‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Stars on Those Terrifying Scares & That Mind Trip Moment (VIDEO)

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry Episode 4, “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function”]

The title of this week’s new episode of It: Welcome to Derry is a mouthful, but that’s appropriate for an episode packed with this much lore.

The segment begins with the kids finding out that the grownups — including the chief of police — can’t see the ghosts in their photos, so they are no closer to freeing Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) than before, despite the valiant effort. Charlotte (Taylour Paige) also has no luck in arguing for his innocence.

Meanwhile, It continues to torment them, starting with Will (Blake Cameron James), who’s dragged into the water by a burned corpse while fishing with his father, Leroy (Jovan Adepo), who’s inclined to believe his story only because of the scratch marks on his arms.

Of the scene, James said, “That scene was the most physically taxing scene I think I’ve ever done. The water was so cold. It was so cold. I’ve never been that cold a day in my life, I promise you. Even to this day, I’ve never been that cold a day in my life, ever. The first time I went under [the water] and got fully submerged, I came up, and I think my body was in shock because I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, for real. So I had to get another take… But it was crazy, and I’m very proud of the results of it.”

HBO

The second big fear reveal of the episode happens to Marge (Matilda Lawler), who, after the class watches a documentary on parasitic flatworms, sees her own eyes literally bug out, and she tries to saw her own eyes out. Lilly (Clara Stack), who Marge was just about to help the Patty Cakes prank, stops her, but not before one of her eyes is badly wounded, and the others think it’s Lilly’s fault.

“Marge has a very complicated relationship with herself, and with kind of a sense of belonging. She’s in a place when she’s trying to fit in with a group of people that she doesn’t really fit in with, and she’s kind of trying to change herself, to find herself, which I think is such a common experience that every person can relate to,” Lawler said of the scene. “She’s deeply insecure about so many things, but one of the main things being her glasses. And so it was very fun, especially as a teen girl, being able to kind of scream about it and scream about the insecurities, because It preys on Marge’s insecurities.” The outcome of the experience, though, is that she’s oddly settled by it. “The scare scene with the eyes does have a centering effect on Marge and kind of causes her to reflect on her relationships and see the truth in a way and see that she belongs with her friend Lilly and with the ‘Losers,’ and it’s OK for her to find herself elsewhere, not in the group that you know everyone thinks she should be in.”

Cocreator Andy Muschietti also hints that there’s a deeper significance to Marge’s fear, saying, “There’s a specific reason that’s not going to be revealed until the very last episode for which she is wearing the Coke bottle glasses. And so we decided that [her fear] was about the eyes.”

HBO

Elsewhere, when Charlotte is finally able to speak to Hank face to face, by threatening to march up her friends in the Civil Rights movement back in Louisiana, he finally reveals his true alibi: Hank was with a white woman during the encounter and thinks facing prison would be a kinder fate than what would befall him if others found out the truth.

For Rider, their exchange is an easy favorite from the whole series. “I don’t think any woman besides his mom, one, has talked to him like that probably since his marriage. [She] really puts herself on the line, and it’s also one of those things where she’s not a lawyer. It’s not like she has the law on her side. She can’t really do anything to free him. But in a world where you have no friends and everybody believes you’ve done something, I don’t think it was a choice.”

HBO

The episode also reveals a bit more of what General Shaw (James Remar) and Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) are up to as the latter uses his Shine to infiltrate the mind of Taniel (Joshua Odjick) to find out the ancient story of the Keelut, an evil spirit that was trapped in a falling star and roamed the earth until the indigenous people in what’s now Derry trapped it using pieces of the star that are now buried in turtle shells around the town. If you ever wondered why the world eater was stuck with just the small Maine town as its hunting grounds, well, that explains it.

Related

'It: Welcome to Derry' Stars Break Down Key Episode 3 Details, Including That Cameo

“As we explored, we talked a lot about the physicality and the exhaustion of trying to reach into someone’s head who has an ability to defend from it,” Chalk remembered of creating the scene. “Dick comes into this thinking like, ‘Man, I’m psychic, I’m good. I got the Shine. Not even psychic, I got Shine.’ But everybody in this town, it seems, can defend against it … so he keeps brutalizing himself… In reality, it was a marathon to be inside of this kid’s head and discover all these things.”

Find out more about what the cast and creators had to say about It: Welcome to Derry Episode 4 in the video above (and check out our prior aftershows for Episodes 1, 2, and 3, too)!

It: Welcome to Derry, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO