RECAP: ‘IT: Welcome To Derry’ Episode 7 — “The Black Spot”

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7, “The Black Spot,” is the episode I have been dreading once I realized that Season 1 of the Pennywise prequel series would culminate in an act of racist violence. If you’ve read the book, you know that The Black Spot is the space where Black airmen would hang out, the one area where they could feel joy. That is, until the Klan burned it down and murdered those in it. 

In IT: Welcome to Derry, The Black Spot has kept some elements of its original story, but has been changed to become both a place of joy and safety, and the target of racists (though not explicitly said), for it is also the place where Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) is hiding out.

We know that Hank was falsely accused. We know that it is orchestrating all of this violence. But painted as both scared parents and a racist lynch mob, they don’t. This softens the overt hate crime that Stephen King wrote, and instead, acts as more trauma for our characters, with a straw man to hide behind. 

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 embraces the past. 

That said, IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 isn’t just about The Black Spot. The episode opens with some background on Ingrid Kersh’s (Madeleine Stowe) father, Bob Gray, who performs as Pennywise at the carnival. The performance allows audiences to see Pennywise as a performer, and it’s here that Bill Skarsgård excels.

On stage with the toybox music playing, a much smaller and fake forehead, and more vibrant hair, Pennywise doesn’t seem all that terrible, and that is by design. The Pennywise we see at the beginning of the episode is shown through his daughter’s eyes. She is his Periwinkle, and that’s the perspective we get. The practical set and stage is fun to watch, where a young Ingrid sits behind the curtain putting it all in motion. And to be honest, it’s crazy to see Pennywise’s weird little dance without the terror of it all. 

But Pennywise is the form that it takes, and Welcome to Derry Episode 7 shows the audience why. As the children jump onto the stage and destroy the set, mimicking the clown’s dance, the ominous nature begins to surface, with someone watching Pennywise from a barn. 

Still, Welcome to Derry Episode 7 doesn’t stay in the tension. Instead, the episode cuts to Pennywise taking off his make-up and Ingrid putting on her face and her costume. Taking her mother’s performance name of Periwinkle, the two have a heartwarming moment that rings heartfelt but eerie at the same time. Bob is a sad man, a widower and a father. But there’s nothing malevolent there. Set to be a father-daughter act, they don’t get the chance. 

As Pennywise sits drinking and smoking, a child comes out of the forest, a child that is very clearly it. “The children seem drawn to you,” it says. And now we know that the visage of the galloo isn’t because Pennywise was something terrifying, but rather something beloved, reinforced by Ingrid’s comment that she wishes her father could hear how the people talk about him. 

To no shock, the vignette of an opening ends with Pennywise venturing into the forest with the child, leaving only a bloody handkerchief behind. One of the longer openings of the series, Welcome to Derry Episode 7 sets up the rest of the episode with this pacing. And that is a sad ending we can’t keep avoiding as the cycle gets closer to its end. 

“The Black Spot” was always going to be a hard episode to watch, but something doesn’t sit right.

Directed by Andy Muschietti, the opening is also the episode’s strongest storytelling element. But the technical know-how displayed in the burning of The Black Spot is astonishing. At the same time, the most horrific event in the book is still too much. 

When we get back to the real focus of Welcome to Derry Episode 7, the masked men crash into The Black Spot with guns loaded. They spot a white woman in the building and quickly tell her to be ashamed and to get out. And then, the threats begin. 

The white men have their faces covered, but the anger that the Black men in the building show is something you can feel. Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) attempts to quiet the situation, telling the racist ghouls in Halloween masks that The Black Spot is just a military-only facility. To which the armed group says, that they aren’t asking, they’re telling. 

As they pull their weapons, the airmen pull their guns, and their guns are government-issued. It’s this last part that gives the racists pause, but Hank Grogan jumps out, Ronnie (Amanda Christine) screaming for him not to. He doesn’t want anyone harmed over him, and the airmen want to make sure of it.

“No one is getting strung up today,” they say. The white men leave, lock the doors, and as the airmen try to protect the kids, the racists begin to throw Molotov cocktails into The Black Spot, shooting through the windows as well, knowing full well that there are children, and over and over we watch the airmen be shot in the head, killed as they escape. It’s honestly too much to watch. 

I always knew that “The Black Spot” was going to be a difficult episode. But the anger I felt watching the episode, and how Muschietti and the other writers chose to veil what was a clearly white supremacist act as retaliation for a man hiding. There are more than enough signs to show that the masked men are racist, but at the same time, it’s weird to have something so overt in the source material be watered down in this attempt at an adaptation.

The Black Spot closes the cycle, but it’s not the end, even remotely. 

If Welcome to Derry has proven itself adept at, it’s putting its Black characters through unending trauma. And this continues as Pennywise makes his appearance, eating some of the people at the Black Spot, promising safety, and giving death instead, all while Chief Bowers (Peter Outerbridge) watches. They’re proud of themselves, and all I can think about is the Chief stating that Derry isn’t the South. 

“The Black Spot” is frustrating because of the violence, but it is something that we knew would happen. At the same time, the showrunners’ decision to take this path is disappointing. As Hank escapes with Will (Blake Cameron James) and Ronnie, Rich (Arian S. Cartaya) and Marge are stuck, and the roof is about to fall. 

But Rich is a knight after all, and he takes the chance to save the girl he’s liked since school started. He puts her into a freezer, lies on top of it to stop her from pushing the lid open, and confesses how much he likes her. She reciprocates, but as they talk, the camera pans away. Rich is lying on the freezer. 

As the cowards take off, refusing to stay and watch the violence and murder they’ve done, Stanley, Ingrid’s husband, is stuck. Showing her silhouette, Ingrid approaches her husband. She tells him that this is who she is as he mocks her clown costume. Pennywise emerges, decapitating him and eating his brains, as can be expected. 

