It: Welcome To Derry — An Empire Podcast Special, In Association With Warner Bros.

0:14Chris Hewitt:Hello pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to a very special episode of the Empire podcast in association with our chums at Warner Brothers. And this is dedicated to It, Welcome to Derry. Oh. Or should I say It, Welcome to Derry, Chapter 1. Oh. Because that was one of the big revelations at the end of the final episode, the eighth episode of the first season of It, Welcome to Derry, the prequel, of course, to Andy Muschietti's It, Chapter 1, and It Chapter 2, his adaptation of the Stephen King classic horror novel. Yes, this is just Chapter 1 of the TV prequels, folks. We're going to be returning to Derry at some point soon, and maybe 27 years earlier.

1:10Chris Hewitt:Exciting stuff. And join me to discuss It, Welcome to Derry, are a Derry girl and a Derry boy, all of our own. They all float down here. I'm talking, of course, about Helen Ahara. Hello. Hello, Helen. You are very much our Pennywise. Oh, thank you. Yes. And James Dyer. Beep, beep, Chrissy. James, of course, is pound-foolish. True, true story. Yeah. You're not, though. You're very good with money, actually. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you're tight. Right, okay. I mean, it's fair. Yeah. You keep it clasped close to your chest. You have one of those little purses that you put your pound coins in. I keep all of my money in a lockbox in my mind.

1:53Chris Hewitt:Sealed away safely. Yes. Like Dick Halloran. Just like Dick Halloran. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Dick Halloran. Did not expect to see him in this show. But that's interesting, isn't it? Because this was pitched and out there is an origin story for it as a kind of prequel to it. But it's also a kind of a law-building origin story for The Shining and then Doctor Sleep as well. Yes. And with numerous other Stephen King references in there. as well. But Dick Halloran, in case people don't know who we're talking about, obviously in the show, major, major character in It, Welcome to Derry. And played by Chris Chalk, of course.

2:29Chris Hewitt:And he is a, I'd say a beloved character in Stephen King lore. He is a major supporting character in The Shining, of course, played in the Stanley Kubrick film by Scatman Crothers. And played in Doctor Sleep by Carl Lumbly. Yeah. And he has a very different fate in Doctor Sleep than he does in the movie adaptation of The Shining. That always surprised me when I watched The Shining for the first time because I think I read The Shining before I saw the film. Oh, interesting. I think I did. Either way, it surprised me. Right. So either if I saw the film first and then read the book, that surprised me.

3:09Chris Hewitt:And if I read the book first and then saw the movie, it surprised me. Because Dick Halloran, who has The Shine, of course, very, very powerful, and he helps teach Danny Torrance to use it in some ways. He's the Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you will, of this franchise. He gets a sort of shine signal, doesn't he, from Danny Torrance. He runs to the Overlook Hotel, runs to it to save the day. And in the book, he saves the day. Or at least he helps save the day. And he helps get Danny Torrance and Wendy Torrance out and he gets them to safety. And then in the film, you know what he gets, James? You know what he gets?

3:51Chris Hewitt:He gets an axe to his chest for his troubles. Yeah, it's harsh, I would say. Harsh. It's not great. No. You don't want that. And judging by this film, he's had a pretty tough life up to that point as well. Yeah, he's not had the most fun. You know, we see his grandfather, obviously, in this, in some of his visions, and there's some grim backstory to that in Doctor Sleep. Yes, and of course, we get to see those visions. We do. In Welcome to Derry. So we get to see exactly why it's not a walk in the park being Dick Halloran. No, of course. Exactly. It's a fascinating show, the way that they've kind of tried to layer this kind of wider King lore in, and also layer this into the lore of It as well, and kind of connect characters from this show with completely different characters.

