It: Welcome to Derry just extended the Stephen King universe, details explored

HBO Max's It: Welcome to Derry has managed to deliver one of the greatest adaptations of Stephen King's universe in recent times. While the first season mainly focuses on Pennywise's reign of horror in Derry in 1962, by the final episode, the show has managed to expand the Stephen King universe beyond anything that has been seen before.

The mini references to other Stephen King books were among the least surprising aspects of this extension. However, in the final episode, It: Welcome to Derry portrayed a disturbing reality that opened up the series to new narratives beyond imagination.

Keep reading to find out more about how the HBO Max show brought horror back into the Stephen King-adapted universe.

It: Welcome to Derry opens up the narrative possibilities in the season finale

HBO Max's It: Welcome to Derry has become one of the biggest releases from the streamer, with the season finale viewership crossing a personal best for the show and the streamer. The HBO Max show takes a chance on the long-circling rumors about the King multiverse and brings them to life. King, as a novelist, has been known for sprinkling references to his other novels in his work, leading to rumors about a Stephen King multiverse.

The HBO Max show brings these rumors to life, with some subtle and some very bold additions. The first season finds Derry in 1962, and even though Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise doesn't appear until the fifth episode of the season, the narrative has deepened the monster's lore by the end. The first season started out as a prequel to the It movies, but the final episode revealed a much more ambitious plan in place.

It: Welcome to Derry expands further than the It movies with sprinkles of references, like the Shawshank Prison bus, which was seen in the trailer itself. Another reveal in the trailer was The Shining's Dick Halloran in Derry. The narrative takes place two decades before the events of King's The Shining, allowing Dick to serve as a military officer along with Leroy Hanlon.

The show provides a contextual backstory of Hallorann's powers, further extending the universe. By the end, Hallorann reveals that he's headed to a hotel in London for a cook's job, saying, "How much trouble could a hotel be?" A tongue-in-cheek reference to The Shining's events, Welcome to Derry has opened itself up to a spin-off as well, focused on Hallorann.

The final straw was revealed in the season finale, where Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise reveals that it does not experience time linearly. In the final hour of the show, Pennywise the clown drags Marge away from her friends by her legs and reveals that it has especially been waiting to taste her. While this might come off as another one of the dancing clown monster's tricks to scare the thirteen-year-old, it turns out that is not the case.

Pennywise calls her "Margaret Tozier," which confuses Marge and the audience alike because that is not her name. The dancing clown makes the biggest reveal of all, saying that the past, the present, and the future are all the same. He goes on to reveal that she is, in fact, Richie Tozier's mother, and he has been waiting to kill her so that he can prevent his death at the hands of the Losers' Club.

So, Pennywise is unstuck in time and is trying to prevent its death in the conventional "future" by killing the parents so that their children are never born. This reveal extends the narrative possibilities of the Stephen King universe in It: Welcome to Derry.

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