WARNING: The Following contains major spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry episode six.
As we near the first season finale of It: Welcome to Derry, classic references to Stephen King’s 1986 novel abound. Episode 6, “In the Name of the Father,” sees the 1962 version of the Losers’ Club begin to solidify, placing these likeable characters in imminent danger.
While chatting with Marge (Matilda Lawler) at their Standpipe clubhouse, Rich (Arian S. Cartaya) launches a Balso Wood Glider from the observation deck, hoping to land it on Main Street. Though the toy aircraft does manage to catch the breeze, it coasts into an open sewer hole, alluding to the horrific death of young Georgie Denbrough. It begins with the doomed young child playing in the rain as his own paper sailboat careens through the bars of a sewer grate. Moments later, he’s murdered by a subterranean clown while negotiating for the toy’s return. Does this loss mean Rich is marked for death, or is it just another example of Derry’s curse?
While Marge and Rich commiserate in the lunchroom, we learn that they’ve both been hearing voices drifting out of their bathroom drains, similar to those heard by future Loser Beverly Marsh. This encounter will also see Marge firmly reject a place in the popular crowd and embrace her status as a “freak” … or Loser. As the cruel Patty Cakes mock a table full of students, Marge rips off the bandage covering her gruesome eye injury and insists that she is one of them. Just moments before, an auspicious gift has aligned her with one of King’s most beloved protagonists. After their touching Standpipe conversation, Rich has brought Marge an eyepatch to cover her extensive scars.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
Wearing it, she resembles Nick Andros, a founding member of the Boulder Free Zone in King’s apocalyptic novel The Stand. As the world falls to a deadly virus, Nick is attacked by a bully hailing from Shoyo, Arkansas. Angry and frightened, Ray Booth attempts to gouge out his eye, leaving the already deaf and mute man nearly blind as well. Nick wears an eye patch for the remainder of the novel, somehow adding to his understated charisma. By donning this iconic accessory, Marge seems to adopt his air of unexpected leadership.
As the children become more connected, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) moves in the opposite direction. Still reeling from his time in the sewers, he’s uncharacteristically surly and cruel. When Leroy (Jovan Adepo) consults the airman about the dangerous mission, Hallorann explains his recent malaise, detailing his childhood experiences with the Shining and his grandmother’s trick for locking bad spirits away. He explains that Pennywise was able to somehow pry the lid off of his mental lockbox, releasing decades of frightening ghosts.
What’s more, Hallorann is now plagued with visions of the dead and worries that they will notice him, mentioning the dreadful things they know. (This unnerving tidbit nods to disturbing information weaponized by those resurrected in the burial ground beyond the dreaded Pet Sematary, detailed in King’s nerve-shattering novel.) Jaime Conklin, the teen protagonist of King’s 2021 supernatural crime thriller Later, also struggles with the terrible affliction, but Hallorann’s current pain foreshadows the Danny Torrance we see in the 2013 novel Doctor Sleep.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
Hallorran first meets the psychically gifted boy while serving as head chef of the infamous Overlook Hotel, months before the child is nearly killed by his possessed father, Jack. As an adult, Danny struggles to overcome this acute trauma while contending with constant visions of the dead. He’s particularly haunted by the ghost of a little boy he left unsupervised in a drug-filled apartment, a shameful memory he tries to suppress with substance abuse. Surrounded by his own disturbing specters, Hallorann seems similarly poised to erase his terror with alcohol.
This tension arises as Charlotte (Taylour Paige) attempts to hide the fugitive Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) in a back room of the Black Spot lounge. Now open to Black servicemen stationed at the Derry Air Force Base and their invited guests, this makeshift speakeasy has attracted the attention of local racists thanks to an anonymous tip as to Hank’s location. While discussing their search, these dangerous men mention scouring the local railroad tracks where future Losers’ Club member Eddie Kaspbrak will one day encounter a solicitous leper. Pennywise later uses this frightening apparition to terrorize the boy outside the infamous house on Neibolt Street. They gather at the Derry Public Library, where the adult Losers will strategize after reuniting in the modern cycle.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
Though we don’t yet know who placed the anonymous tip, all signs point to Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe), who takes a decidedly villainous turn. Desperate for kindness, Lilly (Clara Stack) enters the woman’s home and wanders up to her cluttered attic. A familiar clown suit sits by a sewing machine, and a framed photograph of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) leans against the wall. But most damning is a book of family Memories, similar to those mentioned in King’s source material. While flipping through a photo album, Loser Bill Denbrough watches images suddenly jump to life, the jagged paper slicing into his fingers. Lilly’s digits remain intact, but the pages she turns contain a series of damning revelations.
As Ingrid approaches behind her, we recognize a black and white photo of a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Pennywise himself, posing with a younger Ingrid. Eagle-eyed viewers will remember this photo from Andy Muschietti’s It: Chapter Two and a harrowing interaction with the elderly Mrs. Kersh (Joan Gregson). Fleeing the monstrous woman, Beverly walks in on the strangely sinister man removing his heavy clown makeup. King’s novel identifies him as Robert Gray, “fadder” to the monstrous Mrs. Kersh, but remains vague about his position in the story.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
Muschietti adds crucial information to this shadowy character as Ingrid explains her father’s disappearance. While she stops short of identifying him as Robert Gray, we learn that he was a circus performer who disappeared during the 1908 cycle, and she has spent decades trying to bring him home. Flashbacks to 1935 bookend the episode as a younger Mrs. Kersh leads a little girl to a clandestine meeting with the sinister entity. Sensing an opportunity, It appears as Gray, recreating Bev’s disturbing intrusion. Ingrid falls for this dangerous trick, though the results of their meeting remain unclear.
Spying a familiar costume and wig, we learn that Mrs. Kersh was once part of her father’s act, a clown performer known as Periwinkle. We first noticed her near the freak show tent in episode three, and she’s the clown photographed near the shadowy crypt in episode four. Determined to connect with her long-lost “fadder,” Ingrid has been donning her Periwinkle costume and terrorizing the town’s children. But this revelation raises further questions about Ingrid’s age and humanity. Had she been old enough to perform in 1908, she would have been nearing seventy years old in the 1962 cycle. Perhaps it’s more likely that she now exists as a supernatural element of Pennywise’s arsenal, infiltrating the town to procure future prey. The episode ends with the mysterious woman donning her sinister costume, promising answers to these questions in the next chapter.
For more on It:Welcome to Derry, check out episode by episode coverage from Bloody FM’s The Losers’ Club: A Stephen King Podcast.
Photograph by HBO
