It: Welcome to Derry 1x01 Full Reaction!
Added 2025-10-30 20:21:53 +0000 UTC
Comments
Had contact with Stephen King’s work through the films for a while. Have read some of his work. Need to read more of his stuff. Did some deep diving into that around the end of high school. The Shining was a great experience. My parents did not let me see It in my younger years as a kid. Finally saw the miniseries when I was seventeen. Shortly after read the book, which I adore. (Save for that one part, of course.) Not seen Castle Rock, though I’ve only ever heard good things about it. The Music Man is really damn good. Till There Was You is perhaps my favorite musical theatre song, and though I’m shit on ranking favorite songs all together, it would be up there high. See we share the movie nerd alarm going off with the April time stamp, as I had a “Pause right there. That doesn’t- you know what, never mind.” response as well. I got the thing with 1962 like how most people hail 1939 in that if it’s not THE greatest year of cinema, it’s certainly in the running for the title. Recognized the pacifier being a pacifier, and there’s great unspoken subtext that can be ascertained from that. Further corroborated by the guy at the theater making mention of the terrible home life. And as you say, King likes those odd little details. Your alarms were better than Jess or myself, as the kid spelling was the first thing that screamed bad for me, followed by the Tupperware. At which point you sound like Christopher Lloyd in Star Trek III, yelling, “GET OUT!! GET OUT OF THERE!!!” All the credit to all the cast in the scene. Been hearing the Scream comparisons, incidentally I heard the trailer for Scream 7 dropped. Again, saw your one warning. The second I saw the lady was pregnant, two and two made four, and I said, “Aw, hell.” knowing that it would be bad for Jess. That scene was bad, but like Jess said when Jack Woltz found the horse head in his bed, that’s all over now. (Hopefully, like you say.) Just good that you and others gave Jess the warning. Probably about the pacifier looking like the balloon. The orgy in the sewer, as I keep saying, I brought it up at work when part two of the newer It was coming out, people thought I was fucking with them. I swore up and down that I wasn’t making that shit up, like how you said about the surprising amount of scrotum in A Room with a View. Of the group, Lilly emerged as probably the best. Some slack was given as one, the shadow of the kids from the miniseries, more specifically love for them, looms too strongly. Two, this was only the first episode. They can’t all be little Leia or little Kleya coming right out of nowhere impressing the hell out of us. Fairly certain that the one laugh was not intended. If they were worried that we wouldn’t pick up that the family was Jewish, (assuming too that we didn’t catch the name Uris,) I should think the Matzo balls were a fairly obvious giveaway. For the period this is set, it doesn’t feel strictly speaking unrealistic, though they did lay it on a bit thick, so I take your point. Still not seen any of the Gein show. My brother has said he’s avoiding it himself, though I did mildly pique his interest by mentioning about Tom Hollander as Hitchcock; he is curious about that part. Lampshade part was fucked up, and they did the good stuff with the drain. The army storyline is the biggest question mark, which means it has less baggage than other stuff. Like how Shirley was new in Haunting of Hill House so I could watch her scenes without the shadow of the sixties film over that, and she ended up being so insanely relatable, becoming my favorite of the show, which became better when Jess felt the same. There is Mike’s, maybe grandpa, given Steven Williams as I believe the same character in the 2017 film, (Wonder if the shit in Derry is more stress inducing than chasing the Blues Brothers?) being the connective tissue to the book. It holds interest. James Remar dying halfway would track. Good Oppenheimer tie in. Then the Invincible style rug pull, though I heard the showrunners say Red Wedding of course. Similar thought of not knowing how they made Matty seamlessly appear in The Music Man with that look, but it was amazing. As I said, rumblings slightly gave the game away, but I expected they’d all die, so Lilly and Ronnie living was a surprise. And they were the two I was liking the most, so that worked out nicely. The others are ex-Losers. The funeral parade giving them a sendoff shall have seventy-six trombones leading the big parade. With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand. Followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos; the cream of ev’ry famous band. Heard about the Halloween early release, I assume in the evening. Not seen the other reactors with this one yet, though I can see them having the shocked faces. Did catch the other day, Nikki and Steven having a very good Psycho reaction, that was nice. Jess is giving this a shot, I was already curious about it, and now Jess giving this a shot gives a big incentive. See numbers are looking reasonably well thus far. Say we don’t share the whole thing with Jess, I’m with you on this having my attention, and greatly looking forward to what’s to come. You say that you hope that they can keep it up. I am cautiously optimistic. Should be fun, in any event.
