ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 Breakdown - Stephen King Easter Eggs You Missed!

Episode Date: December 8, 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 7, The Black Spot. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn. Oh my God, what an episode. All season long, we've been anxiously awaiting the biggest tragedy of this cycle. This cycle's augury, the Black Spot fire. Now, in the novel and in the films, we've seen brief mention of the fire from Derry's past

where a group of racists come together and burn down the Black Spot, a thought to be safe haven for black soldiers in Derry. And of course, it was there to breathe in the fear and the hate and the suffering to come. And the same was true in the interludes from the novel when we hear about the Black Spot Fire and we get the appearance of Dick Halloran from The Shining, appearing in that section of the It novel, and we hear mention of how Dick that night was able to see the entity of it at the fire. But hey, that's not all we have to talk about. This episode also finally introduced as to the real Pennywise, the dancing clown, the man that it based its favorite persona on. So let's break it all down.

All right, we opened in 1908 at the same circus carnival that we saw in episode three, where a young Francis Shaw and his father attended. Now, in that episode, for a brief moment, we saw a young Ingrid in her clown costume, holding her red balloons and her horn. But this time we are getting to officially meet her father, Bob Gray, aka Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, not dancing! Now, before Penny Wise's show begins, we see the same announcer, Ringmaster Dude from episode 3, as well as another appearance from the creator of this show and the writer-director of the

films, Andy Mushietti. Andy, of course, also directed my beloved The Flash, and he's in talks to be doing the DCU Batman, Brave and the Bold. Anyway, Penny Wise's show begins and outsteps the clown, and the kids are going apeshit, they love him. His act is actually really good until it turns tragic and become It's clear that it's about his late wife. The little creatures, they aren't letting him pick any of the flowers,

but then his wife passes away in the show and they bury her. And at her tombstone, one of the little guys pops up and gives Pennywise one of the flowers as the curtain closes. And then just as the curtain begins to reopen, we see Bob taking a quick drink from his flask before continuing the show. Now, as we'll soon learn, it is watching from afar and is very intrigued by how the children are drawn to Pennywise. But I don't think that's the only thing that ends up drawing it to Bob Gray. It's also Bob's own pain and suffering and grief that are making Bob more vulnerable and

susceptible to it. So the curtain reopens and Pennywise starts doing his signature dance that we first saw here in it chapter one. Red balloons fall and Pennywise makes his way off stage. Now here in the dressing room we see him sitting at his desk just like in this scene from it chapter two. And you know, They always made this Bob Gray guy out to be creepy. And don't get me wrong, he's definitely a little off. But he is actually a total sweetheart. And I loved seeing him interact with his daughter and grieve his dead wife. The scene where Ingrid comes out in her clown costume to show it to her dad,

and Bob announces her as periwinkle. And she's taken aback because that was her mom's stage name. And then he says, oh, you can change it if you like. And that whole scene, it was just so good. And God, Bill Scarsgard, he just absolutely killed it in this role. He, of course, always kills it as Pennywise. But getting to see him play Bob Gray and giving us a peek behind the curtain at the very person whose likeness it stole and morphed into this creepy child-eating clown.

So cool. I really love the voice that Bill went with for this early 1900s circus performer. I love the kindness and the pain that we can see behind his eyes. it was all so good. And he's a kind, loving father. He misses the circus, and now he's traveling with a carnival to feed his daughter. It was all so heartfelt in the way they were able to make you care so much about this character and care about the character of Ingrid in such a short amount of time.

It was really well done. And then we get that great scene where he says to Ingrid to show him the bow, which is a moment that is brought back later in the episode, just perfectly and arguably a scene that is probably the most terrifying it has ever been, but we'll talk about that, see when we get there. So anyway, later, we see Bob in more pain, he's drinking and smoking. In fact, we've seen in this picture from the previous episode in Ingrid's photo album that Bob was a smoker, and as he's standing there drinking, smoking, we see him wipe his mouth with his handkerchief and red paint from his mouth comes off. Keep that in mind for later. He's then approached

by it in the form of a child that it likely, well, no, most definitely a child that it has eaten. As to Bob, the children are drawn to you and it seems super intrigued by essentially what it views as a new hunting tactic to draw the children in near and then scare the shit out of them and eat them. So it convinces Bob to help this kid find his parents and Bob ventures into the woods. And we get this shot of Penny Wise's hat and hair on the fence post, foreshadowing how later in the episode when it settles into hibernation and is submerged in the bloody water right up to its eye line.

