ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 4 Breakdown - Stephen King Easter Eggs You Missed!

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

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These are all the Easter eggs references and little things you might have missed in It, Welcome to Derry, episode four. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn and Holy Exposition Batman. This episode of Welcome to Derry gave us a ton of backstory on It's history in Derry and the natives that have caged him. We also got a closer look at who is rumored to be the daughter of Bob Gray, Mrs. Kirsch, and remember Bob Gray is this dude who Pennywise stole the likeness of and that we saw in It Chapter 2. There is so much to break down in this episode, so let's dive in. So in the previous episode, the kids were able to score some photographic evidence of It at their encounter with the entity at the cemetery.

And now they're on their way to the police station to help clear Hank's name and alert the authorities of the true evil who killed their friends. As they ride their bikes through the streets of downtown Derry, we see some familiar storefronts that we've seen throughout the series already, as well as in the It films and in the book, such as Nans, the Arrowhead Hotel, which we've discussed could be a reference to the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, which was built on sacred Indian burial grounds, just like a lot of Derry Main, as we'll come to find out. There's also, of course, the cemetery in Pet Cemetery. Stephen King loves his native sacred burial grounds.

It's kind of a continuing thing in all of his works. It's also here that we see this Jade of the Orient Chinese restaurant. I wonder if Rousseau has had a chance to check that place out. He was, after all, lamenting the fact that Derry probably didn't have a good Chinese restaurant when they first arrived there in the pilot. I think there's zero night clubs in this town. Probably not one decent Chinese restaurant. And while this location is different for this specific restaurant, Jade of the Orient is actually the same restaurant that we saw the Losers Club go to in It Chapter 2 when they met back up for the first time as adults.

This meeting of the losers club has officially begun. We also get another look at quality meats. The butcher shop that we visited earlier this season was Charlotte, where she met Stan Korn, Kirsch, who I think may actually be this lady's husband, but we'll talk about that here in a sec. And remember, down this alleyway between Quality Meets and another building, that is where in the first it film, we saw the charred hands of Mike Hanlon's parents, Will Hanlon, who does die in a fire caused by Pennywise, a brutal fate that is teased later in this episode. So as the kids continue to ride through town, we see their watchtower in the distance, and they

then cross this bridge and river that reminded me of the bridge and river for the road and river from It Chapter 2 that we see this poor dude get thrown into, and as he floats, he is taken by IT. Hey, Doug, watch this. Hey, you can turn your head again. Yeah, man, guys, I had this horrible neck problem where I was having trouble even being able to turn my head right or left. Every time I did it, it just hurt both ways. Yeah, and this guy didn't want to go to a doctor. No, it's not that. I just had a hard time finding the right doctor. It's overwhelming

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More often than not, you can even get same-day appointments. Like I mentioned earlier, it can be very overwhelming trying to find a doctor. So I've been using Zoc Doc to find doctors in my area, and I think you should give them a try as well. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zockdog.com slash Screencrush to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C-C-com slash screencrush. Now, back to what I was saying. Now, when we get to the police station, we see not only Chief Bowers, but the other two, who cops that were sitting on Hank's place in previous episodes.

So the kids present them with their photos and... Is this pigeon shit? Last week I discussed how I thought the fact that the ghost kids actually showed up in the photos was an indication that this wasn't it merely creeping around in the kids' minds, but actually taking on the physical form as these kids as ghosts and that that's why they were able to be captured on camera. But it would appear that that's not necessarily the case because there's nothing in these photos, meaning that the photos themselves either don't contain images of it at all, or its manipulation

of the town in Derry's residence's minds is now distorting what they can and can't see in photographs. I would actually be curious to see if Dick Halloran were to look at the photos, would he see the entity? But all of that aside, who did show up in the photos that even Chief Bowers was able to see, the clown. Not Pennywise the clown, but this clown from the 1908 flashback scene in the previous episode. Now, many are speculating that this clown is this lady that works at Juniper Hill and that she is Mrs. Kirsch, the lady from Itch Chapter 2, let me explain. So the Mrs. Kirsch that we meet in Itch chapter 2, that isn't the real Mrs. Kirsch. She is a victim of it that it now uses as part of its arsenal of variant forms. But she was once a real

