It: Welcome to Derry’s Big Twist Reverses Pennywise’s Worst Kills

Warning: Spoilers ahead for It: Welcome to Derry season 1, episode 7, “The Black Spot.”

While It: Welcome to Derry has changed a lot of Pennywise’s villainous lore, the evil entity’s new backstory found a particularly ingenious way to reverse the killer clown’s modus operandi. It: Welcome to Derry changed Pennywise’s powers numerous times, but the opening scene of season 1, episode 7, “The Black Spot,” took things further than ever.

The episode’s extended cold open was set in 1908, and the flashback focused on Bob Gray, a carnival worker who performed onstage as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. A favorite of local children, Gray was an ordinary human children’s performer, with an adoring daughter and a late wife who once performed as part of his act.

Although he looked just like It: Welcome to Derry’s killer clown Pennywise onstage, 1908’s Gray was a genuinely harmless and seemingly sweet man. He looked forward to letting his daughter take her mother’s role in his double act and was happy to hear just how much the young crowd of viewers enjoyed his show.

It Takes The Form of a Lost Child To Possess Bob Gray/Pennywise

That was, until Gray was targeted by It. Before the entity known as It ever took the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the monster killed Gray himself. It seemingly did this to absorb his essence, meaning the evil entity could then imitate him in years to come. The entity appeared to Gray as a young lost boy.

Standing at the edge of the woods while Gray smoked outside the carnival, the boy complimented his clowning and then implored the entertainer to help him find his missing mother. Gray left with the boy and was never seen again, though his blood-soaked handkerchief was discovered and given to his grieving daughter.

It was tragic to discover that It: Welcome to Derry’s Ingrid Kersh wasn’t lying when she claimed her father was Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and that the unhinged woman clearly believed Derry’s resident shape-shifting monster was her missing father. However, what made this twist even more effective is the fact that the storyline reversed Pennywise’s worst kills.

Pennywise’s Worst Killings Saw Him Target Lost Children

Pennywise takes many forms to kill many characters throughout the novel It, the movies It and It: Chapter 2, and It: Welcome to Derry. However, all of his most upsetting kills have the same thing in common. Their victims are all children, as Pennywise is a rare horror franchise villain who doesn’t think twice about violently killing kids.

Whether it is Georgie in It, whose death sets the entire novel and movie series in motion, or Victoria, the little girl under the bleachers in It: Chapter 2, Pennywise’s nastiest murders all happen to defenseless kids. As such, it is surreal and surprising to see a seemingly innocent child lure the clown himself to his death in “The Black Spot.”

While It: Welcome to Derry’s Black Spot massacre was the episode’s most upsetting sequence, it was still chilling to see a child lead Gray to his death so soon after viewers were introduced to Pennywise’s human inspiration for the first time. Just as viewers got their heads around the idea that Pennywise was once an ordinary man, he was doomed.

There was a poetic irony in seeing the clown that has led so many kids to their deaths being led astray by a child, but of course, this isn’t quite accurate. Bob Gray was just an ordinary carnival performer, not the ageless monster of Derry, and the child that fooled him wasn’t really a kid, but rather another disguise for this Lovecraftian, shape shifting villain.

It: Welcome to Derry Makes Pennywise’s Story So Much Worse

Finding out that Bob Gray was great with kids and loved working with them makes Pennywise’s using the late man’s form to kill them even worse. It was already pretty twisted that Pennywise adopted a dead person’s personality to wear their face and kill people, but doing so specifically so he could target kids is terrifying.

To make matters worse, Gray’s genuine love of kids appears to be the reason that his daughter spent so long fooling herself into thinking it was her father. While in It: Welcome to Derry’s Ingrid Kersh becomes a conduit for Pennywise herself by the time It: Chapter 2 takes place, in It: Welcome to Derry, Madeleine Stowe’s younger version of the character is his hapless lackey.

She brings Pennywise children to eat in the boiler room beneath Juniper Hill Asylum, but seems to be blissfully unaware that he is killing them down there. Years later, she tracks Ronnie, Lily, Will, and Rich when they visit the cemetery, hoping to be reunited with the monster that she thinks is her father.

When this was first revealed, it seemed like Lily must have been entirely unhinged. However, the revelation of her father’s kindness, as well as her young age when he went missing, explains how It: Welcome to Derry’s misguided character could possibly think that the It villain was really her father, rather than a child-eating monster.