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overthinking entertainment

IT: Welcome to Derry: 29 Neibolt Street - Season 1, Episode 5

The US Military disregards expert advice to seek an end to the Cold War, the 60's Losers attempt a rescue mission, and a trip to Shawshank Prison is diverted.
In a surprisingly less what the heck episode, General Shaw comes clean with Major Hanlon about the facts of the mission and sends him, with Halloran, into the sewers of Derry to find the black columns to allow the Air Force to successfully trap IT. Rose attempts to warn Shaw that it's a ridiculous plan. It goes as well as you might think.

The Losers discover Mattie, pale and long haired, hiding in their water tower club house, and Mattie claims that prior to escaping from IT, Phil, one of the doomed movie going kids from episode one, was still alive. They decide to mount a rescue mission, joined by ex-Pattycake Marge. It goes as well as you might think.

Hank is placed on a bus to take him to Shawshank Prison, but not before an attempted lynching by one of the father's of the missing children. Never the less, the bus leaves Derry and well, it goes as well as you think. Of note, the married white woman, whom Hank was with the night of the murders, is Ingrid Kirsch, the same woman Lily had sought for advice.
posted by Atreides on Nov 24, 2025 at 6:57 AM

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the bus leaves Derry and well, it goes as well as you think

But does so ... entirely off-screen? Which seems like an odd choice for a show which has so far taken a very literal "put everything on-screen in the most maximal way possible" approach. Are they saving that "something attacked the bus" for a flashback?

I felt the "no that's not Mattie" reveal worked ... kind of OK? but the pale makeup really undercut it a bit; like none of the Losers were like, look, he looks like he's cold and dead already?

The sewer scenes felt like they had no sense of place -- like, where are these various groups of people relative to each other and where they started out from? Maybe that's reusing a limited amount of set, maybe it's deliberately disorientating, but it ended up feeling like Will and his dad crossing paths was rather inorganic and forced.

I dunno; it's all fun enough but it still feels like the show is not really coming together for me.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:11 PM

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Given that it's been 5 episodes, I actually forgot who the hell Matty was. It wasn't until he talked about not going back to his dad's I was like "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh THAT kid." That's kind of the problem of having so many characters in so many storylines, it's difficult keep track of them all.

I'm still having trouble feeling anything for the proto-Losers. But I can believe they would accept Matty at face value because they are so desperate to believe their friends could have survived It. Also just generally have terrible decision making skills like taking three unknown pills and going for it instead of taking just one first to see how it goes. Like even for kids that just seems incredibly dumb.

I knew from the moment Hanlon said, "Shoot anyone who doesn't belong here" that this was an obvious set up for running into the kids and someone getting killed.

The show just keeps getting more complex now with Ingrid Kirsch being Hank's lover, and yeah I just do not care about that at all. The plot should be tightening up at this point, but it feels like it's sprawling more and more and I care less and less.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:10 PM

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The blocking on the scene where Hanlon accidentally shoots his army buddy was laughably bad. It had all the spatial logic of one of those Looney Tunes gags where Elmer Fudd shoots Bugs at point blank range with a shotgun only to end up inexplicably blasting himself in the face.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:28 PM

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Atom Eyes: "The blocking on the scene where Hanlon accidentally shoots his army buddy was laughably bad. It had all the spatial logic of one of those Looney Tunes gags where Elmer Fudd shoots Bugs at point blank range with a shotgun only to end up inexplicably blasting himself in the face."

I'll co-sign this. I thought he was hitting the gun barrel down, not throwing himself in front of the gun.

The second Matty showed up I was hollering, "That's It you kids. IT." They didn't hear me. Given the last time they saw him, he was on a film screen screaming at them, so having someone in person probably was more reassuring.

Did Taniel make it? If not, tough. Indigenous Team shouldn't have to take an L on this one. I'm hoping Lilly eventually returns the meteorite dagger thingy. It was nice to get more of the tribe's discussion about It and the confirmation that the town of Derry was built within the perimeter of the cage. Hanlon's reaction was 100% on mark. I don't know why Charlotte thought Will would stay on base, however. Meh. I'd like to think Hanlon is going to put his son under house arrest or something, goodness.

