It: Welcome to Derry 1x02 Full Reaction!
Added 2025-11-05 21:59:21 +0000 UTC
Comments
Even with Madame Ouspenskaya saying not to, some people just are insistent that they must go to Castle Dracula as scheduled. Can see the Saw comparison. As I said, it feels like a preemptive shut up to fans who would have held out hope of the kids’ survival. I thought we did see Phil die last episode, but maybe I saw it wrong. I know that this episode showed the clearer shot of Teddy getting killed. As we’re saying, we don’t know past this episode, so it is mostly speculation at this time. That opening is great. My favorite character of M*A*S*H, as you know, is Charles, and we don’t properly meet Kingpin and Vanessa until episodes three and four the first season of Daredevil, so I don’t have much problem with a lead character being introduced in episode two. Charlotte does make a great debut. They do the masterful job with the toying with the expectations. And yes, it ties very well to one of the more unsettling aspects of the book. I feel Annette’s monologue about that in the miniseries works well. The presentation of the flashback is a bit off, true. Seeing Will was great. Sharp kid with the Einstein line. I think it’s safe to say we like him right away, and we look forward to more of him and Ronnie. Again, the comment, “Oh, goddamn it. Goddamn it, not again.” was made once the horror started with the scene that we were worried about for Jess. Don’t know the Lionel and Vera of it all. Or if I do, it’s not clicking. I want to say The Conjuring but I’m not sure. Two bad scenes already, and if they keep going, I share the urge to yell at the showrunners, “WHAT IN THE NAME OF HOLY FUCK WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT!?!?” to borrow from Charlie in The Newsroom. Which, I see your comment on the big problem you had with it, and I can see that response. Fair. The “20/20 Hindsight: The Series.” name’s not bad. Ronnie going all Brian Blessed does bode well for her later. I surmise that the “Not Barb” remark is a Stranger Things reference? I think I’m being kinder to Margie than most are. I get the tempering the response. Not so much making the dumb jokes in my case, but the times you tried to act like what you thought was cool or normal to impress the plastics, shared basic principle there. Never worked out well. Some of that was watching stuff like how Family Guy was big during high school, so you watched some of that just to follow conversations. Some of the show is good. Other parts, not. There was a huge balancing act with Lilly in this episode, and I think they pulled it off very well. Not great, optics-wise, but they make it very clear that no matter what she did, no matter what answer she gave or didn’t give, she was screwed regardless, as was Ronnie’s dad. Didn’t see too much of Nikita, so I don’t remember Peter Outerbridge from that. What I saw of the show, I liked it well enough. Here, the guy does sell what a piece of shit that Bowers is. Pretty sure that it was his son that got that fate, though again, timeline’s a mite confusing at the moment. Wouldn’t say no to combining the characters. As I said, I had heard in advance that Dick Hallorann would be in this in some capacity, which tracks given his cameo in the book It, that showcases one of Stephen King’s sprinklings of shared universe that even extends to the films like when Dolores Claiborne mentions Shawshank Prison. Looking forward to exploring Hallorann in this show. Math checks out, age-wise, given Scatman turned seventy the day The Shining was released. Overall, this army plotline, it is on the sillier side of King’s setups in a decent enough manner. That is a recurring theme with him. I hear my aunt some when you mention it as she always favored the more dramatic of his work without much if any of the fantastical. Mom’s in the similar boat, as was Dad. Though once or twice, I did put on The Shining when I was with Dad, and he didn’t mind too much. James Remar is a help to keeping interest in this plotline. I am just morbidly gleefully anticipating how this is going to go horribly wrong, and what Pennywise will do with this. Just hopefully, he shows kindness on the 50/50 shot of whether the next episode will make us all terrified for Jess’s mental health once again. It happens again, I’m going to get mad. Same with if we get any needles. (Likely to be some in the Juniper Hill scenes, I would imagine. Just hope that Pennywise doesn’t go Requiem for a Dream or Saw II level bad with it.) Either way, sharing this with Jess, we ought to have a lot of fun.
Thomas Corp
2025-11-06 05:15:51 +0000 UTCNow I'm wondering how long serpentining would work against Pennywise. If you've got a good enough imagination to work with, maybe quite a while. Now I feel kind of bad, because I hated The Newsroom. Hated hated hated it. Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience insulting moment of it, and I've never been able to look at Aaron Sorkin the same way since. But it's still better than Studio 60. I had my formative years during the nadir of stories about the government trying to weaponize monsters, and even as a kid I quickly got turned off by them. But everything else about the show is working well enough that it's pulling me through so far.
