Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched IT; Welcome to Derry’s latest episode on HBO or via HBO Max subscription.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to one of the most haunted fictional towns in American horror…wait, why would anyone think it’s safe to return to Derry? For TV audiences, it was all for the experience of watching IT: Welcome to Derry’s humdinger of a fourth episode, which boasts the wacky title “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function.”
More IT: Welcome To Derry Easter Eggs
Not quite as jam-packed with easter eggs as past episodes, which is normal once a series finds its own legs a few episodes in, this installment does dig into arguably the most important and most mysterious element of this interconnected narrative universe: the full story behind IT’s arrival on Earth and how its reign of death and evil began. (Granted, it’s all anecdotal, but I’d still like to believe it’s mostly aligned with reality.) So first duck, then cover, then join me in pointing out all the fun references and nods in Episode 4.
IT Compared To Dracula
Following the still magical title sequence, the kids are in the gym talking about their harrowing experience in the cemetery, with Clara Stack’s Lilly questioning how similiar IT is to Dracula, at least in the art of forming mirrored reflections.
Maybe it’s a Dracula thing. You know, like in the movie he can’t see his reflection?
Lilly
In Stephen King‘s novel, Bram Stoker’s seminal bloodsucker (by way of Bela Lugosi’s portrayal) is indeed one of the forms that the evil entity takes on as a way of scaring Derry’s youths. Way more fangs in IT’s mouth, though.
Hanlons As Historians
During the same scene, Will notes that the first thing he would do would be to look back and see if other incidents of a similar nature had previously taken place in Derry. Will already knows that history is bound to repeat itself if nothing is changed, but he doesn’t yet know just how impossible it will be to change anything about this cursed location. Importantly, though, nothing that happened to him in this context swayed his son from following in those same historian footsteps. Or else the Losers Club might never have been brought back together.
Charlotte’s Derry Herald Has A Standout Edition Number
Shining fans with keen eyesight (or pausing-and-zooming capabilities) may have noticed that the newspaper Charlotte reads through boasts “237” as its edition number. Hope there weren’t any stories about women in bathtubs in that one.
The Black Spot’s Location Is Set, And There Is Definitely Darkness Ahead
One of the key incidents that sparked the creation of IT: Welcome to Derry is the horrific tragedy that IT set in motion at the Black Spot, which was ostensibly a safe haven where Black soldiers could go to listen to live music, chow down and take a load off. Its emblazoned fate, at the hands of racists townspeople in the novel, goes on to haunt both Will and Mike throughout their lives.
Interestingly enough, Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann seems to have an inkling that something isn’t quite right about the storage building, but I can’t help but think that his overall enthusiasm for getting the location itself is hindering his protective instincts. They probably should have heeded the Keep Out sign.
“You’ll Burn, Too”
Will gets his first up-close-and-personal experience with IT while fly-fishing, tapping into a one of his overarching fears involving his dad’s plane getting shot down in Korea. The IT-infused vision twists up one of Pennywise’s most repeated quotes from any verison of IT — “You’ll float, too” — by having Evil Leroy tell Will that he’ll burn. A strange threat to deliver while submerged underwater, but no less freaky.
What’s more, Evil Leroy’s arrival was prefaced by a clownfish swimming up to Will, and I don’t think that was a FInding Nemo nod or its Pixar sequel. After Leroy sees the scratches on Will’s arms, throwing his own sense of normalcy into doubt, an ominous red balloon is seen floating over the water.
The Kids Figure Out IT’s Motives
Similar to the way Episode 3 provided some exposition for how memories of Derry fade the more former residents stay outside the town, the fourth episode digs into what actually makes IT tick, and why the creature doesn’t seem to have the singular goal of killing all the children off. Granted, fans already know the deal, but it’s still an important detail to nail down within the reality of the HBO show, because now they’ll have a defense mechanism.
The kids realize that in the same way farmer will overfeed animals before slaughtering them, IT purposefully targets and toys with children in order to stoke and increase their innate levels of fear to the maximum. And that’s when he swoops in and takes his big chomp, presumably finding the taste of fear to be downright delectable.
“Mommy’s Little Helper”
An interesting and enjoyably controversial detail added into the show is Lilly’s idea that her mom’s Valium prescription can be utilized to lower each teen’s ability to feel fear and nervousness. I can’t imagine that’ll work superbly, but it’s something.
The nickname that Lilly uses was popularized by the 1966 Rollings Stones track “Mother’s Little Helpers,” but existed in the lexicon before then. King himself has spoken about Valiums being in the mix during the height of his various addictions. The sedative also played a sizable role in one of the author’s bestsellers written during that addiction-addled era, The Tommyknockers, when Bobbi attempted to take down Gard by forcing him at gunpoint to choke down a lethal dose.