person, as was Bob Gray, her father. Now, the theory is that the circus carnival that we saw in the 1908 flashback was the circus and carnival that belonged to Bob Gray, Bob Gray who was eaten and replaced by it. And when it took the form of Bob Gray, who was also a circus clown, that is what eventually created the persona of Pennywise. Now, Bob Gray, he had a daughter, a daughter that is theorized to be this young woman clown that we saw here in the flashback, and who is theorized to be this woman from Juniper Hill that is meeting with Lily a little later in the episode where we hear her talk about

her father. We'll break all that down when we get to that scene. But I tell you all of this now up top because the theory is that the clown that we see here in this image is Mrs. Kirsch in her clown costume and that that's why she shows up in the photo because she's actually physically there and she's watching the kids because she too has a connection to it. And the theory goes deeper than that with her name being Mrs. Kirsch, whereas her maiden name would have been great. But it could now be Kirsch because she is married to Stan Kerch The Butcher. Kids call me slightly cleaner.

So we jumped to the school where the kids are talking in the gym about why the entity didn't show up on camera. They theorize that it could be like Dracula, a reference to how Dracula the vampire doesn't have a reflection. They also discuss how it could have killed them, but it didn't. Foreshadowing Will's realization that it is playing with its food because it makes them taste better. When you get scared, not just you, any memory.

Your adrenal cleanse secreates them into your bloodstream, which so, some predators like a taste of. Ronnie says, They're gonna transfer my dad to Shawshank. You don't come back from that place. Shawshank, of course, being the prison from Shawshank Redemption and a prison that is mentioned in many of King's works.

And yes, Shawshank is known as the prison that you ain't ever getting out of. That is, unless you're Andy Defraim. So Lily meets with whatever the hell this woman's name is. And we hear her say that she remembers that there were kids who went missing back in the 30s, the same cycle that was mentioned with the Bradley Gang Massacre. Now, her,

Her saying that she hadn't really remembered that until Lily mentioned it is yet another reminder of how dairy infects those who live there and makes them blissfully ignorant to the horrors happening all around them. Now, you'll notice that she is wearing a red sweater and man red is found all throughout this episode, especially later at the black spot and red is serving as a reminder of the ever-lurking presence of Pennywise. And you'll notice in this scene, like with the whole Dracula reflection thing, we never see Homegirl's reflection.

Now, to be fair, we never see the camera angled in a position that would show us her reflection, but it seems almost purposeful that we aren't seeing her in the reflection of the mirror and that they are so carefully making sure that we're not seeing the part of the mirror where her reflection would be. And to add on to that, we've only seen this character interact with Lily, so I won't be surprised in the slightest if we find out later this season that Lily was sitting there talking to an empty booth and that this is yet again it playing with the kids and stringing them along. If that's the case, if Lily looked like she was just sitting there talking to

herself, a lot of people in the diner are probably like, oh, it's that crazy girl whose dad turned into a pickle. So Rose meets with Charlotte delivering furniture from her store, and we hear them talk about Rose's ancestors. Now, in an interview with the actress who plays Rose that was played after last week's episode, we hear her refer to her tribe as not the Shikapia people that we heard mention of in it chapter two, but as the children of maturin. She is now basically a clan mother or leader within the children. Now, if you've been following our breakdowns, you know that Maturin is the giant space turtle that created the universe and who is the polar opposite of it. It is a cosmic entity that feeds and takes life, while Maturin is a cosmic being that gives life. And in the book, Maturin is the one

who gives Bill the guidance that he needs to lead the losers club to victory against it. So I do still totally think that Rose's people are linked to the Shikapia people from It Chapter 2. And in fact, I think that the same hallucinogen that we saw them give Mike Hanlon and that Mike then gives to Bill so that he could see the origins of it, I think that that same substance is likely used by the children of Maturin to communicate with the cosmic being of Maturin, just like in the book. So we then jump over to the Black Spot, a new place that Shaw gave Halloran and his friends so that they could have somewhere to decompress and not be harassed by local racists in Derry. Now, we've talked a lot about the Black Spot this season already because in the book,

spoiler alert, we know that it attacks the black spot, burns it to the ground, and in the book, Dick Halloran was there, and this is definitely going to now be happening in the show. So seeing them set up their new hangout was super eerie, because we know what's coming. Now, it was also in the scene that we hear the Ray Charles song, What I Say, playing. I love the what I say scene and Tommy Boy, by the way. Like, that's best scene. Nothing to do with this show, but I had to mention it. Take it Tommy Boy!

