Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | TV | November 12, 2025
Stephen King’s IT is incredibly thematically rich. Trauma, sexuality, memory, adolescence, evil, and so much more are at play in the author’s 1000-plus page tome. Having such strong building blocks allows for metaphors to take shape and strengthen the story. Pennywise the clown, who represents the evil we face (both subtle and overt), is a great example of this. However, my favorite is how the novel deals with memory.
One of the driving aspects of the story involves Mike Hanlon reaching out to his fellow Losers to alert them that Pennywise has returned. The issue is that not only have his friends forgotten the terrifying clown, they’ve also forgotten most of their time in Derry. The memory lapse, while portrayed as an effect of IT’s influence, can be viewed as representing repression. It’s the idea that we block out certain traumatic elements of our childhood, which gets easier the farther removed we are. How we really should be confronting them head-on, lest they fester and grow. And how we manage to keep secrets, even from ourselves.
It may not be the most subtle of metaphors, but subtlety is not something the novel would ever be accused of. Still, it serves as one of the most powerful engines in the story. Regaining their memories and their trauma is key to defeating this enemy from their past. It leads them on a revelatory journey through their childhood, and after they succeed, they forget everything for good. They close the circle. Even Mike, who had retained his memories because he remained in the cursed town as a lighthouse keeper of sorts, can finally move on.
The idea of people losing their memories of Derry becomes far less interesting when turned into a blatant plot device, void of any thematic resonance or significance. Then, it’s just an angle you can use to force in a plot that is, at best, ill-advised. That is what’s happening on IT: Welcome to Derry, a prequel to Andy Muschietti’s IT films, which already took significant liberties with the source material (not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that). A few more should be expected, but that doesn’t mean they will be welcome.
Before the show premiered, I had heard rumors that I attempted to avoid. People who had seen the show early were pulling apart the idea that Dick Hallorann, here seen in his pre-Shining military days, would be hunting Pennywise the Clown. That already feels odd for a host of reasons, chief among them being the fact that adults cannot see Pennywise. Though, to be fair, that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. But I’ll probably save that discussion for later, as I’m going to give the show a bit more of a chance to explain itself (like the over-trusting person I am). Plus, I like seeing King characters cross over (all things serve the beam).
Instead, I want to focus on why the military is hunting this other-dimensional being who serves no master and exists primarily to feed off of children (and, occasionally, adults) that it seasons with fear. General Francis Shaw, played by James Remar, ended the second episode of the series by telling Major Leroy Hanlon, played by Jovan Adepo, that he is on a top-secret mission to obtain a “fear-inducing weapon” that was buried in Derry hundreds of years ago. He hasn’t said it outright yet, but we can guess that he speaks of Pennywise.
That’s pretty dumb! Yes, plenty of fictional (and realistic) characters have had unrealistic, even foolish, goals that are driven by power, but good lord. Anyone watching this show is, arguably, familiar with what the future holds. Pennywise feeds and appears in 27-year cycles, and when we see IT in 1989, it’s certainly not a tool of the military. We know this is a doomed plan. But what makes it even more nonsensical is what we learn about Shaw’s relationship to the monster in episode three.
Episode three opens on a young Shaw having a chance encounter with IT, only to be saved by Rose, a Native American girl whom Shaw gave a slingshot. She uses it to launch a rock at the monster’s eye, as it was impersonating an old man Shaw had just been scared by. But, like, a grotesque version of the man. Monstrous, even! Which, honestly, removes a lot of the punch. Keeping him as a shriveled, one-eyed man would have been plenty scary.
Later on, an older Shaw reveals that he still has the slingshot and has given it to Hallorann to use as a beacon of sorts. Then, he visits an older Rose, played by Kimberly Norris Guerrero, at a shop he owns. There, it’s revealed they haven’t seen each other IN FIFTY YEARS!!!! Fifty! We’re still not one hundred percent certain how long they spent together, but it was, at most, a couple of months. Part of it could be his memories coming back, but it’s still been fifty years. He’s lived a whole other life.
The timeframe is also important because we find out this is Shaw’s first time back in Derry in all that time (though when his reunion with Rose takes place in the timeline of the show was even a bit confusing). Shaw claims that, when he arrived, his memories came flooding back. It usually takes a lot more than just arriving, and maybe we’ll see his journey later. Muschietti’s films place importance on the idea of having a totem to reconnect with memories, and the slingshot could be that, but it just all feels so hollow.
The reclamation of memory is an integral aspect of IT. Here, it feels like a shortcut to a half-thought-out idea. They needed to have the military chase Pennywise because it probably sounded fun in the writer’s room, so they found the easiest path to get there. Maybe Shaw’s backstory will be revealed as something richer, but for now, he saw a monster, was saved, and now, fifty years later, he wants to turn that monster into a weapon, and seems pretty certain he can do that … which is dumb.
That’s not even taking into account the fact that he was stationed in Derry, presumably by happenstance. He did not go there intentionally, that much we know. His return then just happened to coincide directly with one of Pennywise’s feeding cycles, which happen every 27 years. IT has the ability to manipulate people outside of Derry, but bringing back this random General makes no sense. Additionally, ole Pennywise seems a bit surprised by Dick Hallorann, whose presence also feels a little convenient.
This is one of those situations where they aren’t changing a character or a plot point. This show is taking something that has deep meaning to the story and slapping a gimmick angle on it. I loved Castle Rock. You want Dick Hallorann to fight Pennywise while Cujo watches with Dolores Claiborne, go nuts. But take all those ideas and go in a new direction. Don’t take something that had such emotional resonance and treat it as a means to an end. That sucks.