Then, Ingrid admits to it all. Not only did she set up Hank Grogan, her lover, but she also told the men where to find him. Ingrid explains how she knew that there would be blood and fear and that her “papa” would come and tell her that she “did good.” But you know, at least, Pennywise breaks her.

Ingrid’s joy and comfort turn to fear when Pennywise decides to sleep instead of staying by her side. The big bloody act was the end of the cycle, called auguries, but to her, she thought that she would have him by her side. Instead, her psychosis finally breaks, and she finds out that it ate her father in probably one of the funniest moments of the series.

Ingrid gets her due, finally. 

Yeah, it’s supposed to be tense, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Pennywise doesn’t eat Ingrid like the others; he unfurls his mouth, and the lights capture her. It’s the first time we see Pennywise do that in IT: Welcome to Derry, and it pays off. 

After this, we see the firefighters combing the building. They rescue Marge (Matilda Lawler) from the freezer, but Rich is dead, lying against the box. As Marge cries, hugging him, Will and Ronnie come back. It’s built to be one of the most emotional moments of the series. And when put into perspective with the deaths that the other kids experienced that were played for shock and awe, Rich’s death is only about being selfless in a situation where he could have saved himself instead. 

The aftermath of The Black Spot is devastating. Hallorann saved two kids, but Marge is going to carry this with her, and more importantly, now, Dick Hallorann is going to carry the weight of all of the ones he didn’t save with him, too. As the series’ penultimate episode, Hallorann chose to speak to the ghosts to find the children, but now, the dead won’t stop. 

When Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Charlotte (Taylour Paige) come back to The Black Spot, the ruins of it all are more than just a building. There are 17 dead airmen, on top of the civilians, and all that the government cares about is finding it still. Even though Pennywise has gone dormant, they’re still trying to finish their “mission.”

The shift in the story is violently jarring. We don’t have time to grieve The Black Spot or Rich. The Major is pushing forward on the mission, Charlotte is attempting to handle the emotion, and while they’re still helping Hank, the story moves on from the Black Spot just as quickly as the town of Derry does. 

Moving away from the Black Spot and onto Main Street, we see a wanted poster and hear a man on the radio explaining that the fire department has deemed the murder an electrical fire at an “illegal colored speakeasy.” On top of that, the white murderers are characterized as people coming to help, and there is no note about the men’s military services, just that they are patrons and that it was their fault. 

HBO Max’s IT: Welcome to Derry doesn’t have a clear message; it’s just muddled.

I understand what the writers are doing as we see “Chief of Police Clint Bowers” being scrubbed from a door. It’s trusting the audience to see the racism, but doing so is a disservice. It leaves me wondering why King’s novel could call out the racism overtly, but this show, which has already put its Black characters through multiple ringers, can not. 

This cycle had 30 deaths, and as Welcome to Derry Episode 7 shifts to Rose (Kimberly Guerrero) leading a meeting, it’s all just accepted as a fact of life. Their tribe keeps the galloo caged, and Rose’s words may as well just say, “It could have been worse.” But with Dick Hallorann leading the military to one of the pillars and General Shaw (James Remar) eager to dig it up, that won’t be the case for long. 

When Shaw and the military discover the pillar, they begin trying to melt it down and reverse-engineer it. It may be asleep, but it needs to remain trapped, and right now, it won’t be. General Shaw is pushing forward, and the theme of selfishness continues to permeate Welcome to Derry Episode 7. 

General Shaw’s push to control the fear monster in the woods isn’t about Russia or defense. It’s about quelling dissent, stopping the “race riots” and the feminist movement, as you would expect from a white elderly general in the 1960s military. He wants to make people obey through fear. Between Shaw and the racist violence in this episode, it’s the most American IT: Welcome to Derry has been.

For the Major, he understands that the pillar can’t be destroyed and that he needs to do something. With a gun to General Shaw’s head, the Major finally goes against the military. But he can’t stop it. The pillar is incinerated, and the Major is bound to be court-martialled. But more importantly, it is awake again. 

To end Welcome to Derry Episode 7, Will answers the phone. The right shots of the scene, moving from the inside of the refrigerator to Will’s face as he talks to Ronnie on the phone, keep the tension high. Then Ronnie’s voice changes as she recounts Rich’s death.

We know, and Will knows that it is on the other end of the phone. Despite his protest that he won’t be scared anymore, when Pennywise appears, he is. As we saw with Ingrid, Pennywise captures Will, unfurling his draw and hypnotizing him. And then the credits roll. 

Welcome to Derry Episode 7 ends with a big impact, but it doesn’t stick to emotion; it ends in spectacle. 

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 is a chimera of an episode. What starts as a brutal and uncomfortable watch turns back into a government conspiracy to weaponize it. The tonal disconnect between the two halves of the episode is difficult to swallow, and it cheapens the tragedy of The Black Spot. I need the showrunners to take a stance, and throughout the episode, it feels like they’d rather move without labels, which weakens the episode and the series. 

The episode continues to hover in the middle of the pack. As a series, its handling of race is hamfisted at best and ignorant of its impact at worst. Tragedy isn’t given its due respect, despite the episode being named ‘The Black Spot.” It’s something that has made the series hard to get behind, and that continues with the penultimate one. There should be more to the world of Derry than shock after shock. 

With emotional highs, the series is balancing on a razor’s edge. Still, the much-improved practical effects work outshine the weird CGI we see again with the monster itself. But the series needs to pull itself in and approach its story and characters with care and heart over spectacle; that’s when it’s at its best. 

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 is streaming now on HBO Max with new episodes every Sunday. 

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