'IT: Welcome to Derry' Episode 4 Recap: What Happened?

"Goddamn. When I recapped Alien: Earth earlier this year, I thought I knew gross. I've seen Ichi the Killer. AndEyes Without a Face. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. The Human Centipede! I've bore witness to profane videos of Internet legend. I truly thought I knew horror and depravity, and that I had a stomach of steel. But IT: Welcome to Derry has taken a step beyond what I thought was possible on mainstream television."

"We begin with children holding evidence of the supernatural; what they get are shrugs from cynical, condescending cops. We continue with a Black woman, Charlotte (Taylour Paige) demanding justice for an innocent man; what she gets are shrugs from cynical, condescending cops. (I'm sensing a pattern here.) We end with an elaborate flashback to Derry's beginnings: How Pennywise came to this earth, how the Natives knew his evil and took it upon themselves to keep it contained,"

"In the morning light after their ordeal in the graveyard, the kids present their photographs of ghostsand Pennywiseto Chief Bowers (Peter Outerbridge). But instead of validation for their work (these kids have evidence of the damn supernatural!), they get nothing but rolling eyes, cynicism, and threats to send Lilly (Clara Stack) "back to the nut house." It's a good time to bring up once more that the dark undercurrents of IT: Welcome to Derry are its reminders"

Episode four centers on the Losers Club confronting both a supernatural threat and a town's entrenched indifference. The children present photographic evidence to authorities and receive skepticism, threats, and dismissal. Charlotte seeks justice for an innocent man and encounters the same callous, condescending response from police. The episode includes a gruesome body-horror attack on Marge and an extended flashback detailing Pennywise's arrival, the Native community's efforts to contain the entity, and settlers' complicity in unleashing lasting evil. Themes of disbelief, systemic racism, colonial violence, and communal denial interweave with explicit gore to underscore how the town refuses to believe innocent victims.

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