If you’re a horror fan, odds are you’re watching IT: Welcome to Derry every Sunday on HBO. Ever since the show debuted October 26, and has become a ratings juggernaut for the network. Furthermore it has enhanced the mythology established in IT and IT: Chapter Two, frankly surpassing the latter by adding more depth to it (as evidenced by this past week’s episode). This is due to the masterful work from showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane. And we had an exclusive chance to sit down with Fuchs to discuss the series and the shocking twists from this Sunday’s episode!
IT: Welcome to Derry has broken new ground for the IT franchise, weaving a mystery surrounding Pennywise’s attacks on the community with political and social commentary about racism and the dark effects it has on society. Week after week, audiences have been treated to genuinely horrific and shocking scenes of nightmare fuel, with the terrifying clown finally unveiling himself in this season’s fifth episode. However, last night, audiences witnessed another shocking revelation.
WARNING: There are massive spoilers ahead. So if you have not seen Episode Six yet, watch it and return to this interview for more!
(**SPOILER ALERT**) It turns out Lilly Bainbridge’s (Clara Stack) new friend from Juniper Hill Asylum, Ingrid (Madeleine Stowe), is none other than Mrs. Kersh — the old woman Beverly encountered in IT: Chapter 2 — and the daughter of the man whose identity Pennywise took over. Furthermore, she has been the clown stalking the kids in the cemetery and around Derry. (**SPOILER ALERT**)
For anyone who is a huge fan of the IT mythology, this is a pretty crazy revelation, as well as a creepy one. Knowing Pennywise basically had an accomplice at one point, as well as adding depth to the mythology and origins of the terrifying horror icon is astonishing. And thankfully we had the chance to chat with Fuchs about that twist and the insane directions the series has been taking all season.
Here’s what he had to say:
NOC: So I want to tell you that I’m caught up to episode six. They gave us the sixth episode screener this past week. I know that’s coming out this Sunday.
Fuchs: This is very exciting, because you were the first person I’ve spoken to who has seen episode six. So I am deeply curious to see your reaction and hear your questions. I have not spoken to anyone. The secrecy on this show is so intense, that you’re doing the junket and the carpets, you’re sort of like, “What am I allowed to say? What am I allowed to touch on?” So okay, episode six has officially been shared. This is good!
It is awesome, Jason! Oh my god! I didn’t realize that we were going to take it back to IT: Chapter Two and explore the origins of one of the most terrifying scenes in that movie. And Madeline Stowe does an amazing job. This is such a creepy twist, and getting to revisit the scene with Beverly in Chapter Two was was the biggest and most wonderful surprise of this episode. So I get the secrecy. I love the secrecy, and it’s keeping me on the edge of my seat every single episode, week after week make me want more the next.
Fuchs: Seriously, that is, that’s music to my ears. That’s an amazing response! I think the twist in Episode Six, the reveal of Ingrid and Mrs. Kirsch and Periwinkle, and all that coming together, is one of my favorite twists of the season. It’s one of the sort of most insane creative swings I think we took. It’s pretty out there, but it also felt emotionally and somatically, very plugged into the structure and the story of the season and what we were trying to accomplish. So I remember the day I pitched that; we had a writer’s room on the Fox lot. And I remember being in my office with my co showrunner Brad, and saying to Brad, “wait, this might be insane, but what if this?” And I remember Brad saying, “Wait, my brain is melting. Hold on a second. So you’re telling me, the clown they’ve been seeing is not Pennywise?” It was so much fun because he experienced that notion in real time. Brad, and our assistant, Arthur… it was really the three of us in the room before we shared it with anyone, before the Muschiettis knew, before the room knew, was this little private secret of ours. And we just were excited by the possibilities. And it felt truly surprising. It felt really emotional. The idea that you’d have a character who was driven purely by a love of her dad. It’s all love. She really lost her dad at a young age, obviously. And she misses him, and she doesn’t know what this apparition means. But she wants to see him again. That felt really relatable. And the notion that there was another threatened area… something else going on, felt like it was very true to the spirit of the book, to the spirit of Stephen King, and really the genre in general. You know, horror is intended to shock and surprise, and sometimes that can take the form of a jump scare, but it also can take the form of these really emotional, hopefully shocking story turns. And this was one of those that I think we’re the proudest of, once we started to understand how it might operate.
You are speaking my language because that is my preference when scares are rooted in emotion and character that makes it even scarier. The other thing that I love about this is we are getting this twist in an episode that’s so centered on fathers. You get the Hanlon’s, then the Grogans reuniting. There’s so much going on there. And the Mrs. Kirsch twist is almost a foil to the types of love that are going on with these fathers and their kids, which I thought was just completely interesting. What inspired that?
