The strength of HBO’s prequel, It: Welcome to Derry, lies in how it broadens Stephen King’s universe while honoring Andy Muschietti’s cinematic reinvention. By the early episodes the series has already explained how the Hanlon family arrived in Derry, revealed surprising ties between the town and The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, and even introduced a chilling incarnation of It that isn’t Pennywise. Those expansions are compelling — but the show also risks overreaching with new pieces of lore, and a recent development may have crossed that line.
Spoiler warning: major plot points from the first four episodes of It: Welcome to Derry follow.
Fans of the original novel and its screen adaptations know Bill Denbrough’s slingshot as a memorable prop: in the story, Beverly uses it against Pennywise when the children are young, yet the slingshot’s provenance is never explained. The prequel takes a different tack. While earlier episodes already depicted the slingshot in use, a later installment offers a concrete origin story for that weapon — or, arguably, invents a new set of rules for slingshots in Derry.
The episode flashes back to the early 1900s during one of It’s feeding cycles and follows a young boy who will later be known as General Shaw (played by James Remar as an adult). At a town fair he acquires a slingshot, then later trades it to a local Indigenous girl for a jar of water when his family’s car overheats. That same night he encounters a disturbing, elderly one‑eyed manifestation of It in the woods. As the creature grows and pursues him, the girl returns and uses the slingshot; her shot wounds It, allowing the boy to escape.
The two children briefly bond but are separated when Shaw’s family moves away. She returns his slingshot before they part, and decades later an adult Shaw comes back to Derry to spearhead the hunt for It — a return that dredges up memories of that girl, who has grown into Rose (Kimberly Norris Guerrero), a local shopkeeper. Earlier episodes had already shown the slingshot in use — most notably when Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) employs it during his search for the entity — but this new chapter ties a specific backstory to the familiar object.
That choice raises questions. In Stephen King’s original tale, there’s no connection between General Shaw and Bill Denbrough; Shaw is a new invention for the prequel. So is the series implying a familial link between Shaw and Bill, an unlikely thrift-shop origin for Bill’s slingshot, or a broader rule that slingshots carry some special potency against It? Each possibility alters the tone of the mythology in a different way.
Adding made‑up origins for small, incidental props can undermine what made the original story resonate. In King’s narrative the real power against It wasn’t the object but the children’s resolve: Beverly’s marksmanship and the group’s courage mattered more than the weapon itself. The memorable moment when Eddie sprays his inhaler and tells the clown “this is battery acid, you slime” works because the children confront their fear and act — not because they happen to possess a talismanic item.
If the show turns the slingshot into a kind of talismanic weakness for It, it risks shifting emphasis away from the emotional core of the tale — the children’s defiance of terror — toward a more conventional “weapon beats monster” solution. That would flatten the moral at the heart of King’s story.
So far, Welcome to Derry largely succeeds: it paints a richly haunted portrait of the town and its residents, and when it focuses on atmosphere and character the series is compelling. But when it begins to graft explicit lore onto incidental details, the narrative runs the risk of becoming needlessly prescriptive. There are still five episodes left in season one, and here’s hoping the series re-centers the stakes on fear, memory, and the courage of those who resist It.
The first three episodes of It: Welcome to Derry are currently streaming. The show airs Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
Source: Polygon