We then see Ingrid looking for her dad. dad and she has shown his handkerchief covered in blood and told that they found it in the woods. And do you know what that means? I'm calling it right now. We will get a scene either in the next episode, the finale, or in a future season of this show that explores the 1908 cycle, where we will see it take the form of Pennywise right in front of Bob Gray when they are in the woods together. And I think it is there. We will see it eat Pennywise, the dancing clown, Bob Gray. And then in the form of Pennywise, we will see it use that handkerchief to wipe its mouth clean of Bob Gray's blood. And that will be the handkerchief covered in blood that they find in the woods.

And that will mirror how Bob Gray had just used the handkerchief a few moments prior and got the red makeup on the handkerchief. But now when Pennywise uses it, of course, it's Bob Gray's blood. Oh, and speaking of the handkerchief, you'll notice the initials on it are RG, not BG. And that's because his actual name would, of course, be Robert Gray. But like most Roberts, he goes by the nickname. So the intro rolls, we all dance like Pennywise, and then shit of course hits the fan once again. We pick up where the previous episode ended, these masked dorks rolling up to the black spot,

looking for Hank Grogan, and as we'll later find out, Ingrid is the one who told them where he was being hidden. She shared this information for the sole purpose of pain, fear, and catastrophe unfolding and luring out who she believes to be her father. Halloran then steps forward and attempts to play it cool and cover for Hank, despite Halloran initially not liking the idea of keeping Hank there. Hank then comes forward because he doesn't want to see anyone get hurt and he agrees to go with Bowers and the others, but the soldiers aren't having it and we see them draw their

guns as well. And I love the line where he says, we have guns too. Ours are government issued. I love that line. And can I just say something super quick. Don't aim your shotgun directly behind your buddy's head. On both sides here, when both sets of men have their guns drawn on each other. On both sides, we see a shotgun aimed across the room, but directly behind

the head of one of their own people. Not good, Bob. There was your gun safety with Colton. So Bowers agrees to leave instead of them unloading lead on each other, knowing full well that it wouldn't end well for him. They retreat, they go outside, but they immediately chain the door shut and initiate their plan to burn the place to the ground using Molotov cocktails. The place goes up in flames quick and as people attempt to escape through the windows, they are met with gunfire from outside. Everyone is running around chaotically, people are getting shot and catching on fire. It's hard to watch. It's brutal and it's exactly the kind of thing that would draw it. But this whole catastrophe appears to not only draw it, but other spirits as well.

We see Dick, in fact, get passed by what appears to be a civil war vet missing his entire face. So Dick then makes his way to the fridge, remembering that it had been leaking in the previous episode, meaning that the wood beneath it was likely beginning to rot, meaning that he would be able to break it and escape from beneath the building. But just as he is about to get out of there, he sees the spirit of the same native woman from earlier in the season that died in battle with it, Sesky. Now, Dick has a strict rule about not acknowledging the spirits, because if he does, they'll all become drawn to him, as we'll see shortly. But Dick recognizes Seski from his venturing into the mine of Taniel, and he hopes that she'll be able to guide him and save some

lives, mainly save the kids. And then of course, arrives Pennywise. And we get one of the best lines dude has ever uttered. Do I have face on my face? So Dick and Pennywise come face to face. It greets Dick and asks him if he is seeing things and says that they can see him too. Of course, alluding to how Dick has now acknowledged one of the spirits. And remember, this has been its plan to bring down Halloran. It knew that Halloran and his shine ability were a threat to him. So it explored Dick's mind for his greatest fear and found them all stored away in his lockbox, the dead spirits and the level of shine that allows for Dick to seed these dead spirits. It broke this box open and Dick has been haunted ever since,

self-medicating with alcohol to drown out the voices, sort of like how we saw Bob Gray doing some self-medicating to drown out his own pains and fears earlier in the episode. So we then see the spirit step forward, being portrayed like zombies. Back outside, we see Phil and Susie's dad step. forward as part of the clan that have committed this attack. And remember, it was him who tried to shoot Hank dead before he was loaded onto that Shawshank prison bus. And you can tell by the look on dude's face that he knows he has messed up big time with this one as he hears the screams of not only innocent men, but women and children too burning alive. I think he might