4:38You know, they didn't have to. They could have just gone with the town, with the setting. but they've kind of created links between this and the characters in in the novel in and in of course the film uh films of it uh which i kind of enjoyed because i um was dense enough and that i didn't pick up on everything immediately and it was only it sort of unfolded for me as i was watching the show i was like hey isn't that name a little familiar wasn't there another richie involved in this series at one point you know and things like that sort of kind of came to me gradually, which I quite enjoyed. It is.

5:13Honestly, I'd hesitate to say it's Stephen King's best work, but it is my favorite of Stephen King's books. There's just something about Pennywise. There's something about it where not a lot of his books genuinely scare me. This one scares the life out of me. It scared me before I even read it from the cover with just the ice and the storm drain. Something about that image always frightened me about it. So when I read it, it really freaked me out. And every iteration of that story that's been on screen, both in the TV version and the movie version, have always really scared me. And it's not that I have a pathological fear of clowns, but...

5:44Chris Hewitt:I mean, you would be forgiven for having a pathological fear of clowns. Right. I think Pennywise is the definitive, like, I mean, he started this, like, that's nightmare fuel. See, I would have thought you would love clowns. Really? Because clowns are fundamentally unfunny. And you love unfunny things. That is true. But in this case, I fear them. But what I like about this is because when they did the two It movies, they altered the timeline slightly. So it takes place in late 80s. whereas originally it had taken place in the 50s. So this takes place in essentially the timeline that the original book does.

6:15So it recreates the kind of it imagery and the it feel that I get from the book, which you didn't get from the films because they were moved up to the 80s. So actually this film is very Homeland It to me. Yeah, it's getting that little bit closer, isn't it? Yeah. And I think the sort of 27 year gap between it waking up, right, is really interesting because it does give you the option of having, like this could be an anthology show, this could be, this could kind of keep going backwards in time maybe and I'm kind of excited by that. The only worry I have about that I guess after this season is that they've actually given you quite a lot of lore here and they've given you quite a lot of backstory and so will they still be able to mine enough you know, tension out of 27 years before this, out of 27 years before that if we've sort of touched on some of those.

7:06But at the same time, I liked getting into a lot of that lore. I liked the way it developed. I liked the way they tried to sort of draw out, okay, why is it so focused on Derry? Yeah. You know, what's so special? Yeah.

7:21Chris Hewitt:It's a lovely city and obviously has inspired many wonderful comedy shows. Many, many wonderful comedy shows. But yeah, I just thought that this was clever, clever writing. Yeah. And you can only have one more season with the clown now. Because now that we know when the creature adopts the sort of visage of Pennywise, that would be fine for the previous feeding session. So there will be the next season. But after that, we'd have to go in a different direction, which makes perfect sense. Because actually, they're very, I think, judicious in how they deploy Bill Skarsgård in this series. So we get quite a lot of him towards the end.

7:54But he doesn't turn up until, is it, beyond halfway through the show? Yeah, pretty much. What we get is those horrific manifestations that begin with the evil flying baby monster. And then we have, I mean, there's all kinds of horrific things that this story has taken the form of. A lot of scary births early in the season. A lot of scary births, yeah. I think this show overall could have been, I'm speaking as a scaredy cat, like 30 to 40 % less terrifying. I think that would have been okay. I was having a lovely time just following these people and seeing them kind of weave in and out of each other's lives.

8:27Chris Hewitt:That's the thing, right? The Losers Club, they're so nice to spend time with. And then this eejit tries to eat them. Yeah, okay, when you put it like that, I understand that the point of the show is to be scary, and I understand that this is a horror classic, and I do want my horror classic at the same time, but it was very scary. Yeah, it was. You know? But I love it. I do love it. But this is interesting, because it's a story, it's a game of two halves, right? So you have the first half, which is terrifying the children, and then the second half is terrifying the adults. and inherently the adults part of it has a very different feel to it.

8:58What this show does is it blends both of those two things together. So not only is Pennywise terrorizing children, but he's also engaged with the adults. In this case, the literal army. Yeah.