Ryan
2025-11-06 04:23:15 +0000 UTCWell, we all tried to warn you but you insisted on going to Dracula's castle. But before then we get a sequence that reminds me a lot of a certain point in the Saw series, where the crew was well aware that the fans would have a hard time believing a certain character's death at the end of one of the movies was for real, so the next one starts with five minutes of their body being autopsied in nauseating detail. Though I also can't help noticing (keeping in mind I know nothing past this episode at time of writing) we never actually see Phil die in either version of the scene. But enough of that, time for the awesome opening credits that perfectly set the show's tone. We get too few of these lately. It's always a risk saving a major character's introduction for the second episode, but Taylour Paige immediately shows she's worth it, with a screen presence that makes clear her dad Axel Foley rubbed off on her. And maybe my favorite part of the episode is how much it toys with us about the racial aspect of this story, where we keep expecting it to boil over, but instead it turns out to be something like throwing an egg at a sign she's just next to, and instead what gets her in trouble is inserting herself into the normalized violence of the town. This was always the scariest part of the book to me, and Pennywise's influence is portrayed much better here than that one old asshole from the miniseries who inexplicably made the group decide everyone in the town was affected. Will Hanlon also immediately makes a good impression, from introducing himself with "Einstein said time is relative, so you could say I'm early." His rapport with Ronnie, the only guilty one in Shawshank, immediately made me want to see a lot more of them together. I also got a kick of of your love of that nickname for Veronica; it's all well and good until someone turns into a fly. Speaking of Ronnie, we get the scene everyone was newly worried about you for, though honestly what got me the most was the very start since I distinctly remember having nightmares involving that setup before things get a bit Lionel and Vera. Pennywise certainly seems to have a chosen motif during this era, and I'm about ready to ask the people behind the show "Why are you like this?" Also really dig Ronnie going all Brian Blessed to get out of this situation; hopefully that indicates she won't be quite so helpless as the rest. For as much as Not Barb clearly sucks, my response is tempered a bit by how I was exactly this person at that age, doing dumb jokes to try to impress the Plastics. The show takes a bit of a risk here in making Lily too unlikable for selling out Ronnie's father, but we do fully get why she does it even if the racial optics aren't the best. I first saw Peter Outerbridge in Nikita where he stood out nicely even among an exceptionally engaging rogues' gallery, and I've loved seeing him ever since. He doesn't stretch himself much here and I hope he gets more to do in later episodes, but he is nicely slimy and makes you glad this guy will eventually become a pathetic drunk and be murdered by his son. Now for the military subplot, where of course the big development is confirmation that Chris Chalke's character is none other than Dick Halloran. He already had a cameo in the book as part of King's tendency to tease a shared universe even though it rarely amounts to much, so this fits perfectly and I look forward to where it's going. Which is saying something, because the rest is incredibly silly and if I was just reading a plot synopsis would probably turn me off from ever watching the show. But seeing it in action, it just barely stays on the right side of goofily absurd that let's face it, King stories have a tendency for even at their best. It helps tremendously that our tour guide is someone as instantly magnetic and engaging as James Remar, and I'll just say it now, it'll be amazing if Pennywise introduces himself to Shaw with "Come out to play." Now to await the 50/50 shot of whether the next episode will make us all terrified for your mental health once again. Either way, I'm very glad to have you along for this.
