the pillar restated as It tries to get out first (with some great transformation effects), and It just goes away. I wasn’t expecting a slaughter, that’s not what this is about (despite a loud part of the internet wanting just a Pennywise kill-a-thon), but we lose Shaw and Taniel while Pennywise galivants around the ice (nice and creepy though). The setup of the deadlighted kids goes away, the military drops the ball on their story, and main character Lilly is just generic. It didn’t feel complete. I did love Richie’s ghost coming back, flipping off the monster, and getting his Egon in Ghostbusters: Afterlife moment. 
The whole wrap-up is so weird and saccarine, too on-the-nose (Dick’s line about “how hard can hotel work be?” ugh), I kept expecting it to be ripped way to a truth from a It-led-dillusion. It’s so weirdly contained. Okay, I was wrong about Lilly’s lobomoitziation. All that set up and pfft.
A few missteps in the finale and a few moments here and there across the eight episodes notwithstanding, It: Welcome to Derry, Chapter 1, has been a great show. I might like it more than the movies. At least more than Chapter 2, but that’s an easy bar. It builds on the established mythos without betraying or just repeating… well, without too much repeating. It has great characters, and amazing performances – especially from Chris Chalk, Margaret Stowe, Matilda Lawler, Clara Stack, and, of course, Bill Skarsgard.
Thankiee sai for reading my musings over the last eight weeks as we watched this story unfold. It’s been fun trying to organise ideas and thoughts, seeing what pays off and what doesn’t, looking at the whole and minutia, as a story on its own, a prequel/sequel, and personally as a big King fan (the Dark Tower, baby!)
All things serve The Beam.
Previous weeks: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7.