Since its October debut, IT: Welcome to Derry has naturally featured references to Stephen King‘s IT alongside canonically accurate nods to The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. But does that mean that the HBO show somehow connects with every single Stephen King book?
For instance, did the IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 finale try to directly connect Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) and his powers to Stephen King’s The Mist?
**Spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 8 “Winter Fire,” now streaming on HBO Max**
IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 8 “Winter Fire” opens immediately after last week’s episode, wherein General Shaw (James Remar) goes ahead with his plan to break It out of its cage so It can wreck havoc on the world. Shaw’s theory? The only path to world peace is to control humanity through fear. In this capacity, It can be the cudgel by with the U.S. military maintains universal obedience.
Of course, General Shaw is afflicted with an extreme form of hubris. Our heroes know that It can’t be contained. Case in point, Pennywise wastes no time kidnapping Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) before hitting up Derry High School for more playthings. He murders the principal and then lures the younger students to the assembly room to place them all under the power of the Deadlights in one fell swoop.
As Pennywise’s reign of terror takes over Derry, an eerie fog covers the entire town like a down blanket. It drives people into storefronts for cover and amplifies the tension. It’s a sight that naturally might evoke yet another Stephen King classic, The Mist, in your mind.
Given that many Stephen King fans are fond of linking the lore of all the grand master of horror’s tales together, is IT: Welcome to Derry linking Pennywise’s powers to the “Mist”? Are we seeing a reference to the Todash Space or cracks in the Prim? Does the Crimson King have anything to do with IT: Welcome to Derry? HOW FAR DO THE STEPHEN KING REFERENCES IN IT: WELCOME TO DERRY GO?!?!
Before you bust out the cork board or put on your tin foil hat, let’s be clear: the fog covering Derry actually has nothing to do with The Mist.
“That particular moment does not connect to The Mist, for better or for worse,” IT: Welcome to Derry EP, writer, and co-showrunner Jason Fuchs told DECIDER this week. “It’s its own thing and it was about how does It react to the possibility of being free.”
So, no, you don’t have to rewatch Frank Darabont’s beloved 2007 cult classic The Mist to catch all of the Easter eggs in the IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 finale. As Fuchs explained, the fog is an extension of Pennywise and his powers over Derry.
“Really what It’s doing is stretching its limbs,” Fuchs said. “It’s sort of just feeling things out and going, ‘Wait, how far can it… what’s going on?’”
“The fog is almost coming off of It, the entity, as it awakens, reawakens. Because It’s just gone to sleep to hibernate at the end of [Episode ] 7 and suddenly the pillar’s destroyed and cracked. It opens its eyes. It’s been disturbed from its sleep because of the destruction of that pillar,” he said.
“And so the fog of Derry is visualized in the way it is, because It is waking up. It’s understanding its parameters, It’s putting its feelers around the town, It’s understanding what the heck is going on.”
Not only is the “fog of Derry,” as Fuchs prefers to call it, tied to Pennywise, but the town itself.
“And it’s obviously a clear visualization of what we’ve always, what the characters talk about. Shaw most directly talks about the ‘fog of Derry’ and the way it has an anesthetizing impact on the citizens of the town,” Fuchs said. “You can see that in a pretty clear visual representation in that finale.”
So, no, technically, the fog of Derry is not supposed to be reference to Stephen King’s The Mist. However, we have a sneaking suspicion that won’t stop some fans from drawing connections.