A Possible Connection To From A Buick 8’s Troop D?
The big chalkboads inside Derry PD feature lots of names that are likely meaningless, but one not-so-hugely common surname is Pasternak, which is also the last name of Troop D member Shirley Pasternak within the novel From a Buick 8. That tale took place in Western Pennsylvania, so connecting those dots would take some miles, so it’s a good thing we have a dependable non-supernatural vehicle to use.
Tim Flanagan
In Stephen King’s novel, the same surname comes up in a letter from Stan’s mother-in-law Ruth to his wife Patty, in reference to “Stella Flanagan” getting betrothed again. It’d be impossible to connect those characters with just the info we have, though.
Instead, this seems morely likely to be a nod to another famed Stephen King-loving filmmaker, Mike Flanagan, who’s helmed adaptations of Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, The Life of Chuck and the upcoming Carrie TV series. Or maybe one of the showrunners knows a guy named Tim Flanagan.
A Carrie-esque Prank Was Planned For Lilly
Speaking of both Tim Flanagan and Carrie, that character was meant to be hunky bait for Lilly to throw herself at, as part of a mean-spirited prank that Matilda Lawler’s Marge was tasked to help facilitate by the Pattycakes. According to Marge, the goal was for Lilly to be humiliated in front of the entire school. I didn’t see any buckets of blood hanging from the rafters, but it’s the thought that counts, and we all know what happened to those who fucked with Carrie…
Another Clown And Balloon Sighting Outside The Hanlon Home
While I don’t share in others’ complaints about IT: Welcome to Derry‘s lack of Pennywise in early episodes, since that was a purposeful decision, I do think Bill Skarsgärd’s full-on arrival is imminent, given all of the visual teases sprinkled throughout. (Although I kind of question why, narratively speaking, since no one thus far has shared any underlying fears of clowns for IT to be latching onto.)
In any case, Will’s post-nightmare telescoping sesh was disrupted by the sight of Pennywise’s shadowed silhouette, similar to what was seen on the photo taken in the crypt. Though Leroy didn’t see any such circus folk when he angrily ran outside looking for a confrontation, he did catch site of another red balloon caught in the tree branches. I’m really hoping he connects the dots between that and the fly-fishing incident.
So Many Doors!
Both of Andy Muschietti‘s IT films featured scenes involving a trio of doors of varying scariness, but the circle of doors that Dick Hallorann pops into while invading Taniel’s mind are of a completely different nature. There’s no sand on the ground in there, but this location feels comparable to the beach in The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three where Roland encounters the three doors that take him into Eddie Dean, Odetta Holmes and Jack Mort. Not exactly the same, but doors as a pathway to consciousness is the name of the game here.
To be sure, Hallorann’s Shine-centric exploration of Taniel’s memories is less of an easter egg and more of a full extension of the (heavily altered) origin story laid out in IT: Chapter 2‘s psychedelic scene, in which Bill learned about the Ritual of Chüd. But it’s obviously important connective tissue for this universe, so here we are.
Within this reality, IT is also alien in nature, and arrived on earth within a falling star that broke open upon colliding with the ground. The evil spirit was free, but without anything to really feed off of, at least until the first settlers. Once people were prevalent, IT was able to get stronger, and IT’s influence inspired fearful natives to contain it within the forest the star crashed into. That plan of course went to shit as soon as greedy white people showed up and strengthened the monster even more.
Eventually, after a young Indigenous girl and her friends shattered the star’s remnants into 13 sacred shards, those shards were buried in a giant circle surrounding the forest, with their locations kept secret so that no one would curiously attempt to dig them back up in the future. Of course, Dick Hallorann’s talents go beyond such intentions, and now it’s clear that the military aims to track down these buried shards for their own purposes. So…good riddance, I guess?
A Special Case For One Star Shard
The 13 shards were said to be “buried deep within the earth,” but seemingly only one of the pieces was encased in something before being put into the dirt. Fittingly enough, the shard in question was placed between two turtle shells, which is another direct reference to the Macroverse’s most compassionate Guardian of the Beam, Maturin. It’s been unclear whether or not IT: Welcome to Derry will tap into that otherworldly realm from Stephen King’s novel, but I can’t imagine we’d get turtle references in every episode without some kind of payoff.
Did you catch any Episode 4 references that I missed? Let us know, and don’t forget new episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry air Sunday nights on HBO at 9:00 p.m. ET.