9:09Chris Hewitt:It's like they literally send in the army to the standard chance. Yeah, that was a pretty bold, audacious moment as well. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on here that I really, really enjoyed and I think that there's really, I think there's really fertile ground for chapters two and chapters three as well. Andy Buscietti who of course directed a number of episodes for this including the finale and the first episode of course and his producing partner his sister Barbara Jason Fuchs who's also the co-creator of the show I think there's a lot of fertile ground for him to go into and they've talked about the fact that each season is going to rocket back 27 years into the past and have different iterations of Pennywise but as you say just it because can he be Pennywise when we get to 1908 because we've met Bob Gray.

9:57Chris Hewitt:We know what he looks like. We know what he sounds like. So that's interesting. That's going to be, I think that's going to be both a challenge and I guess an opportunity for them to really kind of push in a different direction with it. That will be really interesting. And I like that we got, like I say, I like that we got more lore, more mythology, you know, that the idea of the pillars holding him in place was a really interesting one. I thought that was fun. And also, the addition of the army genuinely was quite scary to me in the sense that I was kind of thinking of things like, maybe I'm thinking of Good Omens, but I was thinking of are we going to have it trying to launch weapons?

10:42Is it going to try and start World War III? I genuinely at one point thought that was going to be the last episode was going to be kind of him running crazy on the base. which would be potentially very bad, right? I was kind of wondering where they were going with that. But the idea that the army would try to weaponize fear and also that it would try to use Leroy's lack of fear as a tool was really, really clever just in the context of this overall monster. I thought that was really cool. I think that Jovan Adepo is fantastic in that performance because he is often frantic. he's often really worried for people.

11:25He is a thinking person. He can see all the awful outcomes. But the lack of fear itself was really an interesting thing to play in this series. But crucially, as the kids discover to their peril, not being afraid does not inure you against Pennywise's influence. Pennywise will find a way into your head regardless. But to your point, I like the idea because of course the army would try to weaponise him if they could catch him. But I like the idea at the end that actually what they want to do is use him as a means of control, of population control, of kind of like, of public suppression. Like, literally he says, you know, there were no riots in the streets because they can use fear to control the population.

12:02And I thought that was a quite sinister, quite depressing, you know, indictment of, well, anyway. More sinister almost than what, like, it just does what's in its nature. It's just hungry. Just wants a snack. But the idea of trying to weaponize it against your own populace, or against any populace, to be honest, is pretty horrible.

12:21Chris Hewitt:He sure is cuckoo. He's a mad, crazy general man. I mean, it's a pretty, he's trying to marshal the unmarshallable. Right? Is unmarshallable a word? It is now. We're in an unmarshallable world. Yes. We are without marshal. Yeah, to quote the great Christmas song. Yes, something like that. I thought he walked the line really carefully. That was Johnny Cash. So close. It's a similar era. he really was so supportive at times and so likeable avuncular and you're like okay so maybe this is you're a good guy a good general like it's you know it's not something we see often but it's theoretically possible and then in the last episode not so much less so though he does get his come up he does very much he does but I also enjoyed like this when you're talking about like population suppression and control and that kind of thing that's getting into the 60s-ness of this time period.

13:19And I like the way they leaned into that. You know, even when the kids are trying to suppress their emotions with Valium, which is like the hot new thing that all their moms are taking. Yeah. You know, that's very 60s. All the sort of, obviously, the civil unrest and the kind of activism of Will's mom, that kind of stuff. Great. And it was nice to see them try and weave that into this, you know, this classic monster tale. That's king to me. though. King, for me, always feels like a 1960s set narrative. The essence of King, to me, I think is summed up by that time period. In a way, that's not to say his stories don't work when they're modernised, but I always feel that it feels more organic.

14:00Well, I think a lot of writers in the 80s, he was writing about his own childhood, so that gives you 50s and 60s, I suppose.

