Episode 7 of IT Welcome To Derry, I think was the one that finally gave us what we have been waiting for all damn season, a full dose of Pennywise in all his glory and honestly this was by far the best episode of the season hands down. The opening with Bob Gray back in 1908 performing as the clown for a bunch of kids was actually touching as hell because you start to imagine where the hell is he and that relationship he had with his daughter, watching him do this little routine about losing his wife and the gopher handing him a flower made me feel bad for the guy, the real Bob Gray more than anything else on this show has done with its main characters, witch is kind of sad when you think about it because I still do not care much about most of these people besides Will and his family, the rest they all have some kind of attitude or problem that make you want to feel distant, probably is that rage at times that is the Pennywise effect for them been in Derry. The Black Spot fire was brutal and intense even though the CGI flames looked very green screen heavy and nobody was acting like they were actually choking to death from all that smoke, but whatever I can forgive that stuff because the chaos worked pretty damn well. Rich dying on top of that cooler to save Marge was hilarious for me, he took it like a champ almost like Spartans, beautiful death!! but he would not shut up talking the whole time and it just went on way too long, I get he was trying to be romantic but damn let the moment breathe and look like you are feeling the heat. Pennywise showing up in the fire eating faces and then meeting Ingrid outside was so good, Bill Skarsgard killed it as always and seeing him deadlight her after she realized he was not her real father was satisfying as hell to watch, mainly because she was so fkn dumb after all this years and all the sacrifices she brought to him was still thinking it was her father, come on.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19244304/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
The 1908 opening was probably one of the most unexpected parts of the whole episode because nobody was expecting them to go back that far in time, seeing Bob Gray perform as the original Pennywise before the creature took over his identity but I guess they wanted to make the connection between Pennywise and Ingrid even stronger, before the horror clown got loose and also bring that sad clown story to real life through Bob. Bill Skarsgard plays Bob Gray completely different from how he plays the entity version of Pennywise, you can see the human side in his performance with all the sadness and grief behind the clown makeup instead of that creepy dead eyed stare we are used to seeing from him. The whole performance he does on stage is basically a tribute to his dead wife Periwinkle who used to perform with him before she died, the show never tells us how she died but you can see Bob is still torn up about it by how much he drinks after every show and how depresed he looks when he takes off the makeup. His daughter Ingrid helps him with the sound effects during the show and you can tell she loves her dad even though their life is pretty rough living out of a wagon and traveling with this sketchy carnival, the scene where she shows him her Periwinkle outfit was really sweet from her ngl and from Bob too the way he recognize her performance and effort is worth of a father that loves his daughter, may be through this I can understand why she spent the next 50 years trying to bring him back even though it was never really him at all. The creature shows up as this creepy street kid who lures Bob Gray into the forest and you know from the moment that kid shows up something bad is about to happen, the way his eyes dont blink and how he just stares at Bob is unsettling as hell and then boom Bob Gray is gone forever and all that is left is his bloody handkerchief on the ground, but its weird because thats not exactly how the show explains Pennywise operation, he doesnt do those solo acts unless you are too close to his territory, probably back then he was mainly staying in the forest.
The Black Spot fire sequence takes up most of the episode and holy shit it does not hold back on the violence or the chaos at all, but had some scenes that tames it a bit to make it humorous like Rich and not to to horror gory style probably because there are kinds involve, I doubt the whould show Pennywise snatching a kids head like he did with the old member of The Legion of White Decency. This guys show up wearing these creepy masks like Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolfman, they chain the doors shut and just start throwing molotov cocktails through the windows while shooting anyone who tries to escape witch is one of the most evil things during the show, this is not a show to let your kids watch unless idk they are like 15 or older. I like the camera angles and tracking people around inside the bar as everything goes to hell, gives you more details of the chaos that Pennywise just unleash, you see people catching on fire and getting trampled and suffocating from the smoke and its all happening so fast you dont have time to process any of it before the next horrible thing happens on screen, its like all that chaos is just a distraction so when the clowns comes to scene generates a bigger impact, the real door kicker. Dick Halloran starts seeing ghosts everywhere because of his shining ability witch is a nice callback to The Shining, he sees dead Civil War soldiers and Native American warriors and all the people who are dying around him in real time witch must be absolutely terrifying for him to deal with on top of everything else, they also started talking to him making things really creepy for him so he couldnt put the bottle down and just keept drinking until he was not drunk anymore, he was looking into intoxication that takes him off the place. Pennywise shows up in the middle of the fire just casually eating peoples faces off like he is at an all you can eat buffet, the way he just walks through the flames without giving a single shit about anything is pretty badass even though he is a monster. The entity taunts Dick about his shining ability saying the dead can see you too and then manifests a bunch of corpses to chase him around but Sesy the Native American ghost shows up and leads him to safety and helps him escape through the floor where the fridge was leaking and rotting the wood last episode.
