There's a reason IT: Welcome To Derry's surprise episode slipped under the radar

Appearing when his victims least expect it (or should that be “least expect It?”) is one of Pennywise The Dancing Clown’s most horrifying tricks. So you might say HBO’s IT: Welcome To Derry was just trying to emulate its legendary monster when it dropped a surprise half-hour episode on Halloween. Except there’s no reason to be scared of the one-off flashback titled A Story Of Derry. Co-written by Cherie Dimaline and Jasmyne Flournoy, it ties into season one’s fourth outing, “The Great Swirling Apparatus Of Our Planet’s Function.” In that episode, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) uses his psychic abilities to prod the mind of a Native American man, Taniel (Joshua Odjick), and learnd that Taniel’s ancestors trapped an entity they called The Kollu—whom we know, love, and fear as Pennywise—within the confines of the cursed land that would become Derry, ME. 

A Story Of Derry depicts this exact event, opening with a note that promises to dive into parts of the IT legend too dreary to pass down through generations. In doing so, the episode sets up expectations that it can’t deliver on—despite all the cannibalism, zombies, death, creepy visions, and Pennywise on display. (He’s taking a different form here, so no Bill Skarsgård in clown mode, we’re afraid.) But any promising backstory that might be provided here gets buried under a flimsy structure, poor CGI, and various dangling threads. Different subplots don’t get time to breathe, whether it’s the interpersonal dynamics between the Indigenous community at heart or exploring how one of their own, Mitig (Zahn McClarnon, the saving grace), lost his mind while trying to survive in the jungle alone. 

It’s commendable that A Story Of Derry, like the show’s first season, gives a real voice to the Native American characters who Stephen King mostly used as set dressing in the pages of IT. The main characters here are three Native teen girls—Necani (Kiawentiio), Kino (Isabel Deroy-Olson), and Maneese (Michael Podemski)—who head into the forbidden woods in search of food, ignoring the tales they’ve heard since childhood about the danger that resides there. Soon enough, they’re hunted by It itself. Yet the Tazbah Chavez-directed outing feels shapeless until the trio is saved by the mask-wearing, seemingly batshit Mitig. 

Mitig is such a compelling figure; he comes across like he’s going to be A Story Of Derry’s new focus. He’s a fun, kooky, unpredictable guy who worships It, sacrifices his tribe members, eats their meat, and even feeds it to the girls. So, of course, he’s killed off halfway through the episode. We barely get to know him before he’s chomped on by the entity. But by that point, Mitig has already told the teen girls about how Kollu’s archenemy, Maturin The Turtle, revealed the truth to him about Kollu’s existence. Mitig rehashes a story that anyone who’s read the source material and seen the Muschetti movies already knows—Kollu was banished to Earth by Maturin during a massive cosmic war, and the materials from Kollu’s cage (as we’ve seen in the movies as well) can weaken him.