realize in this moment that he's no better than the man that he thinks Hank Grogan is. And this whole ordeal really shines light on the fact that this hatred fuming from this clan of men led by Bowers was never about the missing children. It was always fueled by their racist hate. They show right here in this scene that they have no problem burning alive men, women, and children. So who are they to take any moral high ground on rectifying the death of the kids at the movie theater? This has always been about the fact that Hank was a black man and they were happy to burn the black spot to the ground because they hate that it even exists. Now, Chief Bowers, unlike the others who are driven solely by their hate for black people,

Bowers, on the other hand, is being driven by the fact that he's been removed from his position as police chief, following his inability to prove the unprovable, that being that Hank was in any way connected to the deaths of the kids at the movie theater. So the fire continues to burn, and we get the most heartbreaking scene of the episode, hell, of the season. We see Ridge pull a Titanic saying that, oh, there's plenty of room for both him and Marge to get in this cooler, knowing full well that there wasn't, but he wanted to save her from the flames. So he gets her inside and he shuts the door and gets on top of it to make sure that it stays closed. And guys, I don't typically cry in movies or shows, but damn. This was brutal.

I love the character of Rich. I love the young actor who plays him. I think he's the best of all of them. And his sacrifice here was so hard to watch when he says to Marge. We don't just pee in pots. We also protect fair maidens. A reference to their conversation from the previous episode when the two began to fall in love with each other. Everyone peed in them, even knights.

Knights cool. They also fought in duels and rescued Fair Maidens. So cut back to outside, where old Stanley Kirsch is trying to get out of there, but oh no, his car won't start. Ingrid, his wife, then comes into frame in her periwinkle costume and Stan's not amused. And he tells her that she'll be black and blue if she doesn't get home and take that shit off her face. And then, oh my goodness. we see Pennywise, Cleaver in hand, ready for old Stanley Cleaver. Pennywise slices dudes head in half and begins munching on the top half, and look, as bad and as evil as Pennywise is,

it's always fun to get a scene where the monster eats the bad guy. So Ingrid says how glad she is that Pennywise is there and how she had orchestrated this whole thing to draw him out, the same way that she used to bring him children to feed on when she was a young nurse at the Juniper Hill Hospital, And then, of course, we see it play the role of dad because it recognizes Ingrid as a pond that it can use to consume more and more fear-filled people. It says, Show me the bow. Just like her father did the day he died, once again reminding us that when it mimics someone, it is able to mimic them down to the finest detail because it explores and essentially consumes their entire mind.

So it tells Ingrid to come give Papa a hug, and you can see on its face this look of discise. comfort as it hugs her and attempts to show this fake affection, knowing that killing Ingrid would be silly because of how well she has serviced the entity. And in this moment, it even becomes clear that it was Ingrid who gave the anonymous tip in the first place about not only Hank being at the black spot, but that Hank wasn't at home that night when the movie theater massacre happened like he had claimed to be, and she did this to create more hate and a swelling of fear for her hungry father. So in the previous episode, we learned about the

augury, the big final event of every cycle. For the previous cycle, it was the Bradley Gang Massacre. And for the 1908 cycle, it was the Kitchener Ironworks Fire. And for this cycle, it was the Black Spot Fire. And after each augury, the entity returns to its slumber for roughly 27 years. It says to Ingrid, I'll come back. No, no, no.

I always do. And I know I've gushed a lot about Scars Guard's performance in this episode, but damn, dude. He just... He kills it. I think this is the best and the scariest that it and Pennywise have ever been. And a personal favorite of mine is when it mocks its prey. So I really liked in this episode when Ingrid grabs it by the arm and it turns around like drooling and looking super evil. And she realizes that this thing isn't her father.

And side notes, like you're just now realizing it's not your father. Okay. All right. Anyway, Ingrid's all, you're not him. You're not my father. And it's like, yes, I am. I'm Pennywise. You're dancing daddy. It's so good. And when she asks it what it did to her father, and it says, I ate him. That has been my vocal stem for the past few days since watching this episode. And I know my wife is already super tired of it, but I have fun. Anyway, I thought in this moment that we might see it just be done toying with Ingrid and just eat her right there. But instead, it does the Deadlights move that we've seen it do in the films.