Now, as they walk around the Black Spot, we get this. this shot that gives us the impression that Halloran is being watched. And a little later in the scene, it becomes clear that he can feel the presence of something. Now, part of the shine is the ability to sense the future, and I think that Halloran is likely sensing the massacre to come. We then hear mention of a hot plate and how Halloran could use it to cook. This is a reference to how Halloran is a chef, just like in the shining, and I'm afraid it's also foreshadowing that that hot plate is going to be what starts the fire or that it uses to start the fire later in the season. Okay, so we cut back to the school where we see the kids in class watching a projection of the

duct and cover PSA from Bert the Turtle, warning them of what to expect in the event of a nuclear attack. This scene is almost identical to this shot from the series intro, and it also reminded me of this classroom projector scene from It Chapter 2. So Charlotte finds out that Will has been helping Ronnie try to prove her father's innocence, something that Charlotte will also begin to work on from a civil rights perspective. dinner, Charlotte tells Hanlon that Will likes a girl and she is talking about Ronnie and we get this funny exchange where he's clearly asking if the girl he likes is black, again reminding us of

the racial divide of the 60s and how taboo inter-race relationships were at the time and how that will then come into play a little later when we learned that Hank was involved with a white woman and that's why he can't say what he was actually doing that night and can't give the alibi that would clear his name. So we know that Major Hanlon is having a tough time connecting with his son. So it was nice to see the two doing something together like fishing. That is until, you know, it went full dairy, full it. And we see Hanlon step away briefly to grab something from the car and Will is pulled under by it. Now here we see it is taking the form of Major Hanlon all burned up, telling Will that he'll burn too, which is similar to his threats of

you'll float to. Now, what's eerie about this scene is that Will Hanlon, like we discussed a little earlier, he will go on to be killed by it in the next cycle when it causes the fire that kills Mike Hanlon's parents, which are Will Hanlon and maybe even Veronica Grogan. But in addition to this scene, foreshadowing Will's ultimate demise at the hands of Pennywise, it is also using Will's fear of his father being burned in the war, something that Major Hanlon did actually survive while in Korea, and that's why he has these scars. Now, we should also talk about how this scene is yet another reminder of the deep connection between it and water. I've plugged it many times before, but there is an old video here on the channel,

and it talks about it and Stephen King's overall connection to water throughout his stories and how it represents fear. It's a really good video. Be sure to check it out. So we're seeing it pull will beneath the surface, and this symbolizes how it always pulls his prey beneath the surface of Daring. So then we get what I would say is probably the creepiest scene of the episode, which is when we see the red balloon float by and both Will and Hanlon see it.

And we also see that red balloon reappear a little later in the episode in that tree outside of Hanlon's house. And this not only connects to Pennywise infamous red balloons, but to the young woman clown from the flashback where we saw her holding red balloons as well. Now here on Chief Bauer's desk, we see a carton of pall mall cigarettes, a callback to the trick he pulled on Hank in the previous episode where he offered him a pall mall and Hank said that he was more of an embassy gold man. So Charlotte is at the police station,

Bauer's on the legality of Hank's arrest, to which Bauer says this isn't the South, yet another reminder of the period that this story is taking place in, and while the South was more blatant in its discrimination, it still certainly existed in states like Maine as well, especially rural communities that were less diverse, like Derry. So we also know that Charlotte lived in the South and she was very much involved in the movement. The movement being the fight against racism in America and the rights of African Americans. We even later hear her threatened to make a phone call to MLK, JFK, RFK, and a whole bunch of other FKs. These, of course, being key leaders in that civil rights movement of the 60s. Now here in this phone book, when Charlotte is looking for the

Grogans, just above the name Grogan, we can see the name of your mom. Now briefly back with Halloran at the Black Spot, he has a shine vision where he sees what appears to be the Deadlights, Pennywise's true form that we have seen in the It movies. It is also in this frame that we see what it first looked like its teeth, but I actually think it's a top-down view of the deadlights, making their way toward the meteor impact site that we also saw in it Chapter 2 and that we'll come into play later in this episode. So Halloran sees flashes of what I think is Lily's bathtub drain from earlier in the season, but he also sees flashes of his grandmother in a bathroom and perhaps his dad being violent in their home. We know from Dr. Sleep that