Rich sacrifices himself by climbing on top of the ice box to protect Marge from the smoke and fire, he gives this whole speech about knights protecting fair maidens witch is sweet but also way too long for a kid who is suffocating to death from smoke inhalation. He talks about the first time he saw Marge and how he fell in love with her right away, he mentions some story about guinea pigs getting loose in the hallway at school witch was supposed to be funny but honestly just felt random and out of place in such a serious moment like this one, at least if he was probably pretending more to get suffocated from the smoke would make it better. Marge holds his hand one last time and you can see she is completely destroyed by what is happening but not so sure if it was mainly about Rich dying though, the actress playing Marge does a great job selling the grief and trauma of watching someone you care about die right in front of you when there is nothing you can do to stop it from happening. Rich dies with his eyes open witch is extra sad because Marge has to close them after he is already gone, the whole thing should have been more powerful but the script just went on for too damn long on this one and killed the mood. The Stanley Kersh death scene was probably the most satisfying moment of the entire episode because that guy was a complete piece of shit who deserved everything he got and more, watching Pennywise split his head in half with a butcher knife was brutal as hell but also kind of hilarious in a dark way because he does this right infront of Ingrid and she still think thats her dad?. Ingrid confronts Stanley outside the Black Spot while wearing her Periwinkle outfit and he threatens to beat her up if she doesnt take it off, you can tell this guy has been abusing her for years and she has just been taking it because she had nowhere else to go. Pennywise shows up behind Stanley and grabs this huge cleaver from his car, the same kind Stanley uses in his butcher shop witch is a nice ironic touch, then he just slices the top of his head clean off in one swing like he is cutting a melon in half instead of bone and skull, he is a God after all so you got to go with it.
On the Military side of things General Shaw finally gets revealed in the last part of the episode and honestly it is one of the dumbest plot twists I have ever seen, the whole plan makes zero sense but I guess thats the purpose of his characted, to be hated and he is not necessarly the bad guy though. Shaw has been lying to Leroy this whole time about wanting to capture Pennywise and use him as a weapon against the Russians, turns out Shaw actually wants to destroy the pillars and let Pennywise roam free across America so he can spread fear and make people easier to control for the government, like somehow he is going to cut a deal with the monster to protect a selected group of people, stupid idea. Shaw gives this whole villain speech about how Americans need to be scared into submission because of all the protests and womens rights movements and civil rights stuff happening in the 1960s, he thinks unleashing an alien demon clown that eats children is somehow going to solve these problems witch is absolutely insane on every level you can imagine. Ingrid tries to hug Pennywise thinking he is her father who returned to her after all these years, she tells him she was the one who tipped off the mob about Hank being at the Black Spot because she knew it would create enough fear and chaos to bring him back from wherever he was hiding all this time, just think about it for a second, she was having an affair with Frank to setup the spark for the chaos around the hole town but Pennywise front run her with his theater massacre boosting up chaos so who was playing who? was it Pennywise controlling Ingrid all this time? I think so. Pennywise plays along with her delusion for a minute, doing the little head tilt that Bob Gray used to do during his performances, then he tells her he has to go to sleep for another 27 years now that the augury event is complete and his feeding cycle is over for now. Ingrid panics and grabs his arm demanding him not to leave her again, thats when Pennywise reveals he is not her father at all but something else entirely that ate Bob Gray decades ago and has just been wearing his face this whole time like a costume, you can see the exact moment when Ingrid realizes she has been played this entire time and everything she did was for nothing at all. Pennywise opens his mouth and shows her the deadlights witch are these three glowing orbs of pure energy that represent his true form, anyone who looks at them goes insane or dies instantly depending on how strong their mind is, Ingrid gets deadlighted and starts floating in the air with her eyes going all white. The military destroys one of the 13 pillars using some kind of incinerator witch breaks the barrier that was keeping Pennywise contained inside the town limits, you see Pennywise wake up at the end of the episode covered in blood and body parts down in the sewers witch means he felt it so he knows this is his chance to escape Derry, remember he was not staying there by choice. I am giving this episode a solid solid 9 out of 10 because even though it had some problems with pacing and dialogue, the overall execution was strong enough, this is exactly what the show needed after all the boring character drama nobody cared about watching at all.
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