He did it to Beverly in the first movie. And then he does it to Richie in the second one. And essentially what it is doing when it goes Deadlights mode, it's putting its prey into like a catatonic state. Now, why is it doing this with Ingrid instead of just killing her? Well, probably to screw up her mind even more and have her ready to serve him once again. when the next cycle rolls around. That's if she's even alive come the next cycle.

I mean, that's another 27 years from now. I'm not so sure that she would even be alive at that point. In fact, I think we can safely say she's not, because the next cycle is the It Chapter 1 movie, and she seems to have no involvement whatsoever in that. And then when we do see an elderly Mrs. Kirsch in It Chapter 2, it's not actually her. It's it pretending to be her,

and she's become one of his avatars. I think we can probably safely say that maybe she'll even die come the end of this season. We'll just have to see. She's currently in like a catatonic state. And I assume we'll see another scene between like her and Lily and Ingrid like saying, It's not my father. I was wrong. We have to kill it.

So maybe we'll get to see her and it once again face off. You're dancing daddy. All right. Now back inside the black spot as the flames have subsided and the fire trucks have arrived. We see Marge pulled out of the cooler. And thankfully we don't see a charge. burned rich. We see a rich who appears to have not even been touched by the flames. He simply breathed in too much smoke and suffocated, which is awful, but at least he didn't burn alive. So

all the kids, they are traumatized, no doubt. Especially this poor girl who is like laughing hysterically, I'm guessing that she's like just emotionally overstimulated and kind of spiraling. We then see Charlotte and Leroy arrive at the scene and Leroy learns that Halloran helped get Will and the kid's out of there. So Leroy goes to check on him, and Halloran reveals that he had to talk to one of the spirits, and now they're, like, all aware of him being able to see and hear them, and we see them all crowding around Halloran,

including his old friends who just died at the Black Spot, asking what happened to them. So Halloran goes on to explain that it is gone, and that he can no longer sense the entity. It's like the light went out. It's like the sunbits just went to sleep. but that he is confident that he can still find at least one of the pillars by following the spirit of Seski. So I should also mention that yes, Hank does make it out alive, but Charlotte takes his clothes and puts them with a dead charred body making it appear like Hank died.

That way the authorities and the racist mobs and whatnot don't keep trying to come for him and hopefully they can get him and Ronnie out of town. And of course the local radio station and the chief of the fire department, they characterize the whole thing as a, oh, a mirror. electrical fire at a quote, illegal colored speakeasy. And they explain away the presence of the local white men as mere do-gooderers who came to help. And they even eulogize Stan Kirsch as some hero. Give me a break. You'll also notice here in town that we see this wanted poster of Hank Grogan. And underneath it, when the wind makes the poster flap, we can see a missing child poster that the wanted poster was plastered over, showing once again that this town and its people are so tainted by it, that they are just so obsessed with pain and being angry and just being hate-filled.

And it's funny how the wanted poster, they like actually pay attention to, oh, we gotta get that Hank Grogan. But the missing children's posters that cover the town, they pretty much just blend in. Like, nobody gives them a second look. And hey guys, I am so excited to show you this 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 can get your official Losers Club membership shirt. There's also the IT department, the Overlook Maze, my personal favorite, and this carpet pattern

from The Shining, and if you look close, you'll see that red rum is hidden in the pattern. We also have this Life of a Dancing Clown, Taylor Swift Parity shirt, and this Dairy Vintage Clown costume. Links for all of these are in the description 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. so much for your support. Now, back to what I was saying. So the children of Maturran meet once again to mark the end of this cycle and the augury having passed. For some, like this young woman, this was her first experience of a cycle, and she is dismayed by the fact that all they seem to do is keep the beast at bay and from hunting beyond dairy while seemingly accepting the small