As weird as it sounds, I feel there is some momentum here between the military finally going after It, a confirmation of what happened to the kids (Phil, technically, I think was still up in the air, and I was expecting him, not Matty to pop out of the tent).
posted by Atreides at 2:28 PM

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I thought he was hitting the gun barrel down, not throwing himself in front of the gun.

I also thought this so when he coughed blood, I was very confused.

I do wish we knew what the hell happened with Taniel, but I can't imagine he made it far down there without the weapon.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:20 PM

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Oh, show. You dumb silly show.

I have previously given props to the military storyline, because while an utterly idiotic idea to think you can contain a malevolent creature for the use in the Cold War, it's still pretty interesting. Well, sending a bunch of soldiers into the sewers under 20 Neibolt Street was not only stupid, but pretty not interesting? Not even in a fun horror "let's watch a bunch of NPCs get killed" way. Short King Sidekick gets killed in the dumbest way possible by a man whose whole special sauce is Not Afraid because let me tell you, that feller seemed pretty damned afraid.

Shepherd and I losing it with the whole "let's take Valium, at least three!" vibe from the kids. I am like, "Y'all will be too asleep to be afraid, you muppets." Also, I called it when Matty showed up! I said, "Guys, that's Pennywise. For realsies." Shepherd said he didn't think Pennywise could bi-locate and I am like, oh just you wait. This is so obvious for this dumb silly show.

MVPs: Charlotte Hanlon, just because she's damn near the only decent adult in the show except for Rose, our other MVP. Chris Chalk is still compulsively watchable, but I do need a Kinghead to explain the scariness of his mind's lockbox being opened. I know it was a trick he taught Danny Torrance but I don't know what it means when it's open.

Pennywise's mouth full of sharpened teeth is only frightening once, imho. After that, you're like, I bet Derry has a dentist who can help with that.

I'm in until the finale but this episode could have been so much tighter and tenser, it's a real shame it was so narratively messy.
posted by Kitteh at 3:46 PM

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I'm not sure if answering about the lockbox is allowed here or not as it involves info from Doctor Sleep.
posted by miss-lapin at 5:23 PM

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Maybe I was just in a good mood, but I thought this episode was a ton of fun. A few notes:

The sewer scenes felt like they had no sense of place -- like, where are these various groups of people relative to each other and where they started out from? Maybe that's reusing a limited amount of set, maybe it's deliberately disorientating, but it ended up feeling like Will and his dad crossing paths was rather inorganic and forced.

I read that as A) deliberately disorienting and B) Pennywise setting the dad up to shoot his own kid. First Pennywise attacks Major Hanlon with an illusion of his wife, getting Hanlon accustomed to the idea that he needs to shoot these illusions even if they seem like family members. Then Pennywise herds the kids in front of the Dad. So in a way it was forced, but only by Pennywise's extreme affection for messing with people.

I have previously given props to the military storyline, because while an utterly idiotic idea to think you can contain a malevolent creature for the use in the Cold War, it's still pretty interesting.

I really liked that the writers brought the Cold War in as a big thematic element! The original book is basically 800 pages of Stephen King going "Does this scare you? Does this scare you? What about this?" and I think that for many people, even if many of the scenes don't land, there will be at least a few scenes that are genuinely frightening, as King throws every phobia he can think of out on the page. So taking the story back to the 1950's and earlier, what are the new/old fears that people would have? And so you have the colonialism/proselytization from the previous episode, or the empowered racist hillbilly cop that Charlotte Hanlon glimpses, or the big one, global thermo-nuclear war. I could see something where Pennywise would loooove to both free himself and feed on that global zeitgeist of nuclear terror.

I could also see a situation like in the Silent Hill movie or Made in Abyss Season 3, where you have a paranormal entity trapped in a prison that it cannot escape from, and so it tries to smuggle a splinter of itself to the outside world, so that the splinter can then act from the outside to finally break open the prison. This might be why General Francis Shaw is so dead-set on his plan to try and weaponize Pennywise, despite the increasingly obvious insanity of the plan. The General was blighted by Pennywise 27 years before, and might still be acting under a sort of long-term compulsion/tampering/parasitization that pushes him to help free the clown.


