It: Welcome to Derry EPs on Pennywise's New "Layer of Threat" & More
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It: Welcome to Derry EPs on Pennywise's New "Layer of Threat" & More
It: Welcome to Derry EPs Andy & Barbara Muschietti on that [SPOILER] scene, Pennywise having "another layer of threat" now, and much more.
Published Sun, 14 Dec 2025 21:15:04 -0600
by Ray Flook
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Last updated Sun, 14 Dec 2025 21:46:25 -0600
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We've got a whole lot to process now that the final credits have rolled on the season finale of filmmakers Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti and showrunners Jason Fuchs & Brad Caleb Kane's It: Welcome to Derry. We're going to hold off on jumping into some spoilers until after the spoiler warning below. But what we do know is that Andy & Barbara Muschietti teasing about there being a very good reason to go back in time with subsequent seasons makes a whole lot more sense now. In honor of the season finale, the Muschiettis returned to speak with The Official It: Welcome to Derry Podcast Season 1 hosts Princess Weekes and Marc Bernardin, and this is the point when we need to throw on the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign and throw down an image spoiler buffer as we get some insights into two key moments from tonight's episode.
During what would prove to be an intense, action-packed, and horrifying season finale that left us feeling both satisified and itching to know where things go next (including a ten-ton easter egg involving Chris Chalk's Dick Halloran and "The Shining"), two moments that stuck out involved the Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) chase and when we first see that visual punch-to-the-face of the kids floating behind the carnival carriage. Speaking with Weekes and Bernardin, the Muschiettis revealed that wasn't the initial ending moment that was planned, what caused the change, and what the thinking behind it was:
Barbara Muschietti on How SAG-AFTRA/WGA Strikes Altered the Ending: "That was not what we thought would be the end of the show. That's not where it was gonna be. But because of the strike, suddenly what we thought was gonna be a summer fall show turned into possibly a winter show. So Andy started thinking of, you know, an ice surface and this very cold place to have the finale because we shoot in Toronto and that's what Toronto is from, you know, November to May, basically. And out of this accident, basically, which was the strike, I think that we were given the chance of doing this beautiful, fresh end in the cold. It's an ice-capade."
Andy Muschietti on How the "Floating Kids" Moment Came to Be: "You know, the floating kids idea stems, on one hand, from the fact that kids are floating in the sewers. But on the other hand, I wanted Pennywise to act like a bit of a pied piper, where he takes all the kids with him. And it was visually more terrifying to have them all hanging because they float, we know they float, and they make a trail behind this wagon. So, you know… I was building the the visual identity of this sequence, I realized very fast that this was very haunting. This wagon carried by nothing but, you know, the invisible power of the deadlights and the procession of floating kids behind in the middle of this, you know, ghostly mist."
"The seed of your stinking loins and his filthy friends bring me my death. Or is it birth? I get confused tomorrow, yesterday, it's all the same for little Pennywise." That exchange between Pennywise and Marge (Matilda Lawler) revealed a whole lot to the viewers. First, it made a direct connection to the films by confirming fan speculation that Marge would be the mother of Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard and Bill Hader in the films). In addition, it added a new threat to Pennywise's arsenal: his ability to experience past, present, and future at the same time in the moment. Could Pennywise have the ability to manipulate fate? Andy Muschietti discussed the reasoning behind making the Marge/Richie Tozier connection and what Pennywise's perspective on time could mean moving forward:
Andy Muschietti on Making That Marge/Richie Tozier Connection: "First, let's talk about Marge being Richie's mom. This was one of the first things I thought of. I wanted to connect our group of Losers from the movies to this new group of kids. It's almost inevitable to do a connection there, but I did want one of the characters to be Richie's mom. And not reveal it until the very last episode. So that's that was a reason, whimsical really, because I can't find more explanations than creating a character in this new group that has the DNA of Rich or at least part of it, because we see her many times, she has verbal diarrhea, neurosis, and anxiety that Richie has that he copes with by being the funny kid. So part of that behavior, part of that personality, it's something that comes from his mom, and from a very early age we see it. And this is very much connected to the idea of telling the story backwards."
Andy Muschietti on How The Way IT Experiences Time "Brings Another Layer of Threat": "You know, this very genesis of this project, when we pitched it to Stephen King, was gonna be a story told backwards, and connects to my curiosity about a very specific mention in the book about IT not being a creature that experiences time in a linear way, like we humans do. I think it's only mentioned once in the book, and it's presented as more like a question, like a speculation. But you know, as many other things in IT, questions and speculations are truths. You know, that's the way that Stephen King has to express these things. He wants to keep things very mysterious and cryptic. So everything that he wants to say, he does it in question marks. So that is something that piqued my curiosity a lot. And given that we were creating a prequel where basically everybody knows that IT will die in 2016. What can we bring to this prequel that actually has people on the edge of their seats, even when they know that the monster is gonna die at the end? And this is the answer. There's another story, there's a hidden story where our monster is revealed to be traveling in a different direction of time. It brings another layer of threat."
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