Thomas Corp
2025-10-31 04:15:19 +0000 UTCI kept hearing about that scene when the movie came out, and automatically thought "Well, clearly there's some deeper context to it which everyone's just ignoring for the sake of a joke." Then I actually reached the scene and said "I was wrong" like Dean about how the dog potion can't taste that bad. I went through a severe anti-musical phase around that age so I can't hold it too much against him. It didn't help that my parents introduced me to them with Oliver. And given the time period, he's probably mostly thinking of stuff like Gigi, which just shows you're still sane if that's what you come out of it thinking. My biggest advantage here is I was never much of a fan of the miniseries. Tim Curry's amazing, everything around him not so much.
Ryan
2025-10-31 02:17:58 +0000 UTCUp into my 30s, I had minimal contact with Stephen King. I'd seen a good deal of the film adaptations, but the books themselves were way too intimidating. They're all so long, and you hear things about how they're all connected so you need to read them all to fully understand anything, and I just thought "No, I have a life." And then the first It film came out, and I loved it so much I took the plunge into that book, which I was so impressed by (minus the one part everyone brings up) that along with Hulu's Castle Rock show coming out I figured I might as well do a bunch more. So I went through them all in chronological order, up until the ending of The Dark Tower, which really is as bad as you've heard, and left me thinking "Yeah, that seems like enough." Castle Rock kicks ass, by the way. And that's my position going into this one, safe to say a bit more of a freak about this than the others who have spoken up. Full disclosure, I've never seen The Music Man outside a few isolated clips, which did include Trouble (I needed context for the Monorail Song), so I knew what was going on in the opening. And it also set off my movie nerd alarm, since even the time skip to April puts the show a couple months shy of when the movie was released. But I'm well aware this doesn't really matter. The show takes a big risk by having our first impression be a 10-12 year old kid sucking a pacifier, so incongruous that I assumed it was a ring pop at first, but it works really well to show how psychologically damaged he is from growing up in Derry, plus what we hear about his abusive father. And this kind of weird character detail is one of King's major things in the first place. Now, maybe it just shows I've seen way too many of these things, but the second the family started acting so nice I was thinking "No. Bad. Run." But I'm happy he doesn't because what follows is easily the highlight of the episode, reminding me of the opening of Scream as something that could easily be a standalone short horror film. All these actors expertly judge the balance between friendly and creepy they should be hitting, and how that needle moves as the scene goes on, and I knew that one part would get you bad but it's over now (keeping in mind none of us at this moment know what's in the rest of the show). And I'm choosing to think it's deliberate that the flying pacifier looks like a red balloon. So then it's time to meet the new Losers, who will definitely not be having an orgy in a sewer. I can't believe I have to say that either, but here we are. And this was where my interest started dipping, because other than Lilly they range from bad "dull surprise" acting to actively annoying. And I got a big laugh that I'm guessing was unintentional when Phil's mother's sole contribution to their fairly long scene was "Oy gavalt!", like the crew was worried we wouldn't have picked up that they were Jewish yet. Though it gets points for following that with a way better Ed Gein Story than anything in the actual Ed Gein Story. I also got a kick out of the drain scene, where Muschietti clearly knows we'll be expecting a repeat of the hair scene, but instead it's a shout-out to The Moving Finger. I have no choice but to respect a King pull that deep. Hard to know what to say about the army story just yet, since we don't have any real idea how it connects to the rest. I'm also not quite clear on whether Leroy is supposed to be Mike's father or grandfather, and it doesn't help that the movie continuity already moved the book's timeline. But it's hard to care too much when we have the always wonderful James Remar in what looks to be a pretty major role (unless he's a surprise kill halfway through, always a possibility with these things). And I'm sure there's no big dark twist coming with him at all, after he did such a good job with Dexter and was nice enough to take Kyoto off the list of cities to nuke. And then the big thing happens. First off, major kudos to the effects people for making Matt genuinely look like he's part of the same film stock as the actual Music Man footage behind him. One of those times I don't want to know how they did it and just let the magic exist. And after spending a whole hour questioning if I was really willing to spend eight hours with these characters who weren't doing much for me, seeing most of them abruptly slaughtered very much made me sit up and say "I'm sorry, I wasn't familiar with your game." This episode's release came with a surprise announcement that the second would be releasing on Halloween a couple days early, very much the right move for a multitude of reasons, and I'm currently dying to see what else this crew has up their sleeves. And it's been a ball seeing every single reactor doing the show have the exact same face when it happens. If I'd been wavering, you doing it definitely would have been enough to keep me going at least a bit longer, but as it is, it's a great surprise to be able to keep watching purely because I want to, and I hope they can keep it up.
