It: Welcome to Derry ended its run on a bittersweet note where the Losers Club managed to defeat Pennywise again but could not completely wipe him out of existence. In its finale, the Stephen King TV show reveals that Pennywise does not perceive time linearly like humans. For him, the past, the present, and the future are all the same, allowing him to eternally exist across all timelines.
While the bigger implications of this reveal are yet to be explored, It: Welcome to Derry suggests that killing Pennywise in two timelines is not enough. Even if one generation of the Losers Club manages to get him out of the way, he will always have the ability to target a new previous generation and attempt to alter the course of history to change his fate in the future.
Interestingly, this new twist in Pennywise’s lore adds a layer of science fiction to the franchise’s universe. The suggested inner-workings of It: Welcome to Derry‘s time travel plot also make it reminiscent of Netflix’s Dark. While Dark is a completely original show in itself, how it treats time travel might hint at what lies ahead in It: Welcome to Derry season 2‘s story.
It: Welcome To Derry’s Time Travel Twist Potentially Makes It Similar To Netflix’s Dark
In Netflix’s Dark, the timeline in itself is portrayed as the overarching antagonist. After the Pennywise twist, it looks like It: Welcome to Derry is treading the same path by portraying the clown as a cosmic casualty of a fixed loop. Dark‘s famous tagline, which suggests that “the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning” seems to perfectly capture how Pennywise’s death in one timeline is his birth in another.
Similar to Dark, It: Welcome to Derry will also prompt viewers to map out family trees as Pennywise keeps heading further back in time to alter the future. The most the show will progress and unfold more timelines from the past, most viewers will draw lines between the Toziers, Uris’s, and Hanlons across the 1908, 1935, and 1962 cycles.
Netflix’s Dark benefited a lot from having a pre-planned storyline that ultimately clocked every paradox together. It: Welcome to Derry, in contrast, seems to create many logical errors with its time travel twist. It also dooms Pennywise to an existence where he is fully aware of his eventual defeat yet remains seemingly unable to prevent it.
This could make his fate seem deterministic and potentially reduce the overarching stakes in the series.
While the time travel twist from It: Welcome to Derry season 1’s ending is still intriguing, it is hard not to be curious about where the show will go from here. Interestingly, a behind-the-scenes development from It: Welcome to Derry season 2 hints that it might borrow heavily from Netflix’s Dark.
Dark’s Creators Have Joined It: Welcome To Derry Season 2’s Writing Team
As reports confirm (via Nexus Point News), Dark‘s creators, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, are officially a part of It: Welcome to Derry season 2’s writers’ room. Given how they have already dabbled with everything from multi-generational family trees to recursive loops, from non-linear storytelling to characters trapped by inescapable cosmic destiny, the show could really benefit from their involvement.
According to reports, The Penguin’s John McCutcheon, who wrote the acclaimed “Cent’Anni” episode, and Stranger Things’ Jessica Mecklenburg are also a part of It: Welcome to Derry season 2’s writing team. This makes the upcoming installment of the Stephen King series even more promising.
It: Welcome to Derry season 1 gave the franchise’s TV extension a solid start. While it was not narratively perfect and even its Pennywise time travel twist towards the end seemed a little forced. The show is seemingly on the right path towards fixing all narrative issues and becoming one of the best Stephen King adaptations out there.
While it seems unlikely that It: Welcome to Derry will eventually become as narratively sound and brilliant as Netflix’s Dark, it has the potential to rank among some of the best modern horror TV shows.