Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for IT: Welcome To Derry S1E5, “29 Neibolt Street” (written by Brad Caleb Kane and directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr.). Spoilers also include plot points from the films IT (2017) and IT: Chapter 2 (2019)
Episode 5 of IT: Welcome to Derry finally delivered Pennywise to us and the characters in this show in his “true” form. Interestingly, the story was able to converge in a way that allowed the three main groups we are following in this show to all be present at the same place at the same time, but Pennywise appeared to them in multiple ways. Pennywise also appeared to one of the primary groups in a form that did not inspire or elicit fear. It was a form that the group trusted and empathized with.
This is an interesting development, entering the last three episodes of the season. Our Derry citizens know a lot more about what they’re dealing with after this episode, but are they any closer to freeing their town from Pennywise? The answer is clearly no.
The 1962 Losers Club
Following the horrifying eye incident involving Marge (Matilda Lawler) and Lilly (Clara Stack) in Episode 4, it appears that all is forgiven between the two already. Lilly visits Marge in the hospital and helps her understand that what she saw forming in her eyes was not real, but rather a manifestation of the evil that is targeting the children of Derry.
Marge is apologetic for all the crap she put Lilly through and now declares herself an “ex” Pattycake. Lilly takes her to join the rest of the 1962 Losers Club since they are “still trying to figure out” why all this is happening and what exactly this evil is.
At the Losers Club hideout, they are shocked when a face from the past shows up. When they’re all together, a slightly older, dirtier, and hairier version of Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) appears. The group is, of course, curious about where he has been for five months. He tells them he has been in the sewers where “it” lives and keeps all of his children victims. Some of them (like himself and Phil), he keeps alive. Some of them, like Teddy and Susie, are dead or die shortly after they arrive.
The teenagers have no reason to dispute this, and no reason to think this is not Matty, because Matty is not someone or something they fear. They do not know that no child captured by Pennywise has escaped. They also have no reason to suspect this would not be Matty. He conveniently can tell them exactly where Pennywise is, and they make plans to go to the sewers underneath 29 Neibolt Street to confront this monster once and for all.
After they each take a handful of the valium Lilly stole from her mom in the last episode, the group enters the sewers, led by Matty. It doesn’t take long for Matty to reveal who he truly is. He grotesquely transforms into Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise, just as frightening as he was in the two IT movies. The teenagers get separated, and Lilly finds herself alone after the rest of the club runs into Major Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Captain Russo (Rudy Mancuso), but more on that interaction below.
Lilly eventually finds herself face-to-face with Pennywise, with nowhere to go. But he turns and flees after seeing something in the water next to Lilly. What he sees is one of the things the military is trying to procure, and the natives of Derry are seeking to preserve.
Leroy Hanlon, Dick Hallorann, and Francis Shaw
After entering into Taniel’s (Joshua Odjick) mind at the end of Episode 4, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) informs General Francis Shaw (James Remar) and the rest of the military that he has located the items they have been looking for. Hallorann’s use of his Shining ability on Taniel uncovered that what they want lies in the sewers beneath the house at 29 Neibolt Street.
General Shaw puts together a team led by Major Leroy Hanlon (and his inability to see fear) to go down into the sewers and find them. Hanlon has finally deduced that what they are trying to do is less about physically capturing a monster and more about reducing the size of its cage so they can “put a leash on it.” To that I can only say: Good luck, guys!
Once underground, the chaos immediately begins for the military recovery team. Several members go missing, Hallorann gets sucked into a vision by Pennywise, and Hanlon sees his wife in the sewer and is forced to shoot her because he knows she isn’t real. He tells Russo in a clear and eerie moment of foreshadowing, “Whatever you see down here that’s not supposed to be here, you f***ing kill it.” Leroy understands these things aren’t real and is preparing himself to shoot first and ask questions later.
That motivation turns tragic when the teenagers who got separated from Lilly come running around the corner, including Hanlon’s son Will (Blake Cameron James). Since they clearly shouldn’t be down there (and Hanlon doesn’t know his son snuck out), Leroy raises his rifle to fire at his son, but Russo steps in at the last moment because he can see the kids. Hanlon shoots Russo, fatally wounding him, but it allows the rest of the kids to escape the sewers.
A man who can not feel fear will be fascinating to watch as he comes to grips with what he almost did. Clearly, the military sees the advantages of Hanlon leading their operation without fear, but on a personal level, this ability to charge headfirst into battle could have even more tragic consequences later.
While all this happened, Hallorann was inside another vision, similar to his vision in Episode 3. In this episode, he awakens in a bathroom with his grandmother nearby, warning him to be careful and not open the box his grandfather brought into the room. Since one of the traits we know from Stephen King novels is that many people can have the Shining (John Coffey from The Green Mile was one, for example), and it can also be hereditary.
Hallorann’s grandmother understands the power and wants to keep it “in a box” under lock and key, but his grandfather wants the box opened. Hallorann’s grandfather eventually gets them to open the box, and the closing shot of the episode is a very symbolic image of Hallorann’s Shining now freely open with nothing to control it. How this will manifest over the rest of the series remains to be seen, but the Shining has always been an ability that is best left undercover, and not something that should be unleashed recklessly.
The Sqoteawapskot Tribe
When Rose (Kimberly Norris Guerrero) is able to see Taniel after his interrogation in Episode 4, she learns that Taniel’s mind was invaded, and he gave up the location of the 13 pillars that their tribe has been protecting, which also keep Pennywise barricaded within the confines of Derry.
In what must be a move to ensure the safety of what they are sworn to protect, Rose insists Taniel go with the military when they make their move on Neibolt Street. But unknown to them, she gives him the original pillar, the first monument that kept the monster confined in the woods before Derry was formed. Taniel takes it with him, but promptly loses it in the sewer.
It’s this original pillar that finds its way near Lilly and what causes Pennywise so much fear. After she realizes it, she picks it up, and so now the Losers Club is in possession of the greatest weapon they have against Pennywise. I really am fascinated to see what they do with it.
But perhaps the most interesting development from the tribe in this episode comes in their council meeting before they send Taniel down into the sewers. Members of the tribe begin discussing how bad this “cycle” of events has been, and the number of children confirmed missing or dead. But what they are most worried about is the “Augur” that is still to come. The augur is the bloody, culminating event that denotes the end of a violent cycle by Pennywise. After this event, there will be peace for 27 years, but they can not think of what the event might be.
There were clues throughout the first four episodes of what event from the Stephen King original IT novel is coming later this season, but it’s clear now that many of the characters we are growing fond of in this series are headed to a bloody end over the next three episodes.