Ryan
2025-10-31 02:03:29 +0000 UTCTaking a wild guess that your brother has been greatly excited for this show, huh? That was a joke, by the way. If offense is taken at that, I apologize. You make the comment of saying that some shit may fly over your head, which happens. Good move with the refresher with the names. I know the miniseries, the two-part movie, and I’ve read the book to give you the frame of reference for my knowledge of this. And if it makes you feel any better, when part two of the newer film was going to come out, people at work thought I was fucking with them when I talked about stuff from the book, especially the one INFAMOUS part of the book that is NEVER going to be adapted to screen. Not unless people really want twenty-five to life. So, no worries if you miss shit. Solid premiere this was. Obviously, I love the film featured. And now I have to remember to suggest that we put The Music Man on the polls. I snapped when the comments were made later about hating musicals; the kid was crossing some fucking lines with that one. We both matched with comments about the stick-up-the-ass-usher. Fantastic little set piece of poor Matty in the Pennywisemobile. Love how you didn’t quite catch on as fast as I did. The spelling thing set off a bell. The Tupperware cemented the idea. Bringing us to the VERY graphic shit. See, I saw that Ryan wrote a warning earlier in the week. I hadn’t seen the episode by then, so I didn’t know what was coming. Finally seeing the episode, namely when you see the lady heavily pregnant, and by extension surmising what was likely to come, the gear clicked, worry for you became strong as I said, “Aw, hell.” Sorry that I couldn’t give you a warning, and it warms the heart that others did. Like you often say, you have very good people in your corner. I don’t necessarily share the trigger, and the scene was very bad, and I got bothered by it, used humor to distract by saying, “Guys, I just ate.” It’s like my brother not having the needle aversion, and there are scenes that unsettle him with that. Same basic principle. We got to the scene, and your reaction, I repeated what I said in the Alien Romulus reaction, “Ok, Jess, just grab a hold of something, look at a spot on the wall, and just chug some water. We’re going to get through this!” All things considered, you handled it better than feared. The plotline with Hanlon, good catch with his name, is the newest element to this, so we are sort of in uncharted waters there. We do have the similar revulsion to the specific parts of Hanlon going through horrors that have nothing to do with Pennywise. Which is often where Stephen King excels at times: horror that is far more grounded and mundane than supernatural and fantastic. I cannot comment on the one gentleman who looked at Hanlon at this time; save talk about that for later. Decent enough group of kids. Kids in these things are always a gamble. And we have the mighty shadow of the kids from the miniseries thirty-five years ago. So far they’re not particularly spectacular, though I’ve seen worse. Given the standard set by said miniseries, much like the two-part film, I’m cutting some slack with the kids. Lilly and Ronnie stood out to me, which, that was lucky, more on that in a sec. Like Lilly’s friend. The Margie representation is very nice. Much appreciated. The one kid surely had the curious mind, up to including the scene of wondering about nipples on men, and not because he’s Robert De Niro being a wiseass with Ben Stiller. You liked Teddy quite a bit, and that made the heart sink knowing what was coming. Like your response to the dinner scene. Half expected the Sedar to shift to look like it was held at Vincent Price’s house. Loved the reaction to the lampshade part, which is one you have a word with Pennywise, where you just say, “Bob, that one’s dirty pool.” We both had choice words about the brother’s remark. Leads to the group meeting up with Ronnie which is where the fun really begins. Slight problem I have is I keep singing along to the song. Happens again just hearing the audio in your reaction. Can’t help it. Hell of an effect when Matty is in the film. Then things escalate quickly, and all hell breaks loose, and you scream which amazingly enough still does not deafen as much as Mom watching the Bears play does, so there is that. Small confession that I was on the alert with the ending. The internet was a mite loud about the ending, so I heard something about it. I expected that all the kids we were following would get killed because of that. Made me slightly sad as I was liking the Derry girls. Surprising, therefore, that they live, for now. Makes me happy. Sucks about Suzie lending a hand. We end it there, meaning that this pilot went the whole first hour without showing Pennywise himself. Respect. Another quick note: See we’re sprinkling a lot of turtle imagery in this. Don’t fucking tease me with this, show. And yet another reaction today that was most terrific with a capital T, that rhymes with P, that stands for pool! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) I hope to continue this through to the end of the season. However, if like Alien Earth it gets cut short, then I hope you enjoy it in your own time, and I’ll be very happy with what we do get to share with you. Thank you for the lovely reaction, Jess.
Thomas Corp
2025-10-30 23:53:57 +0000 UTC
