HBO has released a surprise episode of It: Welcome to Derry on its streaming platform just in time for Halloween. The special, titled A Story of Derry, runs for 30 minutes and is set hundreds of years before the main series events and the introduction of the shape-shifting clown Pennywise.
The release comes shortly after HBO renewed the series for a second season in August. It: Welcome to Derry originally premiered on HBO Max on Oct. 26, 2025. The show serves as a prequel to the two-part It film reboot released in 2017 and 2019, and is based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.
Season 2 Returns to the Great Depression
Co-creator Andy Muschietti told Variety that the writers room had opened for Season 2 before the official renewal was announced. He described the upcoming season as taking place in 1935 during the Great Depression, a stark shift from the 1962 setting of the first season.
“There’s gonna be a lot of that depression-era hustling in the air in our characters,” Muschietti said. “Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things.”
Muschietti clarified that the second season will feature a different aesthetic than the first. He described Derry as a “carcass of something” where people are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, and homeless. The children in the new season face a bleak environment, with some being orphans or runaways rather than living in a comforting suburban life.
Despite the harsh conditions, Muschietti noted that an aspect of hope remains burning within the new group of characters. He emphasized that the social and cultural horrors of the era are central to the story.
The Bradley Gang Massacre
The second season will center on the bloody massacre of the Bradley Gang, a group of bank robbers who stop in Derry to buy ammunition and end up facing unimaginable horror. This event is one of the interludes found in King’s original novel.
The surprise Halloween special provides a deeper look into the town’s long history of supernatural terror, setting the stage for the darker, more desperate tone of the upcoming season.
Source: Variety