Fuchs: Well, I was always interested in the Mrs. Kirsch character. IT: Chapter Two was written by the phenomenally talented Gary Dauberman , who also co wrote IT: Chapter One. But I had come on to do production rewrites on [Chapter Two], and ended up co-producing the film with the Muschiettis. And one of the scenes that I was tasked with writing was Mrs. Kersch. So I’ve always been really intrigued by that character. And it occurred to me, even as I was writing that scene, that surely Mrs. Kersch has been long dead. If you think about the timeframe, you think about how Pennywise must have been born 1908. If he had a daughter, she wouldn’t be alive in 2016. So you went, “Well, wait, what is Pennywise? What is IT doing here? Is this a totally phony story? Is this totally just something he made up, designed to freak out Beverly Marsh? Or is it rounded into some element of reality?” And it seemed more interesting that maybe there was a real story to this. And so that was a launching point. My questions about Mrs. Kersch really started with Andy and Barbara asking me to take a look at that scene on Chapter Two. And then as we started writing the series, it was something that came out of understanding the emotion that feels fresh in the context of Pennywise. And I mean that specifically, we’ve seen characters who are scared to see Pennywise, which is a very normal reaction. We’ve seen characters who are numb to Pennywise, or at least Pennywise’s evils, which seems to be most of the town, who seem anesthetized to this particular terror by the sort of numbing power of the fog of Derry. But the thing that I hadn’t seen was a character who was excited to see Pennywise.
And as an audience, it’s a good moment to be speaking about this. Because I think everyone has been so excited to see Pennywise. Finally, in Episode Five, the audience sees Pennywise. But we’ve never had that audience response represented in a character, because who in their right mind in the world of IT, and Welcome to Derry, would be excited to see Pennywise?
Well, it turns out this character would be. And so that felt really interesting. What if you had a character who looks forward to seeing Pennywise the Clown? What would that mean? How would you react? And I did think, “What are these twists? What are these emotional character driven moments that make you reassess your understanding of the season and make you reassess your understanding of the films?” And this felt, as we wrapped our minds around what it could be, like it was one of them. Because you suddenly look back on the season and you go, “Wait, that’s what Mrs. Kersch was up to.” You know, she’s very helpful to Lilly. She’s leading her right into that moment at the end of Episode Three, which presents one of the kids’ early collective experiences. And obviously the first moment we’ve seen Periwinkle in the flesh with that little hand reaching out in the catacombs with Will.
When she advises Lilly in Episode Five that you have to stick by your friends. That seems like really good advice, but obviously that’s her directing Lilly and the kids into the tunnels. And so we wanted that revelatory moment, and it felt like it dovetailed so cleanly and emotionally with this fresh approach to a character and their relationship to Pennywise.
But it also felt like it opened up a different kind of father-daughter dynamic. And so much of it, as you said, rightly deals with father-daughter dynamics. Obviously, in the original book, Beverly’s relationship with her dad is one of the key father-daughter arcs. In the context of Welcome to Derry, we have a few of those: notably Lilly and her late father who died in that accident. Ronnie obviously has a wonderful relationship with her dad, Hank; a tragic context, but her relationship with him seems really healthy and supportive. And their shared love of cinema, her fighting to prove he’s innocent. But what was a different version of a father-daughter relationship? The daughter of Pennywise seemed like…something emotional that we haven’t covered. And I think generally, that’s the trick with a show like this. You’re trying to deliver to an audience, and to the fans. I count myself among those fans. An experience that feels familiar and true to the canon in the book, but that also delivers something fresh if it’s not new, if it’s not different, if it’s not a little out of left field. You can just reread the book or watch those two brilliant movies that Andy and Barbara made. So it was, it was all of those things pulling together to generate this moment. And I’m thrilled that people, hopefully will feel like we pulled it off.
They’re gonna go nuts because I went nuts. The other things about this that I really love is you’re adding a lot more dimensionality to love. Love has always been one of those things that has been seen as something that can combat fear and take down Pennywise. But we’re also exploring a different side to love. Here, love can also corrupt, and through Mrs. Kersch, we’re seeing that, especially if it’s coming from a misguided place. So this series has added so much more depth to the two films we got. We got, wonderful movies that Andy directed, but we only get a total of four hours to really explore Derry and Pennywise. We don’t get a whole lot of answers in those two films because we only have a two hour runtime in each. So you’ve managed to lay out the foundations of everything that we saw in those first movies, but explore them on a deeper emotional level and narrative level, and that’s what I love here. So thank you so much for that.
Fuchs: It’s a credit to the medium, right? Even if you’re doing an extra long movie, and IT: Chapter Two is an extra long movie – two hours and 40 minutes – there’s only so much space to tell the story. And when you’re dealing with Stephen King material, which is so inherently complex, you have to simplify, and it’s really about economizing the narrative. How do you capture the feeling of a 1,000-plus page book in a relatively limited span of time. The gift of television is, it is long form storytelling. And so you really, in many ways, feel TV is a more organic medium to tackle something like IT because of its density, its complexity, and its length. And so we felt very lucky to be able to tell this story in the eight hour canvas that HBO had given us, because, as you said, you get to explore those complexities, and things get a lot more complicated. Love is a beautiful thing. Love is the unifying force that bonds our characters, and certainly in the film, still allows them to defeat IT. So far, it’s allowed our heroes to survive at least as far as they’ve gotten. But love is not simple. Love is complex. And there’s a dark side to love, and we see that in the relationship between Ingrid and the vestiges that remain of her late father in IT’s manifestation of Pennywise.