Also:
Super-duper soft, like a kitty-cat's belly.
I laughed at this.
posted by Balna Watya at 6:02 PM

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How long has Marcellus Wallace's soul been missing? Also, the only way to enter the sewer that coincidentally connects all the pillars is via a well that connects to the sewer underneath the Neiman house (or wtf ever), aside from the entrance the kids use, and the fact that it is a fucking sewer and if there are no entrances and exits it obviously can't be a sewer and ughhh. Ok I am hate watching the show and I don't want to ruin anyone else's good time, but everything about it sucks.

Oh but one more thing, can we to talk about Hanlon being a person who doesn't know fear but is still the biggest fraidy-cat on earth? Ugh, this show sucks.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:47 AM

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Literaryhero: "Also, the only way to enter the sewer that coincidentally connects all the pillars is via a well that connects to the sewer underneath the Neiman house (or wtf ever), aside from the entrance the kids use, and the fact that it is a fucking sewer and if there are no entrances and exits it obviously can't be a sewer and ughhh."

The well at Neibolt street was never the answer to where do we find the pillars. It was Taniel's decision to basically feed the military to IT. I'm speculate that IT as Matty brought the kids to the sewer entrance that would best serve them right up to his lair or there abouts, which was the same plan as Taniel, so it makes sense the two things are close together.

I think with Leroy Hanlon, he wasn't afraid in the sewer, so much confused when confronted by the hallucinations.

miss-lapin: "I'm not sure if answering about the lockbox is allowed here or not as it involves info from Doctor Sleep."

I think you can discuss the practical aspect or whatever, without talking about the details of Doctor Sleep. I assume it'd be like discussing what the Force is, which is doable, without spoiling Empire Strikes Back or whatever SW film. Throw it behind a spoiler tag, though, if concerned!
posted by Atreides at 7:20 AM

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Alright I hope this works. Regarding the lockbox
[Click for spoiler]The lockbox contains all of his traumatic memories and, more importantly, "bad shines" (malevolent or corrupted spirits). We see the manifestation of those bad shines being released when Hallorann sees the spirit of Capt Pauly. Releasing these memories and spirits not only will torment Hallorann, but also strengthen It, which feeds on fear.

posted by miss-lapin at 7:46 AM

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I gave up on this after the graveyard and camera episode. Suddenly felt like I was watching The Goonies or some other fluffy kid entertainment. The bikes and ghosts and camera sequence was just silly. It no longer feels like there are any stakes or danger. Except when they slip in a goofy/gross cgi sequence.

Without stakes there can be no real horror. This show is just lame. I hope others continue to enjoy it but I am out.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:59 AM

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Not to mention that printing photos doesn't work like that. Magically printing photos with no experience is ludicrous. They never even developed the negatives!! It's like half a serious horror show for adults with child death, racism issues and such, and half Harry Potter.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:03 AM

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Yeah, pretty much agreed on the directing and writing just blowing any promise that the early ideas might have had. The military stuff is lazily ludicrous: a three-star general with no command staff and with zero unit or service decorations on the right side of his uniform, commanding a roughly 10-person squad-size element (typical arrangement = squad w/ staff sergeant + 2 sergeants + 6 lower enlisted; 3 squads = platoon led by lieutenant) led by a colonel, directing a major and a captain to act like grunts, never mind that Air Force simply doesn't do that stuff, and a lower enlisted Halloran they mistakenly describe as "private" but who's in the Air Force with the rank insignia of an airman, and 2 officers would never have had their chin straps undone in front of both their superior and a lower enlisted. . . The writers didn't even bother.

The valium stuff, too. Just stupid. With that body mass, exactly what Kitteh said: those kids would have been passed out. Even if not passed out, they wouldn't have been semi-hallucinating or anxious—three Valiums and you are just delighted to not give an eff about aaaaaaanythink ha ha haaaaaa pffft, etc.

