IT: Welcome to Derry Introduces the First Version of the Losers Club (And They Need Their Own Movie)

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The new series, IT: Welcome to Derry, is mainly set in 1962, 27 years before the events of the first IT movie. This allows the show to explore how a past generation fought against Pennywise and his terrifying cycle. However, the series also flashes back to 1935 and 1908, revealing a much longer history of horror in Derry. The latest episode goes even further back in time than ever before, showing the origins of Pennywise and introducing the very first group of people who fought against it – the original Losers’ Club.

Warning: Spoilers below for IT: Welcome to Derry, Episode 4

The fourth episode of IT: Welcome to Derry shares a story from the Shokopiwah tribe, passed down through many generations. They believe Pennywise arrived millions of years ago inside a meteor, which acted like a prison. The meteor broke apart upon impact, freeing the creature, but leaving it very weak. The Shokopiwah, who called the monster “Galloo,” stayed safe by avoiding its lair. However, when European settlers arrived, they didn’t listen to the tribe’s warnings and entered the woods, giving the creature a large meal and allowing it to regain its power.

When a powerful new threat emerged from the Western Woods, the Shokopiwah tribe felt defeated – until their young people stepped up. A group of children and teenagers, armed with a knife made from the meteor that gave Pennywise its power, courageously entered the creature’s lair. They used pieces of the meteor that originally trapped it to build a magical barrier around its territory, a barrier the Shokopiwah still guard centuries later. This act mirrors a key theme throughout the story: just as Bill Denbrough and his friends fought Pennywise in 1989, and another group of kids is uniting in 1962, IT: Welcome to Derry suggests that the bravery of youth is the only thing that can truly defeat Pennywise’s ancient evil.

The Native Children of Derry Deserve Their Own Story

Featuring the Shokopiwah tribe is a major improvement over how indigenous history was handled in IT Chapter Two. That film tried to connect the Ritual of Chüd to the Native people of Derry, but didn’t give them a real role in the story. This new series fixes that by showing the tribe as the original keepers of the entity’s secrets and the ones who first trapped it. However, even with this progress, the flashback scenes still primarily serve the plot rather than developing the characters. While we see the young warriors’ courage and cleverness in building the cage to contain the entity, the story doesn’t give them the same individual personalities and backstories as the main characters in the 1960s and 1980s.

The decision to keep the original Losers’ Club hidden in IT: Welcome to Derry is a missed opportunity. Stephen King’s stories are powerful because of the relationships between characters, and this prequel doesn’t fully explore those connections. A full-length film focusing on this time period would allow audiences to really understand who these kids were, what motivated them to fight Pennywise, and the personal costs of their bravery. Giving this flashback its own story wouldn’t just deepen the mythology of the creature, but also give the heroes who first defeated it the recognition they deserve. Especially since the film and previous movies have added the fictional Shokopiwah tribe to the story, it feels right to give them a central role as well.

New episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry premiere on HBO every Sunday.

Interested in seeing a movie just about the Shokopiwah tribe’s initial fight with the Galloo? Let us know in the comments and join the discussion on the ComicBook Forum!

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2025-11-19 20:17