IT: Welcome to Derry opens in the small Maine town of Derry in 1962, inviting viewers to a world poised on the edge of a terrible awakening. A Black Air Force veteran, Leroy Hanlon, moves to Derry with his wife Charlotte and their son Will, hoping for stability and a fresh start. But the town brims with unsettling secrets, from children quietly vanishing to dark oddities swirling beneath its normal-looking surface. The arrival of the Hanlons sets the story in motion as Derry’s shadows lengthen and the cycle of fear begins again.

As the Hanlons settle into Derry, the series introduces a group of local kids – Lilly Bainbridge, Teddy Uris, Phil Malkin and Ronnie Grogan among them – who notice that something very wrong is happening. Four months after a classmate disappears, they vow to probe what’s behind the missing-kids epidemic that seems to grip their town.  Their investigations intersect with the Hanlons’ arrival, and the show blends themes of childhood horror, adult trauma, racial tensions and supernatural menace. The tone is chilling: Billy Skarsgård returns as the monstrous embodiment of evil, Pennywise, and his presence looms even in the quieter moments.

Derry itself becomes a character. The show leans into 1960s America: the Hanlons face the strain of moving into a predominantly white town, the airbase looms near, there are undercurrents of historical violence, and the town’s past seeps into the present through missing children, haunted houses and unsettling visions. The darkness isn’t just supernatural—it’s embedded socially and psychologically. The children’s fear becomes the adults’ guilt and the town’s secret becomes the family’s crisis.

Stylistically, the series delivers familiar horror beats—red balloons, sewers, flickering lights—but also expands the mythology of the earlier films. Fans of the original It films will recognize the 27-year cycle of terror and how the evil in Derry resurfaces over decades.  Yet the show doesn’t merely retread old ground. It explores beginnings: how the evil took root, how townspeople collude with or ignore the terror, and how fear itself becomes generational. The blend of childhood investigation and adult horrors gives it twin narratives: one of terror in the gutters, the other of trauma in the home.

While the production values have been widely praised—moody cinematography, strong performances especially from Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo in the Hanlons, and Bill Skarsgård’s nightmare-figure—critics have also flagged issues. Some feel the show has too many characters, or that the plotting sometimes stretches credibility beyond the original myth’s simplicity. The series seems ambitious: it aims to satisfy horror fans of the King universe while also tackling race, memory and history. Whether it succeeds in all those goals remains a point of debate.

In the final analysis, IT: Welcome to Derry is not just about the clown. It’s about the town, the people, the silence, and what happens when monsters hide in plain sight. It asks whether evil is something foreign or something bred in the cracks of a community; whether children are born innocent or corrupted; and whether fear really ends or simply waits. The Hanlons, the kids, and Derry itself are trapped in the same cycle—and this series gives them time to reckon with their past, before the Losers Club would ever emerge.