Hundreds of years before Pennywise, three young people walk into the Western Wood and meet something already living there. A Story of Derry is a 30-minute IT: Welcome to Derry episode that HBO Max posted at midnight on Halloween with no advance notice.
It is a bonus episode rather than a season premiere, and it lands in the gap between Season 1, which finished its run on December 14, and a Season 2 that still has no premiere date.
Derry’s Oldest Story Gets Told First
The series has circled the town’s deep history since Season 1 without ever going all the way back into it. Reaching past the clown by centuries is the most interesting thing this show could do with a bonus episode. Pennywise works better the less of him you get, and a spirit in the woods with no greasepaint on it is the version of Derry that has been waiting the longest.
Season 2 Is a 1935 Gangster Picture
Season 2 moves to 1935 and the Bradley Gang massacre, one of the Derry Interludes from Stephen King’s IT, with Brad Caleb Kane running the show alone and Andy Muschietti casting. The Season 1 premiere was billed as one of the top four global series premieres in HBO Max history, which is a launch ranking rather than a total audience figure.
Bill Skarsgård comes back for 1935 in what Kane told Deadline is “a different kind of Pennywise, Pennywise the way you’ve never seen that character before.”