What’s up, Losers? Remember on previous Watching IT: Welcome to Derry episodes when Breznican and I were all like “The Derry townspeople aren’t the cartoony racists you’d expect from this story set at this particular time?” Whoops.
Turns out a lot of darkness hid behind some pleasant words and friendly smiles. I guess that’s true of real life, so good on Jason Fuchs and the Muschiettis for throwing some nuance into their murder clown show.
This penultimate episode, titled The Black Spot, starts off in 1908 where a familiar pasty white face pops up. That’s right, we get to know Mr. Bob Gray a little bit and we see why It coveted the Pennywise form, which is big for us die hard fans of Stephen King’s book.
Ever since Pennywise introduced himself as Bob Gray to Georgie right before that fateful tug-o-war that kicks off the novel, constant readers have wondered who Bob Gray is and why the evil clown goes by that name throughout the novel. King is vague on this persona and now Andy Muschietti and his team have given us an answer.
And I gotta say, it’s a pretty good answer that feels right and gives Bill Skarsgard a chance to stretch his wings a little bit.
In fact, this episode is currently my favorite episode of the series. It has the emotional wallop you need from an episode titled The Black Spot and brings a ton of loose plot threads together at once.
As usual, my Kingcast partner-in-crime Anthony Breznican and I are here to talk about everything that went down this week and point out some King easter eggs. There’s a particularly good one in this episode, by the way.
I will give a little warning that Pennywise was messing with Breznican’s internet connection during this recording, even though we were only saying nice things about his ability to eat brains and whatnot, so you might have to put up with a few stutters, but it’s nothing too crazy. I think it’s a fun chat and I hope y’all give it a listen.
Check out the show on YouTube and see our pretty little faces below:
Then there’s always the audio version if you want to focus on our dulcet tones.
As usual, big thanks to Watching It: Welcome to Derry’s sponsor Blackmagic Design, the creators of the equipment actually used to make some of your favorite recent genre offerings, like Final Destination Bloodlines, Longlegs, and even Andy Muschietti’s IT films.
Enjoy this week’s show and we’ll see y’all next week for the big finale!
