It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 & 3 Is a Huge Mistake for 1 Reason

Ever since It: Welcome to Derry was announced, I was really looking forward to revisiting that little sweet town of Derry, Maine. I know some people don’t like all the corruption, child disappearances, and evil clowns, but I have to say, it’s hard not to enjoy this small slice of Americana as a home away from home. I was a little torn on the show, however, as some episodes just weren’t hitting, and I hated the little demon bat-baby in the beginning. Thankfully, the story hadn’t been neutered in its new medium. Killing off several of the kids early on was a bold move, meaning I was certain things were setting up for a wonderful ending, until they just kept adding to the lore, which is a troubling sign for the planned It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 & 3.

Why It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 & 3 could be a mistake

Stephen King’s It novel is a masterclass in horror storytelling. That being said, the lore for this shape-shifting, extra-dimensional monster was already a little shaky. I’m worried that adding so much more to it for It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 and 3 is just going to make things worse, or at least muddy those sewer waters further.

I don’t mean to take away from Welcome to Derry’s run too much. Even though I thought it lost its footing several times, I did love the characters, some of the CGI-heavy visuals, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), and the fact that the show tried to touch on themes like racism, abuse, and the sins of the parents. However, there were certainly bumpy parts and plenty of aspects to critique. The real standout was, of course, Marge Truman (Matilda Lawler), who seems nothing like the character of Ms. Tozier we’ll meet in the future, though I’d love to see how she gets to that point.

Now that it’s over, and we received a potentially needless connection to the cast and events from the movies, the likelihood is that HBO will renew the small town for a second season with a third one eyed as well. This might get confusing. The creators aren’t about to let the program simply take a bow or be a standalone follow-up, like the Watchmen series, because they have a lot more story to tell, more characters to add, and likely more lore to pile on.

What to expect from It: Welcome to Derry Season 2

The final episode reveals all we need to know about the next few seasons, as Pennywise the Dancing Clown explains to the audience how it perceives time. In a way, this is a cosmic creature who is somewhat omnitemporal, experiencing time as a constant, non-linearly, where the past, present, and future may be seen as simultaneous for him. The entity even explains that he knows who will kill him in the future, so the idea is floated that he might try to take out their ancestors. So, now it’s time to jump back into the past and visit some previous feeding cycles with season two taking us to 1935, and the potential chapter three sharing events from 1908 (hopefully, we stop there). 

It appears this is an idea Andy and Barbara Muschietti have had for a while, since they pitched it to King himself, and one that will guide the rest of their time with this franchise. I’m usually the type of viewer who’s willing to let people play with the established lore a little, as long as it is in the pursuit of telling a solid story, but it’s hard to think that three prequel seasons won’t potentially rip this universe wide open. There have already been some retcons of varying sizes in the show, and at the end of the day, it’ll be up to the individual fan’s preference as to whether or not these are small, interesting, or world-breaking. I also know a lot of us are still referencing the book in these discussions – trying to cling to the sacred texts – but this show is all based on the Muschiettis films. Even then, certain elements that feel key to the story are still missing, and some plot points that seem important from the show aren’t mentioned in the films.

One of the biggest issues for some people is going to be the pillars, a set of artifacts that lock the creature in the town of Derry, constructed from the space debris he arrived on. They’ll likely be a part of the coming seasons, but aren’t mentioned in the movies for the final battle. That’s a small example (one that is already bothering some people, though). I’ve been dwelling on how this new expansion messes with the power scaling. If Dick can freeze Pennywise, an eldritch horror, with the help of that good herb, are others going to be able to do things like that? Does It get weaker, or forget some of these tricks and its superb viciousness later on?

My concern is that the series having additional seasons will pose many more questions like these, as the creatives have to raise the bar and continue to impress, which will make each thing that came before feel less significant and concrete, or just fall flat and be disappointing. There’s also the fear that the show could devolve into Losers’ Club whack-a-mole, with Pennywise trying to target their ancestors and failing to kill anyone important enough to make a difference. Audiences know the new casts will fail, because we’ve already seen who does the deed. We’ve seen where and how the entity is vanquished, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll be too successful at breaking the time stream. Would fans actually be happy if he did? These temporal rules are usually meant to be bent, not broken.

There’s already a lot of discussion about whether Marge being told about her son, Richie, causes her to get pregnant and name him that way, creating a bootstrap paradox. It’s easy to get too into the weeds with this stuff and cause some headaches. As much as I am looking forward to seeing events like the Bradley Gang massacre and Kitchener Ironworks explosion, killing a bunch of kids during an Easter egg hunt, I think they are going to add a lot more and really overcrowd the space. King’s world usually seems ripe for expansion, but not everything works, and the more we receive, the bigger the cracks become, making them more noticeable. Personally, I never need to see Maturin the Turtle or too much about the Todash realm.

I love It as a story, but I really appreciated the intimacy of the narrative, what the creature shares with the Losers’ Club. Exploring that world further seems inviting, sure. But so many stories are ruined by explaining too much, leaving nothing to the imagination, and I don’t want to see that happen to our precious little clown. I’ll certainly watch It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 and 3, as the creators have earned that, but I’m scared about everything they might do.