SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the first six episodes of IT: Welcome To Derry. If you have not yet watched, do yourself a favor and take advantage of your HBO Max subscription before proceeding!
Reflecting on the constant demand for instant gratification in 21st century society, the HBO series IT: Welcome To Derry executed a big gamble in its on-going first season. While fans around the world hungered for the return of Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise The Dancing Clown, the show held off on showcasing its titular entity’s most notorious form until the fifth episode of its eight episode run… which resulted in a fair amount of frustrated chatter on social media. The reason for this approach has been the subject of much discussion, with filmmakers in interviews putting a strong emphasis on exploring IT’s shapeshifting abilities, but the true explanation at the end of the day is that it required some real convincing in order to get Skarsgård to reprise his most beloved character.
