After ending the previous episode on a cliffhanger, The Black Spot starts with a flashback to 1908, back to the days when Bob Gray, a.k.a. Pennywise, the Dancing Clown, brought happiness and laughter to children. We see one of his shows and how successful the clown is at making young people have fun, something the Creature quickly realizes. We also learn more about Bob’s relationship with his daughter, Ingrid, and the bond they share as the Pennywise and Periwinkle duo. Finally, we see Bob Gray taking a break, smoking near the woods at night, then being lured and taken by the Creature in one of those suspenseful sequences. The episode does not show the murder of Bob Gray, perhaps saving the moment for a later season, but we see adults looking at a piece of Bob’s clothing with blood on it; Ingrid realizes her father disappeared after finding them.
| “The Black Spot” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Pictured: Bill Skarsgård as Bob Gray/Pennywise. Photo: Courtesy of HBO ©2025 HBO Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Back in 1962 at the Black Spot, the group of white men is ready to attack if Hank doesn’t surrender. Hank shows up willing to go with the group, but the soldiers intervene, pulling out their guns and threatening the group of racists. Then, the invaders walk away, leaving the house. But their plan is even more wicked than anyone could have possibly imagined, as they lock the people inside the nightclub, then throw bottles filled with fire inside it while shooting at the soldiers.
That’s when the Augury, the massive, bloody event that marks the end of a cycle, starts. There’s chaos everywhere — people are running desperately looking for a way out from the club, then being shot, then being taken by the flames or the smoke. It doesn’t take too long for Pennywise to appear to add more terror to the night (after all, following this night, the Creature is supposed to rest for 27 years). While a mysterious indigenous spirit helps Dick find a way to save Hank and some of the children, Rich and Marge have to fight for their lives themselves. After finding a place where only one of them could hide, Rich sacrifices himself so Marge can live.
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Meanwhile, Ingrid arrives at the place dressed up as Periwinkle and finds her husband, Stan Kersh, having trouble with their car. Disturbed by his wife and trying to leave the place as soon as he can, Pennywise kills Stan in one of the goriest, most violent scenes of the show. Then, Ingrid has an encounter with the Creature and confesses that she leaked the information about Hank’s location to cause the event that would bring panic, pain, and fear to those involved—possibly bringing Pennywise to the surface. After IT thanks her and prepares to leave, saying he will return in a few years, she becomes enraged and fights with him, finally understanding that the Creature killed her father and that she has been used all those years. In response, the Creature opens its mouth and hypnotizes her with the three luminous orbs.
Hours after this, when the authorities arrive and start collecting the corpses, we see Ingrid moving and smiling, but I’m not sure if that’s a hallucination or if she’s still alive. The damage was massive — this cycle ended with many adults and children dead. And now that Rich is one of the people gone, Marge, Ronnie, and Lilly come together in their shared grief.
Meanwhile, Charlotte helps Hank hide, placing his clothes in the rubble so he will be presumed dead. Then she takes him to her old house so he can use Leroy’s clothes; finally, she goes with him to Rose, asking her to help him get out of town. Elsewhere, Dick is tormented by ghosts and the voices of the dead, slowly losing his mind, but with the mysterious spirit’s help, he provides the coordinates so the military can find a pillar.
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The military takes the pillar to be melted down. When Leroy discovers what’s about to happen, he confronts his colleagues. He has a heated argument with Shaw, who reveals that he never intended to use the Creature to win the Cold War, but rather to control the American population through fear. After Leroy threatens them to stop the operation but fails to do so, the Army burns the stake, and Shaw orders one of his soldiers not to let Leroy leave the building. After the melting of the pillar, Pennywise wakes from his slumber and goes to torment Will through a phone call, who is alone at home just as Charlotte told him to. The Creature pretends to be Ronnie on the call, then appears to Will in all his bloody, scary clown glory, opening his mouth to show Will the lights.
Okay, this was quite the Derry episode. It had it all. Perhaps it’s precisely because of the excessive number of shocking, essential scenes that the episode seems unfocused to me. It’s not something that hurts this penultimate hour beyond redemption—there’s still room for scares, shocks, and tension. But the importance of some events is diminished; just as the Black Spot, as a space of freedom for black soldiers, developed rapidly in the previous episode, the Augury unfolds quickly, almost anticlimactically.
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| “The Black Spot” – IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. Photo: Courtesy of HBO ©2025 HBO Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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It’s possible to be horrified by the depth of racism in Derry, which goes far beyond hypocritical punitivism directed at an (innocent) Hank and permeates the entire season in details big and small. Still, the horrifying fire gets lost amid the 1908 flashbacks that lead to an anticlimactic ending for Ingrid, the revelations about the Army and its stupid plan, and all the storylines the episode needs to organize for next week’s season finale. Given the slower pace of this season’s first four episodes, it’s almost as if the series had planned an extra episode that would have allowed them to develop everything more calmly, but had to cut that episode at the last minute, resulting in a final batch of episodes with an odd, messy pace. |
Anyway, this episode also has many positive moments. Rich’s death scene was powerful and beautiful. Despite being tormented by Pennywise in the sewers and hearing the voices in the pipes, we don’t see him being individually attacked by the Creature. He’s the only child in the series—and I’d say the sole main character—who somehow remains untouched by the Creature, not because he’s not afraid, but because he’s stronger than his fears and stronger than Derry. Rich doesn’t die in anxiety, despair, or sorrow; he sleeps peacefully while talking about his love for Marge. This scene was moving and heartbreaking in all the right ways; Rich, you were too pure for this world.
Meanwhile, Dick remains one of the most interesting characters on the show, fighting to regain control of his powers (and his mind) while actively confronting the Creature and saving people; that’s our absolute final boy. It was also curious to see Bill Skarsgård in a different role as Bob Gray. Now, the finale is next: who will survive the horrors? Will Hank and Charlotte escape Derry? Will any main character die? How will the loose ends be tied up, now that the Army broke the Creature’s usual cycle? Even at its messiest, this show’s successes outweigh its missteps, and it makes for good TV, so I bet we’ll be in for a treat next week.