One wants to tell the writers: "This is not hard: go take three valium right now and report back." No, wait, never mind—they've already been doing so.
posted by Deminime at 12:31 AM

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The well at Neibolt street was never the answer to where do we find the pillars. It was Taniel's decision to basically feed the military to IT. I'm speculate that IT as Matty brought the kids to the sewer entrance that would best serve them right up to his lair or there abouts, which was the same plan as Taniel, so it makes sense the two things are close together.

Ok, so then no one in the military decided to like consult any maps or anything before just blindly following Taniel and jumping into the well? I am not arguing with you here, the whole idea of this is just ridiculous.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:06 AM

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Ok I am hate watching the show and I don't want to ruin anyone else's good time, but everything about it sucks.

You can be right and the show can still be Fun Crap.

I mean, B-52 pilots don't automagically know how to fly helicopters, much less whatever additional weirdness is associated with tandem helicopters. Likewise, contrary to what Hanlon says on the radio, a CH-47 is not "USAF KC-135," and that is not how radio callsigns work anyhoo. (They're much more about [spinaltap] who you are and what you are doing [/spinaltap])

Which is to say, there is a LOT this show just doesn't give a shit about. But, somehow, it comes together in a way that's still fun for me, like the show is a half-assed monster movie from 1986.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:56 AM

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Literaryhero: "Ok, so then no one in the military decided to like consult any maps or anything before just blindly following Taniel and jumping into the well? I am not arguing with you here, the whole idea of this is just ridiculous."

They got this far relying on the psychic powers of one person, and on top of that, basically at the pure direction and belief of the commanding general. Who either has gone rogue and has not told the Pentagon of his plan to unleash a fear monster on the USSR or his idea is being lumped into the tentative attempts at weaponizing psychic powers during the Cold War, which was probably seen as ludicrous by most at the time as is. Just imagine the conversation somewhere with Shaw going, "So they gave me this injection, and I suddenly remembered this monster that tried to devour me when I was 10 years old. I think we can win the war!"

It definitely is ridiculous, but the ridiculousness is flowing at a proper rate I suppose?

TBH, I have never gone into any Stephen King adaptation with an expectation that everything will make sense. I 100% support anyone's frustrated, disappointed, or at wits end take on how this show is going.

GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: "Which is to say, there is a LOT this show just doesn't give a shit about. But, somehow, it comes together in a way that's still fun for me, like the show is a half-assed monster movie from 1986."

And this is pretty much it. I do think the creators do care in certain ways, and in other ways, they also know what genre they are playing in.
posted by Atreides at 7:12 AM

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You can be right and the show can still be Fun Crap.

100%. This formula is why I flippin' loved Teen Wolf and why I will always take to the barricades to defend both how dumb it is and how fun it is.

Now WTD is not Teen Wolf levels of fun, but I am still intrigued by the premise, despite how flimsy it can be.

OH - thanks miss-lapin for the Lockbox Explanation. There have been more artices in the days since also clarifying the question I had asked. I guess we're gonna find out what was in there that Halloran didn't want out.
posted by Kitteh at 7:27 AM

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So sick of the too-many teeth. It's not scary, it just looks goofy, stupid. I think this show peaked at the grocery store scene. Every "scary" thing since then has been some lameass overly CGI mess that wasn't scary or even visually interesting. Again I will state, one extra tooth is a thousand times scarier than a thousand teeth stuffed into a mouth in a way that it couldn't even work as a mouth, too many teeth to even bite anything.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:23 AM

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YES. I do not find many-teethed (toothed?) Pennywise scary. Like, if Pennywise wants to scare me, appear as my absentee father somehow still not taking responsibility for his actions.
posted by Kitteh at 9:29 AM

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For me it's the SUDDENLY RUSHES TOWARDS YOU thing; which sure, scary the first time, but Muschietti's monsters do it every damn time.

I find myself quite annoyed by the explanation that Derry's a bad place because It's "discharge" has been fouling the groundwater. Like: it was fine to leave that vague, for it to be just a general idea that It's presence turns people bad: a psychic pollution. Making it a literal pollution feels unnecessary mechanistic; and to what purpose?

On the sense of place in the tunnels: it really didn't feel like Lily found the dagger in the same place that Taniel dropped it? Taniel loses it in the sewers while he's running away; Lily finds it at a dead-end exit grate.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:39 AM

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