Halloran and his grandma were both abused by his dad. and my grandma too. So we see flashes of explosions from his time in the war, as well as more glimpses of his grandmother who also had the shine and taught him how to use it when he was just a boy, as we learned in The Shining. My grandmother and I could hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths. It's its attempt to get in Halloran's head and find what he fears. We do briefly see another glimpse of the deadlights, but they are blue, just like in it

chapter two during the ritual of Chud. And we also see their blue light form later in the light. the episode. Now, while I do think that Pennywise is still like totally f***ing with Halloran, this scene might actually be an exception to that. It might not be it messing with Halloran, and it could genuinely be Halloran's grandmother from beyond the grave, warning him of the evils of Derry. She even says, keep that lid. Meaning for him to keep his shine at bay and not venture too far into the waters, so to speak. Now, remember, when you have the shine, you can communicate with ghosts,

just like in Dr. Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, where we see Danny all grown up and still communicating with the spirit of Dick Halloran, who actually offers him advice from beyond the grave on how to confront and actually cage away the spirits that mess with him. And hey guys, by the way, I just want to remind you about our exclusive It parody merch that we designed for our merch store. We have this map of the dairy sewer system featuring Pennywise as Pac-Man, or you could get your official Losers Club membership shirt. There's also the IT IT department, the Overlook maze, and this carpet pattern from the shining,

and if you look close, you'll see that red rum is hidden in the the pattern. We also have this Life of a Dancing Clown Taylor Swift parody, this Dairy Vintage Clown Costume. Links for all of these are below, and now you can become a store member to earn rewards and get free stuff. Shopping our merch store is a great way to support our channel. Thank you so much for your support. Now, back to what I was saying. Now, here in the police station, we once again see these missing kids posters, most of which are the same from previous episodes, but we also saw a few new ones who actually feature names of people who worked on this show. And you know, I've really been digging this show. But one complaint, one little complaint that I've had, but I've kind of kept to

myself, is that the acting from our child cast isn't always the absolute best. But I mean, they're kids. They're still learning the craft and they're all way better actors than I am. And probably than you are. So I'm not trying to cast like judgment on them or anything. I think they're doing a great job. But I thought in this episode with the actress who plays Lily, she really did a great job in this scene where Marge is telling her that Danny Don douche face has a crush on her. I don't know how to explain it, but I just felt like this scene, it was acted so genuinely. She really sold it. Like, she showed how, yes, Lily has been through so much, like everything going on with

it, but also what happened with her dad and her time at Juniper Hill. But at the end of the day, she's still just a little girl. And I don't know. I just feel like she really delivered in this scene and showed the childlike, innocent. of the character. And it made me hate those little patty cake shits even more. And by the way, Danny Don Dushface or whatever I called him, his name is actually Tim Flanagan. I couldn't find that name in any of King's Works, but Flanagan could actually be a slight nod to Mike Flanagan, who has done many film adaptations of King's Work, such as Gerald's Game and Dr. Sleep. So I don't know

if that was a little reference to him or not. Anyway, earlier in the episode, when the kids were once again parked in front of a projector, they were learning about parasites, like, the flatworm that gets inside of land snails and makes their eyes bulge out and then attracts birds to pluck them up and that spreads the parasite. This is actually very reminiscent of how it, a parasite in its own right, burrows inside your mind and exploits you and even draws the attention of others for it to feed on as well. Now we can see in this scene that Marge was spooked by the bulging eyes of the snail specifically and this fear is what is being used by it a little later to make Marge hurt herself. And this is also a great parallel

for how the patty cake sheds, this one especially, has behaved like a parasite and essentially burrowed her way into Marge's mind, turning her into a bully and using Marge to hurt Lily, like the parasite uses the snail to get to the bird, which in that scenario would make Marge symbolically the snail, so it makes sense that she is having her eyes bulge like the snail. And this scene was hard to watch, especially if you don't like eye stuff like me. And then, of course, you know, the whole ordeal makes it look like Lily is crazy and everybody already thinks she's crazy and it now looks like she stabbed March's eye out, so I'm kind of anxious to see how that all pans out. Now, that night, back of the Hanlens, Will can't sleep and he uses his telescope to be nosy,