14:06Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I think the classic books, the ones that people really, really love, would have come out between 74 or 75 to probably 1995. something like that so he's he's automatically by default I guess setting stuff like that like in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s yeah absolutely but it's the characters for me that bring me back to King again and again and again he's my favourite author by some distance I hope Lee Child is not listening to this but Lee Child said nothing oh what a dagger to the heart that would be I love Stephen King undeservedly and yes, he has terrified me over the years, but I come back for the amazing writing.

14:51Yeah.

14:52Chris Hewitt:But he quite often doesn't get the due that he deserves. And it's his characterizations that keep me coming back again and again and again. He has this incredible ability to evoke the sense of time and place, but also he is capable of writing really great, conflicted, real characters that feel real, real heroes that have flaws and foibles. He's also capable of writing about great evil. I think some of the Stephen King bad guys over the years have just been absolutely, you wouldn't want to meet them on a bad day, let alone in a storm sewer in Derry, Maine. Pennywise is up there. His ability to dig into the dark side of the human psyche, I think, is pretty much unparalleled.

15:32And even the forms that Pennywise takes, you know, from the book onwards, but clowns, inherently scary. You know, then giant spider monsters, incredibly scary.

15:41Chris Hewitt:That'll do it for you, right? I mean, that would 100 % do it. But then, you know, all of these other kind of forms and shapes and influences that he takes and just drawing directly from your nightmares. Yeah. It's a very powerful portrayal of something that is just primordial evil and can take whatever is going to screw you up the most. Lily, the most upsetting for me was Lily's dad. Like when he kept returning as Lily's sliced up dad, that was just horrible. Sorry, don't mind me laughing. Chris was like, oh, it was so funny. It was just a jolly jabe. so let's talk about this show as a as it exists as a companion piece it is a prequel but it's also a companion piece to the two It movies that Andy Muschietti directed the hit It movies the hit It movies Hit Chapter 1 and Hit Chapter 2 and I loved both of those films I love the I love the the Tim Curry yes miniseries miniseries as well yeah which is also also terrific Tommy Lee Wallace directed that that's really really great but there was there was something so devilish and impish about those about those two it movies Pennywise was terrific but again it's the characters it's the losers club yeah I just loved I loved spending time with those guys and hanging out with those guys and getting to know them to the extent that you don't want them to die and that is something that is very much echoed here they don't call themselves the losers club our heroes but they are the precursors and the term does get used just the losers in the final episode which I enjoyed so we have obviously Matilda Lawler as Marge we have Amanda Christine as Ronnie Clara Stack as Lily we have Blake Cameron James as Will and oh poor Rich oh poor Rich Arian S.

17:30Chris Hewitt:Cartaya as Rich Santos I love him so much so how did you feel when he I'm not okay I'm really not okay and that stuff did make me cry he was her knight he was so sweet and so enthusiastic about his like when he got his moment of drumming and it's like oh and he's on a date with a girl and he's bought her a coke at the bar like he's being really cool he's feeling good you know and then oh and then he he basically cons her to save her life just what a guy I mean oh she did literally get fridged She did. She did get fridged in the best possible way. No, I just, I loved him. I loved him a lot. And he was my hero.

18:15And I like that they gave him a little bit of a kind of grace note at the end. And that he wasn't one of its victims. He isn't stuck in that particular hell of being attached to it. He is, you sense, a free floating, sort of, a free ghost, if that makes sense. A free spirit. Smoke inhalation is much more free spirit. No, he still died, but he didn't, he kind of died on his own terms, I guess. He didn't like eat his soul or whatever it does. Yeah, exactly. And he's there to be with his parents and comfort them to some degree in their grief and be with his friends and hear the nice eulogy they gave for him, you know.

18:51And it just, it's something. And he was there to help them when they needed it, more importantly.

