Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2.
Turns out it didn’t take 27 years for Pennywise to make a comeback after last appearing in 2019’s IT: Chapter Two. While the premiere of HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, “The Pilot,” didn’t officially see Bill Skarsgård back as Pennywise yet, what the entity did onscreen was still scary enough, taking the form of a flying demon baby and ripping through three-fifths of the show’s younger cast. Andy Muschietti and company aren’t afraid to hold back on the violence and shocks, but can IT: Welcome to Derry live up to newly set expectations for Episode 2, “The Thing in the Dark”?
The Hanlons Arrive in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Episode 2
Lilly (Clara Stack) wakes up in bed after a nightmare about what happened at the movie theater. Was it all a dream? Sadly, no. Two Derry cops sit outside theater employee Hank Grogan’s (Stephen Rider) apartment, suspicious that he’s behind the kids’ disappearance. His elderly mother rants about how Ronnie (Amanda Christine) needs to go back to school, but he wants to keep her close. Meanwhile, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) is sitting on his porch when a car pulls up with his wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige) and son Will (Blake Cameron James) inside. The boy is excited to see his room, so he runs inside and finds a telescope as a present. Hanlon jokes about using it to spy on the neighbors, but Will seriously responds that they shouldn’t do that.
At school, Marge (Matilda Lawler) wants to be a part of the popular crowd so badly that she makes fun of a boy one of them has a crush on. Ronnie shows up, and everyone eyes her with suspicion, but Lilly approaches her without a second thought. In class, Marge asks Lilly if she’s okay after what happened at the theater. She’s also concerned about her friend’s reputation and wants her to eat with the popular kids, but with the others dead, Lilly doesn’t care about her stupid group. After class starts, in walks Will, who is reprimanded for being late. He goes to sit in a chair, only for a boy to pull out his seat, prompting others to laugh at him when he falls. One boy in particular, however, compliments his pencil instead.
At the base, Shaw (James Remar) tells Hanlon that Masters (Chad Rook) was one of his attackers. He’s not a Soviet spy, just a racist asshole who wanted to scare him. Is that supposed to make Hanlon feel better? Meanwhile, Charlotte goes to the local meat market, but is distracted by a group of boys beating up another outside. When no one helps, she intervenes, leading to one bully getting in her face. They aren’t afraid of her. Everyone else just stares. At home, Charlotte tells Leroy about her disappointment with the whole situation, but he tells her not to get involved. With Will asking to be excused and Leroy unable to talk about his secret job, the conversation quickly falls apart.
In bed, Ronnie listens to her dad and grandmother arguing. She covers her head with the blanket, only for the mattress to start beating like a heart. She suddenly can’t find her way out as the blanket turns red like skin and fills up with water. She struggles, finally bursting through and onto the floor. Something else is in the bed. It’s her dead mother, wearing her wedding dress, who says that Ronnie ripped her right open and killed her — just like she killed those kids and will kill her father. Her features then decay as an umbilical cord wraps around Ronnie and pulls her toward a stomach filled with teeth. Inside stare two glowing yellow eyes. Ronnie gets away, but her mother stands up and shuffles toward her. When Ronnie’s screams finally summon her father, that which she fears disappears.
Lilly Can’t Tell the Truth About What Happened in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Episode 2
At a bar, three Black military officers are discussing their experience being questioned by the police. One is none other than Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk). He wasn’t questioned, but he can’t talk about what he was doing because it’s a super-secret spy mission. The white police chief with a very familiar last name, Clint Bowers (Peter Outerbridge), comes in and sits at the bar. Two patrons want to know if Hank was arrested because they know he did it, even if there’s no evidence and he has an alibi. When the bartender gives them a long look, the Black officers leave and head back to base. They’re given grief by the guard since no one’s supposed to be leaving base, but when he picks up the phone and reveals to whoever’s on the line that one of them is Hallorann, they’re cleared and sent through. The next day, three Native teenagers watch as the military digs up their land. Hallorann is among them, looking sick. This is their fourth dig site in as many months, and his commander is not impressed with the results, but Hallorann says they’re getting close.
In the school cafeteria, Ronnie tells Lilly she’s scared her dad will be taken away and killed. Lilly initially said she’d seen a monster at the theater, but now she’s not sure, even though she knows Hank wasn’t there. Still, she can’t tell the truth because she’ll be taken away. In the hall, Will is eating his lunch alone, where Rich (Arian S. Cartaya), the nice kid in class, is doing the same. He asks about the book Will’s reading before swooning over the popular girls as they walk by, especially Marge. When another kid throws a smoke bomb, Will runs right into a teacher, who isn’t too happy to be knocked over. He ends up alone in detention with Ronnie, who is shocked to see him reading for fun. Outside, it’s a fate worse than detention for Lilly, who’s being taken away by the cops.
At the police station, Bowers talks to Lilly. She tells him again that she didn’t see Hank, but the chief manipulates her. Because of what she went through with her dad, and her previous time in a psychiatric hospital, it makes her look like a suspect. He talks about sending her back to Juniper Hill for a couple of days, terrifying her before asking if she’s absolutely, positively certain that Hank wasn’t there. She’s not, so he’s arrested and dragged away, and Ronnie shows up at Lilly’s house, demanding to know what she did.
The Military Wants a Secret Weapon in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Episode 2
At the base, Hanlon visits his attacker in his cell. He pulls out a gun and lays a magazine by it, demanding to know how he got a rare gun just like it and was able to use it so well. Masters, who tries to load the gun, can’t. Hanlon visits General Shaw and tells him that Masters is innocent, but Shaw already knows that because he was the one who planned the attack. He saw how brave and fearless Hanlon was. He was looking for a man like him, and he passed. Hanlon’s angry, even though Shaw says he wasn’t supposed to be beaten, so the General asks for ten minutes to hear him out.
Lilly goes to the grocery store alone, and down one aisle, she hears a voice behind her for a second. “You should be locked up,” a formless voice whispers. A voice on the speaker calls her out, and everyone’s watching. Lilly moves faster, in a panic, as the aisles come to an impossible dead end, where she sees the faces of her dead friends on cereal boxes. Inside a jar of pickles, the rotting face of her father watches. After she smashes it, his appendages pull themselves together in a sick mass. Lilly closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, her world is back, the grocer standing over her. The outburst results in her being sent back to Juniper Hill.
Shaw and Hanlon go to the secret part of the base where the General talks about the Soviets and Cubans working together on a missile. They want to win the Cold War — not by building a weapon, but by looking for one buried in Derry a long time ago. They don’t know what it is, but it emits fear. If they can find it, they need Hanlon to help secure it. A man walks in with Dick Hallorann to say they’ve found something. It’s now night, and raining at the dig site. An old car from the 1930s has been dug up, and out of it tumbles several human skeletons. They’re getting close.