I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit here. The medium is part of it, but it’s also your writing and Brad’s writing and this team that you guys have assembled. Because anyone could do a cash grab, let’s be honest. Anyone could take a property, stick it on a platform, and just shell out something easy. But you guys are going the extra mile because you care about this and because you’re good writers, and because you’ve thought about the connections in such a deep and meaningful way. That’s because you’re fans just like us. So I have to give you all the credit in the world, and all the writers as well, for doing this so brilliantly.
Fuchs: Well, TV is a writer’s medium. And I think if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the screen. This is a this is a writer driven show. It’s a script oriented series. And I have to give a tremendous amount of credit on this episode, in particular to our co-writer, Cord Jefferson; a gentleman who was with us from the beginning. Cord was in the mini room that inaugurated this whole process. The mini room is myself, Cord, Brad, and Andy and Barbara. And Cord is a pretty unique and phenomenal writer. I think the world knows that now, given that he’s now an Emmy and Oscar winning writer. Cord is someone who has experience in genre, but is very good in everything he does, but particularly in genre about finding the universal human core. Watchmen, which he worked on with Damon [Lindelof] I think is one of the greatest televised events in recent memory, certainly of the last decade. I loved what he did with Watchmen. And the reason I was so excited was I didn’t know Cord before this experience, though I was a fan of his work. We’re very lucky to get him both in the mini room and then to come back and join us on these latter episodes. Cord brings a sense of humanity, and grounds his work in reality. And I think you couldn’t told the story like the story we’re telling in Episode Six without him, because it is such a it’s an insane twist. And if you go one inch in one direction, then an inch in the other, it can play silly. It can play over-the-top. This is a really delicate balance. And I give a lot of credit, obviously, to my co-showrunner, Brad, who is right at my side, and my collaborator throughout this. But particularly Cord on this episode, who came in and helped us find the humanity in Ingrid Kirsch. He deserves a lot of credit for that.
Oh yes! I’ve actually been such a fan of his. The work that he does with Jovan, too, it blew my mind, both in Watchmen and here. The way that he also explores the themes of race too, within the actual genres that he’s writing for; whether it’s Watchmen or IT; especially with the cliffhanger on this episode too. Moments here that end on those racial undertones are absolutely brilliant. I don’t think anyone out there can do what Cord does. He’s so good. If I can wrap up with one final question for you, Jason, wait there, and I’m so grateful for the time that you’ve spent.
Fuchs: It’s been so much fun. Like I said, it’s my first conversation about Episode Six. So I have so many thoughts floating around in my head.
Me too! I feel like I feel like I could just grab a beer with you and talk about this forever, dude! To wrap up, have you guys already thought about what you what you’re doing for the next iterations of Welcome to Derry, should that happen?
Fuchs: You know, we really tried to focus on telling a complete story in the context of this season. And without spoiling anything in terms of where this goes, I do think that by the end of these eight episodes, you will feel a sense of completion to the story that we’re telling with these characters, with this moment, with these mysteries. But as a Stephen King obsessive and an IT fan, I think it’s very hard when you’re writing it, not to let your mind wander, despite your best efforts, and think about where things would go in a Season Two. And where things would go into Season Three. So it was not our focus. It was not top of mind. But certainly! And I think this has been said publicly, probably by Andy at some point, this would go 27 years back, right? We would be in 1935 if we were lucky enough to tell another story in this IT universe. If there was an appetite for more, Welcome to Derry. I think everyone involved would be delighted to go on that ride and share those stories. So, yeah, it would be going back 27 years, and then another 27 years after that. What we had talked about was a three season plan. There is definitely a story that could be told in three chapters, were we lucky enough to be invited to tell it. And I think in any case, even if it was just this season, I do think that this is a story we feel really proud of, and that feels complete in its own right. So you know, there’s only so much you can control. We leave it to our partners at HBO and the viewers to decide for us our fate. But yeah, it’d be great if there was an opportunity to tell more stories.
I have a feeling we’re going to see more, and I have a feeling they’re going to be just as brilliant and self contained, potentially as Season One, because you guys have just knocked it the hell out of the park so far! Thank you so much for your contributions to this mythology! It’s been wonderful to watch this show. I know it’s resonating with everyone, so I can’t wait to see more!
Fuchs: That means a ton! I appreciate the coverage and I appreciate the conversation. So thank you, and thank you especially the kind words on the episode. I’m real proud of it, and it’s nice to hear nice to hear that it seems to maybe have worked.
If you’ve seen the episode, and watched it as a fan of IT, I have no doubt that it worked for you as much as it did for me! I simply cannot wait to see what the rest of the season holds for these characters, and what sort of messed up scares and twists will be in store for all of us. Huge thanks to Jason Fuchs for his time and incredible vision!
With only two more episodes left this season, IT: Welcome to Derry airs every Sunday on HBO! Be sure to catch it, so we can get more terror from this amazing team!
