IT Welcome To Derry First Impression: Shocking 1st episode introduces gruesome killings with major cliffhanger
IT Welcome To Derry Episode 1: The series opens with Matty (Miles Ekhardt) facing a gruesome incident, leading viewers to ponder whether he is actually dead or not.
Last Updated: 03.01 PM, Oct 27, 2025
IT: Welcome to Derry is an American supernatural horror television series. Based on Stephen King's 1986 novel It, the series is also a prequel to the films It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019). Bill Skarsgård is reprising his role as Pennywise from the films. The first episode of IT: Welcome to Derry, titled The Pilot, opens with shocking events, leading viewers to hold their breath till the end.
IT: Welcome to Derry episode 1
IT: Welcome to Derry episode 1, titled The Pilot, which will remind you of Stranger Things in bits and pieces. What begins with an innocent setting soon turns into a gruesome event. It opened with a young boy watching a musical film in an auditorium, but he was chased by an usher for sneaking in for free. One young girl saved him for a while, but he was again chased. As the young boy tried to save himself, he was offered a lift by a family who was passing by the road in a car. It seemed normal at first, but later he realised something was wrong with them.
In the car, the daughter was touching liver out of a bloody tin, the brother was spelling every word, which became terrifying, while the father refused to listen to the young boy who was asking them to let him get out of the car and the mother suddenly had a labour pain and a terrifying demon baby came out of her womb. The young boy's pacifier flew out of the car, dropped into the river near Derry, and floated down the sewer. This is how the plot developed for the epiosde 1.
The young boy named Matty is dead?
Matty, the young boy, had three friends - Lilly (Clara Stack), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), and Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler). The friends had already made peace with the fact that Matty was dead until one day Lilly heard Matty's voice from the sink of her bathtub. She informed Phil and Teddy, but they were sceptical. One day, Teddy asked his father about Matty in an indirect way. He asked if it's possible to trap someone underground. His father told him about the horrors of the Holocaust and what his family survived. He described how the Nazis used to make lampshades from the skins of concentration camp victims. Later, Teddy found his lampshade with faces stitched inside it. This made Phil, Teddy, and Lilly research further about the truth of Matty.
They went to the library and found out about Ronnie (Amanda Christine), the daughter of the Capital Theatre owner’s daughter, the one who saved Matty from the user for a while. Ronnie admitted that she also had heard the voices like them.
Ronnie, along with Teddy, his little sister Susie (Matilda Legault), Lilly, and Phil, went to the theatre to watch The Music Man, a musical with the song that Lilly heard Matty singing in the bathtub drain. When the film started playing, the song was screened where the character told the “mothers of River City” to stop the trouble from coming to the town. A moment later, they saw Matty in the movie, holding a baby. When they screamed his name to come out of the screen, Matty walked closer to the audience on the screen and started blaming them for being stuck on the screen and said that he was stuck there because they did not come.
After a while, Matty's face changed to a terrifying one, and the baby that he was holding came out from the screen. It was that demon baby. It ripped apart Teddy, then Phil, and Susie, while Lilly narrowly saved herself. Seeing this, Ronnie came downstairs from the projection room and asked Lilly how it happened.
While it is too early to judge a series with only the first episode out, IT: Welcome to Derry definitely has built an amazing anticipation, leaving viewers to ponder whether Matty is actually dead or not and what exactly happened to Phil, Teddy, and Susie.
Also Read: IT Welcome To Derry on OTT: When and where to watch episodes 2 - 8 of supernatural horror series
The first episode has gruesome killings, terrifying events, while the events look a bit scattered. While it's clear that Episode 1 ended with a cliffhanger, the haphazard way in which the series set up the characters and then promptly killed them makes it difficult to grasp the story. It felt like the characters were dead even before they were fully introduced to the viewers. One line for episode 1: 'We want more.'
Catch a new episode every Monday on JioHotstar and OTTplay Premium at 6:30 am IST. Notably, only episode 2 will be released on November 1 instead of November 3.
FAQs:
Q. Where to watch IT: Welcome to Derry?
A. IT: Welcome to Derry first episode is now streaming on JioHotstar and OTTplay Premium.
Q. Who is the villain of IT: Welcome to Derry?
A. IT: Welcome to Derry will revolve around the haunting dancing clown, Pennywise, and will trace his origin story.
Q. Is IT: Welcome to Derry based on a novel?
A. Yes, IT: Welcome to Derry is based on Stephen King’s epic horror novel series.