Episode six of HBO’s “IT: Welcome to Derry,” titled “In the Name of the Father,” begins with Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) berating his son, Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James), for going into the sewers and orders him to stay at the military base for his own safety.
Will Hanlon confronts his father, to which the latter responds by slapping him. Will Hanlon then leaves to join his friends. The kid group is pushed to its limit after encountering IT in the form of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), causing Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) and Ronnie Grogan (Amanda Christine) to have a heated exchange.
Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) returns from the sewers to a place called “the Black Spot,” which is a place where he and his fellow comrades built a nightclub that serves as a place of refuge for Black soldiers and the overall Black community.
There, he discovers that Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) is hiding thanks to Charlotte Hanlon’s (Taylour Paige) and Ingrid Kirsch’s (Madeleine Stowe) connection. Hank is allowed to stay at the Black Spot, much to Hallorann’s dismay. Later on, Leroy Hanlon has a conversation about Hallorann’s unique abilities.
Hallorann explains that he and his grandmother had the same gift. She instructed him to put anything that frightened him into a box in his mind so that he would not be haunted by what he saw. Now, thanks to IT, the box is open, and Dick can see the spirits of the dead roaming about the Earth.
Rich Santos (Arian S. Cartaya) and Marge Truman (Matilda Lawler) grow closer to each other, which then leads to Truman finally standing up to the Pattycakes, a group of mean girls. The biggest twist of this episode is revealed when Bainbridge discovers that Kersh has been following the kids dressed up as a clown.
Bainbridge learns that Ingrid and Pennywise are connected. Kersh informs Bainbridge that her father, Bob Gray, the actual Pennywise the clown, left Derry, but she decided to stay. In 1935, IT, as Pennywise, tries to attract the attention of a little girl named Mabel at Juniper Hill.
Curious, Kersh takes Mabel to where the clown might be. That’s when she sees Pennywise in the flesh, and what looks like her long-lost father. Pennywise devours Mabel, but decides to keep Kersh alive. IT takes the form of Bob to comfort and manipulate her.
Since then, Kersh has played a role in luring kids closer to IT just so that she may see her “father” again. She tries to convince Bainbridge to go and find IT, but Bainbridge runs away in terror.
Meanwhile, Clint Bowers (Peter Outerbridge) is relieved of his position as Derry’s police chief. At a bar, he informs the locals that he received a tip-off about Hank’s location. He and many other armed men arrive at the Black Spot with masks on.
Two episodes remain for “IT: Welcome to Derry,” and with what fans were given in episode six, it does not look good for a lot of the characters. Come the season finale, it would be a miracle if a majority of them do not suffer tragic deaths.
With how the plot is ramping up, those in Derry are not prepared for the evil that is to arrive. Part of what makes this show so effective is that the town of Derry really feels like a type of hell one cannot simply escape from.
IT’s influence over the townsfolk is a great narrative piece that drives what seems to be the only decent people apart from each other. This is the first time this season that many of the characters are on their own and not together as a whole.
This is exactly what IT wants, and by the looks of how episode six ends, there’s a chance that regular human characters will make IT’s job easier. If anyone has a possibility of defeating IT, then they definitely cannot do it alone.
