The most recent episode of the series IT: Welcome To Derry, a prequel to the blockbuster success based on Stephen King’s work, delivered one of the most awaited and debated answers by horror fans in the last decades. Aired this Sunday (16), the fourth episode, titled “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function”, delved deeply into the mythology of the cosmic entity, rewriting the rules of the game. If you always wondered why the world-eating monster limits its terror only to the borders of Derry, Maine, HBO has just confirmed: it’s not a choice, it’s a prison.
The Origin of “The Galloo” and the Stellar Prison
The episode’s narrative expands King’s universe in a way that Andy Muschietti’s films merely scratched the surface. Set during the Cold War, it shows the American army in a frantic search for a “weapon” that could ensure supremacy against Russia. Ironically, this weapon is the entity we know as Pennywise.
To unravel the creature’s secrets, the military captures Taniel (Joshua Odjick), a Native American who was watching over the excavation site of “Operation Precept”. Through a psychic probe into Taniel’s mind, conducted by Dick Hallorann (a key figure in King’s universe, connecting to The Shining), we are transported to ancestral memories explaining the beast’s containment.
We discover that Derry’s original native population called the monster “The Galloo”. Unlike the popular belief that the creature merely “landed” on Earth to feed, the episode reveals the comet that brought Pennywise to Earth millions of years ago was not just a transport, but its original prison. Upon collision, the entity’s real form — the Deadlights — was released, but the wreckage of that “star” contained the key to detain it.
The Ritual of the 13 Pillars: Derry’s Supernatural Border
The turning point in the mythology occurs centuries ago, presumably in the 1700s, when settlers began to invade the region. Despite the natives’ warnings to avoid the “Western Woods” (the creature’s hunting ground), the settlers ignored them, feeding Pennywise’s strength.
Faced with the entity’s strengthening, a young native named Necani (Kiawentiio) led a group of youths — an original “Losers’ Club” — to confront the evil. The crucial revelation is both technical and mystical: Necani and her friends used fragments of the “star-prison” that fell to Earth to forge a barrier.
They buried 13 fragments of this cosmic material in a circle around the Western Woods. Each burial site was marked with fire, creating what the episode calls “pillars”. These pillars, kept secret and guarded by the tribe, form a metaphysical barrier impenetrable to Pennywise.
Thus, the series establishes a new canon: the current borders of the city of Derry are delimited by these ancient 13 pillars. Pennywise does not leave Derry to terrorize the world not out of whim or because “there is enough food” there, but because it is literally imprisoned by ancient ritualistic technology derived from its own celestial prison.
Canon Divergence: Stephen King vs. HBO
This explanation creates a fascinating, and potentially controversial, divergence in relation to Stephen King’s original material. In the book IT, there’s no mention of pillars or comet fragments acting as supernatural electric fences. King’s literature suggests Pennywise is an entity of almost unlimited power on the earthly plane, restricted only by the rules of the “Macroverse” and the will of Maturin (the Turtle), but not by physical barriers in Maine.
In the novel, there are subtle hints that the Thing can leave Derry if it wishes. The most cited example by scholars of the work is the death of Richard Macklin, abusive father of Eddie Corcoran, who was found dead in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The crime scene strongly suggested Pennywise’s signature, implying the entity traveled to hunt or manipulate events outside the city.
Moreover, Henry Bowers’ escape from the Juniper Hill asylum in the book occurs in a geographical location that, in real life, is far from Derry, suggesting that the Thing’s influence extends beyond the municipal borders. However, the HBO series seems to retcon (retroactively change) these details to create a narrative of a “caged monster”, which increases the urgency of the army’s mission to try to control or free this force.
The Turtle Easter Egg and the Impact on Fear
A detail that did not go unnoticed by the most attentive fans was the visual mention of a turtle shell containing one of the fragments. In the vast universe of Stephen King, the natural enemy of Pennywise (IT) is Maturin, a giant cosmic turtle that accidentally vomited our universe. Inserting a fragment of the prison inside a turtle shell is a brilliant reference to the only force capable of rivaling the entity.
However, specialized critics raise a pertinent question about the series’ emotional SEO: does explaining the monster too much reduce its terror?
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The Fear of the Unknown: Pennywise’s efficiency has always resided in its unknowable nature. It is primal fear made flesh.
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The Humanization of Evil: By giving it physical limitations (cannot pass the pillars) and material weaknesses (can be hurt by comet stones), the series risks turning a cosmic Lovecraftian horror into just another “dangerous alien” that can be managed.
If the solution to beating Pennywise is just “find a knife made of the right comet”, the psychological journey of overcoming one’s fears — the central theme of IT — may lose narrative strength in favor of a quest for “magical MacGuffins”.
What Does This Mean For the Future of the Franchise?
With the series set decades before the movies IT (2017) and IT: Chapter Two (2019), the existence of these pillars raises questions about continuity. We know that in the ’80s and in 2016 (timeline of the movies), the Losers’ Club didn’t need to deal with pillars or comet fragments to defeat the clown.
This suggests two possibilities for the conclusion of Welcome To Derry:
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The Prison Fails: The army or the events of the series might end up destroying or removing these pillars, which would explain why this mythology isn’t mentioned in the future.
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Forgetting: Just as forgetting is a weapon of Pennywise, maybe the knowledge on how to imprison it was purposely lost to protect future generations from the burden.
The series continues to be aired on Sundays on HBO and Max, promising to connect these loose ends before we get to the fateful rain that will bring Georgie and his paper boat to the encounter with the sewer.
