HBO is taking ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ somewhere much darker. The series has officially been renewed for a second season, though this time it won’t just be a continuation of the events of Season 1; it will go even deeper into Derry’s disturbing past.
From Suburban Horror To Depression-Era Derry
Season 1 looked at Derry in 1962, revealing that Pennywise’s evil had already been a part of the town’s history long before the It movies. Season 2 will return to 1935, the time of the Great Depression. It will pick up one of the most disturbing historical events mentioned in Stephen King’s novel: the Bradley Gang massacre.
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It’s the story of a group of bank robbers who show up in Derry to purchase ammunition. Instead, they find something far more menacing than what they bargained for. That arrangement provides the series with an opportunity to showcase Pennywise in a time when survival was already hard enough.
And that could make the horror even more impactful. In season 1, supernatural terror was often juxtaposed with the facade of normal suburban life. That comfort will be taken away in Season 2.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Season 2 Is A Bleaker Chapter With Hope At Its Center
Andy Muschietti has hinted at a Derry that’s almost a dead town. People are poor, tired, jobless, and barely able to survive. The children who are at the center of the story will reportedly be orphans or runaways. It will be a very different emotional base than in Season 1.
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The show isn’t giving up on hope, however. In this dark world, hope is crucial to the characters, and Muschietti has made that point clear. That juxtaposition might be one of the show’s greatest assets in Season 2: kids desperately seeking something to cling to when Pennywise is hiding around the corner.
The creative team is also thinking bigger. The story is set to run three seasons, and a third season will go back even further to 1908. So while ‘Welcome to Derry’ may technically be a prequel, it is becoming something more ambitious, a horror history of Derry itself, with each season revealing another generation that discovered the town was never truly safe.
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