like his dad had suggested a little earlier in the season. Maybe we could use this spy on the neighbors? And his nosiness leads to no good, it leads to him seeing it lurking right outside of his house. Or was it? You'll notice, once again, that this isn't our traditional. looking pennywise. It once again appears to be the young woman clown from the 1908 flashback and from this photo at the cemetery. So whether this is it simply taking the form of a different clown, or if it's this lady who might be Mrs. Kirsch and dressing up like her clown's self from back in the day and is now stalking the kids, we'll just have to see. Oh, and by the way, so I wanted to talk

about this super quick. Will screams, right, when he sees the clown outside. And then Hanlon wakes up and he, you know, he runs to his son, but he stops and grabs. his robe on the way out. I don't know. I thought that was a little weird. Okay, so after all that happened, we go back to the base and we see Hanlon finally confront Shaw about what the hell he and Halloran are up to, and we see Shaw then take Hanlon to a room where he observes Halloran interrogating Daniel. Halloran presses his fingers to his forehead, symbolizing him tapping into his third eye, and he begins to dig his way into Daniel's mind. Once in his mind, he sees many doorways, This is pulled directly from the King Books, as we've heard mentioned several times, of these doors

inside your mind that represent doorways to different memories, and how some of those doors are better left closed. Now, Halloran knows what he's in there looking for, and that results in this specific doorway to this specific memory opening, the memory of Daniel reciting to his Aunt Rose, the story of the glue, aka it. So we learned that millions of years ago, before the dawn of man, a star was cast down from space that contained within it an evil spirit. This hard rock casing of the star served as a cage

to the entity of it, but upon impact, it broke open and freed the beast. Now, this impact is of course what created that impact crater that we talked about earlier and that we see in it chapter two. And this is actually where the Losers Club were finally able to kill it, so we hope. Okay, so the shards of the star, as we theorized,

are the 13 artifacts that Shaw is looking for, but they aren't pieces that were scattered throughout Derry like upon impact, were actually broken off and buried by the natives and created a barrier that the entity cannot cross. And Shaw knows about these artifacts because Rose told him the story when they were children. We even see one of these artifacts placed in a turtle shell yet another reference to Maturin.

Now Daniel's story recounts how the native people once lived in somewhat of a harmony, I guess you could say, alongside the beast by simply not crossing into each other's hunting grounds. But that all changed when the colonizers arrived and ignored the warnings of not to hunt in those woods. Seski's daughter Nakani and her other child friends and embark on a quest to its cave to confront the bees because they don't want to have to move their tribe. And it was cool seeing that this group of kids

went to confront it just like many children after them would do for generations to come. Now, as Nakani and the war party go after the kids, it confronts them in the woods and uses a tactic that we've seen it used many times before, dividing the group and separating them from one another, using their own individual fears, just like we saw in the well house,

scene from the first film. Now, during this fight between Nakani and it, we see it take the form of, I could be totally wrong on this, but it looked like a priest, like a colonizing priest. And after all, I mean, it was, you know, the colonizers who tried to force their way of life and their religion on the native people, which is extremely ironic considering what the colonizers were fleeing from, but I digress. In their duel between Nakani and it, we see its yellow eyes and even the deadlights in their blue form, like we talked about earlier. We also see the sharp teeth mouth of it, that we've seen him have when he's pennywise. We've seen it have when it's the skeleton man.

So I guess you could say that teeth bite that when it opens up super big, you can see the deadlights down in there. Those teeth are part of its more true physical form. So then we get this creepy-ass scene where a baby burst from its chest and stabs Nakani, perhaps a reference to the baby scene from the pilot and how it likes to prey on the youth. So anyway, our predictions were true.

Rose and the elders of the group, they hold the sacred responsibility of keeping it contained and trapped in its cage. And the people of Derry who are corrupted by and fed on by the beast, they are viewed, I guess you could say, as a small sacrifice to keep the beast from expanding and going full kaiju and taking out entire cities and stuff. Which, oh my God, that'd be kind of cool. So anyway, Halloran now has the information he needs and he tells Daniel to tell him where all the artifacts are buried, but Daniel does him one better and tells him where its layer is beneath the well house, the same house from the movies and the book, and the same house from the

opening sequence of this show. And man, I cannot wait to see what happens next. I think shit it's about to get super real. Be sure to come back here for our breakdown right after the episode airs. Don't go watch heavy spoiler. Why go watch heavy spoilers when you can watch me? He's out of line, but he's right. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton Ogburn.