Ryan
2025-11-06 04:08:59 +0000 UTCNo worries about the obligations that you had causing the delay. It happens. Good to know about the finale by the way. Now to the episode. Rather rude to have the extended scene of the kids dying. Without wishing to detract from how you hated that, it feels like it shuts up the fans who held out hope about any of them possibly still living. Then we get the opening titles. It’s good work: The boy lured to the sewer, the depiction of the Bradley Gang massacre. And they give it all such a glow. I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it! We meet Leroy’s family and establish what I assumed was the rough timeframe with certain things. Love how you rather live for Charlotte. You say that you have your eye on the Native American woman. That’s probably a good idea. Will is a good boy. Smart. Studious. Much like his son will be. Hear you on the kids being kids getting under the skin as you say it did. As you say, we remember the days of elementary school, junior high, (well, that was the same school for me,) and then high school. Similar thing of you try to cut some slack even with the scenes that get the blood going. It’s one reason why I think I’m kinder to Margie than I’d imagine others are, particularly the scenes that deal with her trying to again be part of the plastics, er, uh, the pattycakes, and the queen bee seems to only want Margie around to be the pagliacci of the plastic posse. Heart goes out to Lilly and Ronnie both. That’s nice that you say that you love how Ronnie is short for Veronica. You hate the impossible situation that they’re in. Loved the fury you had with the town trying to pin the murders on Ronnie’s dad, and they’re complete assholes about it like with the Clue reference. (Which is distracting even without Tim playing Pennywise.) We both snapped at the people at the cafeteria trying to drop eaves. You say, “Can y’all just mind your fucking business?”, which has similar energy to my yelling, “Go back to your lunches!! Do I meddle in your business?!” Small happy thing to talk about before getting into the horrible scene: I adore the posters in Ronnie’s room. Yeah, another scene with the birth shit that I KNEW you would loathe. See that we clocked what was coming at the same time. You had the “No!” and me, I said, “Oh, goddamn it. Goddamn it, not again.” Yeah, again, it was bad. We both had chiding words against Pennywise, with you saying, “IT, stop it!” and I yelled to Pennywise, “Bob, seriously, this is fucking SICK, even by your goddamn standards!! This shit is making The First Omen look tame!! Jess does NOT appreciate this!! Cut this shit out!!!” You did not faint, which is a victory. There was a spot or two where the instinct to give you a big hug was strong, Jess. Praying to God that we’re done with the birthing shit. If they pull more of this, then I’m going to get mad. Try to give you a head’s up if there is more to come. Don’t know of course if there is more to come with that, but if there is more, I will try to offer warnings. I promise. Heart sinks in the scene where Lilly is interrogated by Bowers. Wondered when we were going to see that name. You call him a piece of shit. Considering the name, are we surprised by that one? And it sucks that you can tell that no matter what Lilly said, he was going to use that interrogation to justify arresting Ronnie’s dad. Love that we don’t actually see Lilly say the answer that it’s likely she gave, because no matter what, Bowers would twist it. Indeed, Ronnie is justifiably livid, and Pennywise is sick with waiting until the day after to have Lilly go through the grocery store from Hell, guaranteeing she gets sent back to Juniper Hill. Meaning that Bowers would use that to arrest Ronnie’s dad if it came to it. None of that excuses Lilly’s actions, rather, it highlights that there was no good answer in this equation. The question of whether the orderlies are Pennywise, or are they just creepy, probably the former. And now poor Lilly is sent back to the horrible place that, if memory serves, the Bowers family will be well acquainted with said horrible place in the years to come. We get more on the army plotline. Including the reveal about our old friend Dick Hallorann. See that doing a refresher on names paid off for you. I take it that we should not expect a reaction to The Shining? No? Ah, damn it. I had heard in advance that Hallorann was going to be part of this. Recall him being in the book, so that wasn’t a tremendous surprise. You also noted that you recognized the actor playing Hallorann here from The Newsroom, which you say that you love that show. I noticed that too, and I agree with you on adoring that show. Can’t settle on a favorite character from that. And he joins his predecessors in the role of Hallorann in dealing with clowns, or at least the actors that played them. We held similar responses to Leroy following up on his assault. Love how you and Leroy were dead on the money with assessing that racist moron fuck though Masters is, he is not responsible for the attack. Good deduction that Leroy had with the sidearm. He asks if the pistol was a Makarov pm, made me think back on the scene and pictured it, and I said, “Yeah, looked like it, yeah.” Didn’t know the significance of the difficulty in handling the weapon until he pointed it out. Love his scene confirming that, as I loved your reaction. Shaw now reveals that the attack was a test. I have issues with that. Leading to the reveal of the secret project that I said, “Please, God, tell me that this is not named the Arrowhead Project.” It’s not, but this sounds WORSE. Yeah, you, me, all of us know that this will end horribly. Interesting reveal that Leroy is proverbially and literally a man without fear. Would explain how he was unhesitatingly dead set on catching Jake and Elwood if it was the last thing he ever did. Or to use a reference that I know you’ll recognize, it explains how he and Bobby Singer made such good partners when it came to hunting. And now we have a closer look at the stage set. You’re worried about how invested you’ve gotten in the families as you know this will be dismal in the end, presumably. Hope is on the lower end as, well, at least four of the characters are guaranteed to survive. This is, of course, if we stick to the source material, book or film. So, what you describe, yeah, it’s not going to be pretty. One thing for sure, when it comes to the screaming, you put everyone in this to shame. In any event, I look forward to sharing with you what is to come. Again, good to know about the finale reaction And nice to hear the lovely words for the last reaction meant a lot. Thanks for the terrifically fun reaction, Jess.
Thomas Corp
2025-11-06 00:16:21 +0000 UTC