18:56Chris Hewitt:Yeah, an extra pair of hands. Oh, I just... Right at the death, so to speak. Not okay. Oh, that's a shame. James, you were okay with it? or did you mourn the loss of Rich? I did mourn the loss of Rich. I thought it was very sad. Very sad. That's one of the big set pieces, isn't it? Yes, that's right. The Black Spot, which is something, again, we kind of knew was going to happen. It's interesting watching the machinations and the way that the machetes and fukes put all the pieces in place. Yeah. It's also quite sinister in the way that it is set up by Madeleine Stowe's character to draw it out because it would be pain and screaming and hatred and fear and all of the things that it feeds on.

19:37So, of course, that drew it to that place. Yeah. Just so that she could see it. And I found that her interaction with it, I found that really fascinating because she thinks it's her father. It's not her father. It knows it's not her father, but it plays along with it. And it seems to have his memories, which is why it asked her to do the bow. And it's at the point where it's just going to let her go because it's like, I need to go to sleep because I'll come back. I always do. And it's only when she's like, you're not my father. And then it's like, you know what? Yeah, she's not going to be useful to me anymore.

20:07I think she has been useful to it, obviously with that girl in the hospital before. Bringing it snacks. Yeah, and now it realizes that, oh no, she's on to me and therefore she could cause trouble of some sort. So it shines the dead lights. Oh, the dead lights. It looks like fun. Don't you think? Not really.

20:27Chris Hewitt:Well, they all float. I'd like to float. Wouldn't you like to float down here? Can you just go to the spa, go to the pool, take a pool noodle, you know? It can be arranged without, like, losing your soul. I've been talked around. I've been talked around. Helen, what did you think of the black spot? Oh, it was so upsetting. And just, like, lots of lovely people having a lovely time and then bloody racists, isn't it? No, it was really upsetting. I think it was, again, part of this kind of political commentary of the period and the just sort of tensions erupting and the way that its presence in Derry corrupts and brings out everyone's worst possible side and makes everything worse than it would be.

21:13Because, you know, Maine, mostly because it's like 99 % white, I believe, even today, is not one of the most racially riven parts of the US. But the idea, I think, is that, you know, it infects and corrupts and makes worse everything around it. And that's why this kind of violence of the Deep South then erupts in the far north as well. But yeah, it's just incredibly upsetting to watch and horrific and really terrifyingly staged. I mean, as it unfolded, you could feel, you kind of feel, oh, it's a wooden shack burning. People are going to be able to get out. And then just one thing after another was stopping them, stopping the bullets flying.

21:51It was really scary.

21:52Chris Hewitt:Yeah. yeah it was really interesting to me that the Madeline Snow characters you say Ingrid Kirsch so she is a character from It Chapter 2 yeah and we get to see that at the end of It Welcome to Derry Chapter 1 so we get that nice little time jump at the end where it goes 26 years later and we see what I am presuming is the death by suicide of Beverly Marsh's mother yeah so that's Sophia Lillis at the end who played Bev in both It Chapter 1 principally and then of course a little bit in It Chapter 2 and we know that her father is abusive to her we see a little bit of that there but that feels to me like that's almost Bev's origin story in a way we're seeing it at the end.

22:37That's what I thought as well like it's almost like when he pushes her away there it feels like she didn't expect that violent reaction like maybe he hasn't been a great dad but maybe he hasn't been actively violent up until that point and it feels like that's the thing that clues us in that, oh, this is it, is back. And I think that's the moment that it seems to clue in Kirsch that this is it back and not just a tragedy in the care home. You know, that, oh, it's beginning again. This is the start of the cycle. I don't know. That's how I read that scene anyway.

23:09Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And of course, Mrs. Kirsch in chapter two, she's one of Pennywise's persona. So she's very tricksy indeed. interestingly the actress who played her in chapter 2 is the same actress who plays her at the end of Welcome to Derry chapter 1 an actress called Joan Gregson who sadly passed away in June so this is probably her swan song and it's a really good swan song as well it's a really creepy swan song and she just stares at Bev and starts smiling malevolently because what she wants what she's been waiting for which is the return of Pennywise It is finally happening. How long after that does it say?