WELCOME TO DERRY’s Finale May Connect to THE MIST

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Stephen King often creates a connected universe across his books and stories, and the series Welcome to Derry builds on that. Characters and locations from his other famous works appear, like Dick Hallorann from The Shining and Doctor Sleep, and Shawshank Prison from The Shawshank Redemption. The season one finale hints at a connection to another one of King’s stories: his 1980 novella, The Mist, which many know as the 2007 film starring Thomas Jane.

Both Stephen King’s novella and Frank Darabont’s film, The Mist, center around a covert government operation at a Maine military base. Their attempt to open a gateway to another dimension goes horribly wrong, unleashing a dense fog and dozens of massive, terrifying creatures—best described as Lovecraftian in nature. These beings move through the mist, preying on the town’s people, who are forced to seek refuge. The story primarily unfolds within a grocery store, where a group of survivors grapple with the crisis, turning it into a compelling human drama.

In Welcome to Derry, the story delves into the beginnings of the creature known as “IT,” who eventually becomes Pennywise. The series reveals that IT arrived on Earth thousands of years ago, traveling inside a meteor. This information comes from the local Native American tribes. However, the story implies IT didn’t come from another planet, but from a different dimension. The season finale features a large fog engulfing Derry, reminiscent of the one seen in The Mist, as Pennywise breaks free.

Is it possible Pennywise originates from the same place as the monsters in The Mist? The creatures in that film are basically animals – purely instinctual predators. While Pennywise is clearly intelligent, capable of cunning and speech, that doesn’t rule out a shared origin. Our own world includes both intelligent beings like humans and countless animals. Perhaps the beings in that other dimension are the same – a mix of intelligent and animalistic life.

The clearest sign that Pennywise originates from the same dimension as the creatures in The Mist is what happens when it’s defeated in the season finale. It begins to break down into various forms, including the baby creature we saw at the beginning and a massive, bat-winged monster that nearly kills the main characters. This is reminiscent of the creatures that attacked the grocery store in The Mist, which established that those beings come from a world with different rules of physics. Interestingly, when Pennywise is shot in Welcome to Derry, its blood floats upwards, ignoring gravity – another hint that it doesn’t fully abide by our world’s physics. While it’s a subtle detail, it strongly suggests a connection between Pennywise and the creatures from The Mist.

It’s possible this creature is just another form IT takes when it flies. In the novel, Will Hanlon saw a winged, bird-like creature during the Black Spot tragedy, but that one had balloons attached to its wings. This new creature still had Pennywise’s face, but looked more like a bat.

As a huge Stephen King fan, I’ve noticed something really interesting. It struck me that the military operation that unleashed Pennywise in the first season finale of IT: Welcome to Derry felt awfully similar to the one that opened the portal in The Mist. Both happened at military bases near small towns in Maine! If the show gets renewed for two more seasons, I’m betting we’ll see even more connections to other King stories. I’m really starting to think these aren’t just random occurrences – the showrunners seem to be deliberately tying things together, and I’m excited to see if that’s confirmed!

The entire first season of It: Welcome to Derry is now streaming on HBO Max.

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2025-12-15 06:09