Have you ever ever felt afraid in the course of the night time, in your mattress, making an attempt to sleep? After which tried to cover underneath blankets, hoping this could be sufficient to unravel the issue?
In some unspecified time in the future throughout The Factor within the Darkish, Veronica Grogan tries that. After the creature kills three kids on the Capitol Theater, Ronnie’s father, Hank, the projectionist, is framed by the police as responsible of the murders. Hours earlier than her father is taken to jail after a baby is manipulated to testify in opposition to him (or at the very least to not testify on his behalf), Ronnie’s processing the horrors each she and Lilly confronted on the theater, being the only real survivors of this violent encounter with a supernatural drive.
“The Thing in the Dark” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Amanda Christine as Ronnie. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved
No one will believe her father is innocent — he’s a black man in a racist town whose only alibi is his own mother. No one will believe them about the true killer either: a flying baby monster that got out of the big screen. Haunted by past traumas and terrified of the future, Ronnie hides under blankets. Then she realizes she’s stuck there, unable to escape — the blankets are now her mother’s womb. After forcing her way out of the suffocating prison, Ronnie sees the bed has turned into the corpse of her late mother — the creature in disguise — who talks to the child, adding fuel to her fears about Hank’s destiny.
With this, Welcome to Derry establishes another nightmarish vision around the figures of mothers and childbirth, just like it did in the premiere’s opening sequence. Ronnie lost her mother, Lilly has a complicated relationship with her own, and even Hank spends part of the episode arguing with Ronnie’s grandmother. Mommy issues could be a central theme here: the grief of losing a mother in Ronnie’s case, the despair of having a distant, cold one in Lilly’s case, and the frustration of having a caring mom who is helpless in the face of a town that already decided her son is guilty of a crime he didn’t commit in Grogan’s matriarch case.
“The Factor within the Darkish” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Taylour Paige as Charlotte. Picture: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved
There’s one other mom on the middle of the episode, and may I say, the present: Charlotte Hanlon, Leroy’s spouse, who arrives in Derry with their son Will. Excited for a recent begin, Charlotte is the sort of character you simply fall in love with; performed with grace by Taylour Paige, she’s variety, sensible, and has coronary heart, talking up for these in want, worrying in regards to the well-being of her household, and so forth. This description of a typical heroine might generate a boring character, however Paige makes use of the script to construct a tragic portrait of somebody who’s making an attempt their finest to reside in peace with out hurting anybody — simply to finish up in essentially the most hurtful attainable place. In different phrases, Charlotte is a younger black girl who simply needs to reside life together with her husband and see their son develop up wholesome and pleased; then she strikes to Derry, and tragedy unfolds.
“Don’t tell me boys will be boys. How about boys will be kind? Boys will stand up. Boys will be tall in their integrity and their hearts. Boys will be measured by their mommas in their new house.”
Okay, tragedy hasn’t unfolded but — at the very least not with regards to the Hanlons. However judging from this episode alone, Charlotte is precisely the kind of individual the creature may cherish disturbing till her thoughts is modified perpetually and her soul is consumed. She jogs my memory of Olivia Crain from Flanagan’s Hill Home — and if her scene with the boys on the street signifies something, it’s that talking up will lead her instantly to bother in Derry. Charlotte additionally makes Jovan Adepo’s Leroy extra compelling, with Paige’s chemistry with Adepo promoting the couple as one of many driving forces of the season. There’s this sense of dread when the Hanlons reunite, and also you may need to scream for them to depart Derry and keep away from no matter is coming their means.
“And then when I shouted, they looked at me like I was the crazy one.”
The identical will be stated about Blake Cameron James’ Will. Very keen on science, particularly astronomy, he’s very excited in regards to the telescope given by his father. This happiness doesn’t discover him at college, although — there are bullies all over the place, and never even the instructor appears excited to have him there. However Will finds a method to make some buddies in Wealthy, who’s simply as cute and humorous as Will himself, and Ronnie, who meets him at detention. Slowly, this season’s model of the Losers begins to group.
“The Thing in the Dark” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Blake Cameron James as Will. Photo: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved
But some things separate them. Lilly, who watched all of their friends die at the theater, is dealing with a lot just like Ronnie. The episode opens with her POV of the last episode’s final moments. She’s having nightmares. She’s afraid that if she mentions anything about the creature who killed the kids, she’ll be sent back to the mental asylum. Later, a police officer threatens her: if Lilly does testify on behalf of Ronnie’s father, claiming she never saw him that night at the theater, she will be framed as the murderer. Lilly is manipulated to claim she did not not see the man, this being the last straw for Hank’s arrest. This puts her in conflict with Ronnie, and Lilly’s conflicting with Ronnie creates another conflict with her friend Marge, who’s anxious for Lilly to join her in her quest to become a part of this wicked group of mean girls — but for this, they can’t be associated with Ronnie.
If the kids are not facing enough challenges until their inevitable reunion, a moment in the market is enough to make Lilly snap and be sent back to the mental asylum. This sequence — the strongest in the episode — is It (2017) meets Smile (2022), with the creature manipulating reality and stalking Lilly in the most creepy ways. Until she snaps, acting crazy in front of everyone, and is sent by her mother to the asylum. Suspenseful, this sequence proves that the show can have the creature be scary, mean, and horrifying without gore and Pennywise’s presence.
“The Factor within the Darkish” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Clara Stack as Lilly. Picture: Brooke Palmer/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Factor within the Darkish is a robust follow-up to the premiere, serving as the true introduction to this season’s major characters and conflicts. First, it has fascinating opening credit, with animated occasions that ought to embody all timelines the present goals to cowl — if you happen to learn the e-book, you may acknowledge the occasions within the opening. The weakest plot continues to be the army one, despite the fact that we get to know a bit extra about Dick Hallorann and the challenge he’s engaged on: the seek for a factor that induces worry in folks. Ultimately, Leroy can be concerned on this search, which can be drawing consideration from the native American folks in Derry. However for now the constructive outweighs the unfavourable, with a charismatic teen solid dominated by the wonderful Amanda Christine and Clara Stack, a robust lead in Taylour Paige, and steadiness between the dramatic and the scary, nightmare-inducing elements, this episode provides the viewers characters to care about whereas exhibiting the creature slowly torturing the great folks in Derry, laying the groundwork for the subsequent weeks.
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