sacrifice of allowing the beast to prey on dairy every 27 years and many lives, especially children, being taken. Now, this dude stands up and says, in 27 years. Gotta say, it kind of sounds like a kid cursing for the first time, but okay, you do you, boo. So, Halarin leads the military to a new dig site and they begin looking for the pillar. So over on base, we see Charlotte packing and calling Rose for help getting Hank out of Derry. Will wants to meet up with Ronnie and Marge who are going to see Lily and Charlotte says, hell no, and then Hank says Ronnie isn't to go either, but then we immediately cut to Ronnie

with Marge going to see Lily, so I guess she didn't get the memo. Now, when they get to Lily's room, we see her sitting on her bed with the spear in hand and her dog is whimpering in the corner and Lily looks just completely out of it. So the girls tell Lily what happened to Rich and they then go to the clubhouse and collect his things and share a hug over their lost friend. Back at the dig site, they uncover the pillar that was buried in a turtle shell, of course a nod to mature in the Cosmic Space Turtle.

They opened the shell and remove the artifact and oh no, there's been a change of plans. No longer are they moving in to contain the entity. They are taking the pillar back to base for testing. But we learned that that's also a line of bullshit and that Shaw is fucking crazy and wants to release it into the wild of the entire country almost like releasing a wolf into an area that's become overpopulated with deer with the intention of thinning down the herd and rebalancing the ecosystem. So they put the pillar in this wooden box very Indiana Jones if you ask me. Hanlon protests this move of taking it back to the lab because they're leaving the cage door wide open and he then follows them back to base and realizes that they plan to incinerate the pillar, destroying it, and permanently opening the door for it to escape.

Hanlon then pulls his pistol and shuts down the whole operation and then Shaw steps in and asked to talk to Hanlon. And it is here where Shaw explains his evil plan. And they have been hinting at Shaw's turn in previous episodes, like here where we see Shaw in his office watching this riot on TV and looking concerned just before Rose barched into his office to confront him. Shaw was never looking to use it as a weapon to protect those within, but as a weapon targeted at those within. And he has the hope of bringing order to the country through fear. And the one thing that makes people really listen is fear. So Shaw goes full mask off and we hear him utter a very tyrannical, dictator-esque line like the enemy within.

Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. And look, he's not wrong about the fact that this was a very trepidacious time for the country and Americans were at each other's throats, no doubt. But this was a much needed period. of civil unrest so that we could come through it on the other side better than we were before. And that is why having characters like Charlotte who are part of the civil rights movement in this show and exploring the rampant racism in dairy have been very important and key themes to this overarching story. Because that very conflict within that is happening within the country is what is pushing Shaw's entire mission. So Shaw gives the order to incinerate the pillar and thus officially breaking the cage that has bound it and

and seemingly was responsible for that 27-year feeding cycle and hibernation as well. It feels the cage open, and we see this disgusting shot of it. It in Pennywise's form, by the way, eye deep in this bloody pool of body parts and internal organs, and it is now officially awake off cycle, albeit not by much. And I think we know that it won't throw the cycle off too much, because I would assume in the finale, we will see it go back to sleep. Now, where does it go when it wakes up?

of course the military base, a place formerly out of its reach. It then makes a phone call to Will pretending to be Ronnie, but Will quickly realizes who he's talking to. It starts saying, I can't hear you, and then it screams it in person from on top of the fridge, like a drill sergeant yelling at soldiers, perhaps suggesting that one of Will's fears is his father. Pennywise then jumps down from the fridge, covered in its hibernation bloodbath. Interestingly enough, this red coating from the eyeline down is the exact opposite. of its former combatant, SESCII, who has read from the eyeline up. Now, it doesn't eat Will or kill him, it goes deadlights mode on him and takes Will.

Takes him where? I'm not sure, but I think it is likely using Will as bait to lure Hanlon, the man without fear. Now, the finale is next week, and we all know that this has to end a certain way. It can't die. We know it comes back next cycle for its war with the Losers Club, and we know that it is still contained to dairy in those films. So my guess is that we're going to get to see it eat a lot of poor soldiers at this military base. I think it probably eats Shaw, and I think we finally get to see Hanlon, Halloran, and Rose together fighting it in a brutal brawl that ends with the cage being rebuilt and it being recontained and the next cycle, 27 years in waiting. But hey, those are just my thoughts and theories. I'd love to hear yours

down in the comments below and be sure to come back next week for our breakdown of the finale. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton Ogburn. I'm