IT: Welcome to Derry Season 2 Story Details Reveal A Threat More Dangerous Than Pennywise
As the long wait between seasons continues to linger, Andy Muschietti, the co-creator of It: Welcome to Derry, the prequel to the 2017 film IT, is sharing some details about the status of the second season, as well as a few things that fans can expect from the terrifying series. And with how impressive Season 1 was, pulling in an 80% critics rating and an 82% audience score, the next season has some pretty big shoes to fill—though with Bill Skarsgård, who plays Pennywise, standing at 6’4″, that doesn’t seem like an impossibility.
The second season is taking a different approach to storytelling than most shows, though. Instead of telling a linear narrative, Season 2 is moving backward in time, set in the 1930s instead of the 60s, when the first season takes place. When asked by Variety to shed some light on plans for the upcoming season, Muschietti said, “We’re very excited; we’re in the writers’ room right now.” The new season will put its focus on an event from the novel known as the Bradley Gang Massacre, which centers around a group of outlaws as they hide themselves from the FBI in the town of Derry. But what starts as an attempt to lay low turns into a robbery and murder spree that brings chaos down on the town.
Can Season 2 Top the Horror of the First Season of Welcome to Derry?
Muschietti seems to think so—though maybe not for the reasons that initially come to mind. Elaborating on what fans can expect from this next step back into the town of Derry, he said, “There’s gonna be a lot of that Depression-era hustling in the air in our characters. Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things. And of course, the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in the era, too. We’re not going to skip those.” Apart from tying in the horror that humans are willing to inflict on one another, as opposed to Pennywise being the sole terror in the series, this choice to move backward in time also perfectly opens the series up for its third season.
Just like there were breadcrumb mentions of The Bradley Gang Massacre in the first season, there are sure to be allusions to another one of Pennywise’s feeding cycles: the 1908’s Kitchener Ironworks Explosion, another horrific tragedy that took a toll on the town. The real horror that’s facing Derry in Season 2, though? Muschietti claims that it’s the sheer desperation of the time period. “In this case, on the surface, Derry is a graveyard almost. It’s a carcass of something because people are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, homeless. The kids don’t have a suburban, comforting life. They’re in a very different situation.”
Overall, it seems like It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 is taking a wildly different approach than its suburban first season—which can only mean good things for the series as it continues to find itself.
