Following last week's shocking cliffhanger, the second episode of It: Welcome to Derry—"The Thing in the Dark"—finds Lilly and Ronnie tormented by more horrifying visions, courtesy of Pennywise.
In Ronnie's case, she's attacked by a monstrous version of her dead mother, who tries to drag her back into her toothy womb via an umbilical cord the girl finds is suddenly attached to her. As for Lilly, after being coerced by the cops into framing Ronnie's dad for the theater massacre, she has a vision of her own in the supermarket.
Her father died years earlier in a factory accident, with people claiming that he was chopped up and distributed in pickle jars across Derry. Lilly is visited by a squid-like creature with her dad's face that assembles itself out of pieces that escape from smashed jars.
The creature tries to kiss her, and unsurprisingly, Lilly is ultimately returned to the local institution after freaking out. During Ronnie's vision, we get our first glimpse at Pennywise's familiar eyes.
The biggest revelation comes when we finally learn what the military is up to. Dick Hallorann's telepathic powers are being used to find certain artefacts that will lead General Shaw to the entity responsible for terrorising Derry every 27 years.
Believing the monster creates debilitating fear in its victims, Shaw thinks Leroy Hanlon—who no longer feels fear after suffering a head injury in combat—is key to helping them capture "It." That's why he was tested with that attack from the "Russians" in the first episode, and the plan is to use Pennywise as a weapon that can be dropped into enemy territory.
There, it would torment and destroy their enemies, but this feels like a misguided mission on Shaw's part. Still, as the episode ends, a car full of the bodies of dead gangsters is dug up. "We're close."
Set in the world of Stephen King's It universe, It: Welcome to Derry is based on King's It novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films It and It Chapter Two.
The cast is led by Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, and Bill Skarsgård.
The series, from Warner Bros. Television and developed for television by filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti (It, The Flash) and Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman), will debut on HBO and also be available to stream on HBO Max. Muschietti will direct four episodes of the nine-episode series.
The first two episodes of It: Welcome to Derry are now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes released weekly leading up to the season finale on December 14.