It – Welcome to Derry 1×4 Review: “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function”

It – Welcome to Derry season one episode 4, titled ‘The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function’, took us back in time to share lore about Pennywise’s arrival on Earth.

Even though the live-action movies did share information about Pennywise’s origins, including how to defeat such a being, fans of It – Welcome to Derry were waiting to see the latest iteration tackle the same subject matter. And I have to say that I enjoyed watching ‘The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function’ spend more time focusing on the Indigenous community that had to take it upon themselves to cage such a cosmic creature.

The backstory was delivered through Dick’s psychic probing of Taniel’s mind on General Shaw’s orders, with Dick making a very young Taniel share the centuries-old story passed down amongst Taniel’s community. I liked how Dick used a young Rose to make kid Taniel open up. And, yes, the similarities between Pennywise messing with someone’s mind and Dick’s psychic powers were quite obvious, especially the moment when one of young Rose’s eyes closed. Also, Dick’s “friendly” smile! Very Pennywise-lite.

Dick’s not into eating human flesh, but other than that, it’s in the realm of in-universe possibility for him to create intricate hallucinations, similar to Pennywise, to scare or kill other people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pennywise brought it up to Dick down the line.

According to Taniel’s story, Pennywise fell to Earth in a meteor. He was kept contained in the woods because an Indigenous warrior figured out that a piece of the meteor could be used to hurt or scare the monster. For centuries, Pennywise (kind of) fed in the woods while the Indigenous tribe stayed away. However, things changed when the White people showed up and refused to heed the tribe’s warnings. Pennywise was able to feed on the new arrivals and regain quite a lot of his strength.

Of course, sticking with a core aspect of the narrative, a group of Indigenous children took it upon themselves to collect more pieces of the cosmic meteor to face Pennywise. The battle between the adults and Pennywise cost a lot of lives, and the kids were able to use about a dozen meteor shards to create a cage for Pennywise by burying the shards around the edges of the woods.

From my understanding, Derry was built by cutting down most of the forest (because that’s what “urban development” does), and that’s how Pennywise can continue feeding on kids while staying contained in the cage.

I really enjoyed seeing the backstory visualized. Kudos to the creative team for actually showing the events instead of simply having Taniel narrate them to Dick. Having said that, we don’t get to learn the reasoning behind why Pennywise goes to sleep every 27 years. So, that was kind of a bummer.

One of my favorite scenes from the sequence was how It appeared differently depending on what his victims feared the most. It appeared as a giant zombie-like moose-creature in front of the warrior who first fought against it. After the arrival of the White settlers, Pennywise wasn’t above appearing as a Christian Priest when attacking an Indigenous person.

The psychic interrogation concluded with Taniel pointing Dick to the Neibolt house. The upcoming episode is likely going to have General Shaw send a team to investigate the house and find a way underground to Pennywise’s lair. General Shaw might also dig up some of the buried shards to mess with the containment field holding back Pennywise.

Talking about the real world, of course, the pictures the kids took in the previous episode were altered by Pennywise, meaning that police chief Bowers and his men only saw usual cemetery stuff. The sole picture that maintained the original visual was the one with a shadowy Pennywise in the background. Should Bowers have looked into why a possible man in a clown costume was lurking in the cemetery? Yes. But then again, this is Derry. Pennywise’s influence has a way of making adults not care about possible danger.

Due to Will being part of the current Losers Club, the narrative allowed him to tackle the Pennywise situation through science. He was into researching whether Derry had experienced something similar before. He also explained how Pennywise, similar to certain predators, was toying with the kids because their fear made their meat taste better.

One possible way to face Pennywise was to not feel fear, and Lilly suggested that could be achieved by taking her “mother’s little helper“, aka valium. The ease of access to valium during that era made a lot of sense. Suburban housewives were going through a lot!

It’s going to be interesting to see if valium would be potent enough to counter the cosmic-level powers of Pennywise. Also, the loss of fear isn’t really a huge deterrent to Pennywise. He likes the taste of fear-laced meat. However, the lack of fear doesn’t necessarily prevent him from killing you if he wants.

Another thing I liked about ‘The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function’ was how it had Leroy become aware of Will’s situation with Pennywise. The creative team could have dragged it out, but thankfully, they didn’t. Even though Leroy’s not completely sure about what Will’s dealing with, he knows something dangerous is targeting his son, especially with what Leroy knows about General Shaw’s mission.

I can’t wait for the kids to team up with Leroy and Dick to try to survive against Pennywise. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me or not, but the cosmic being seems to be having a lot more fun with the kids and the adults compared to how he was in the original novel. Pennywise isn’t being as discreet as I would expect him to be. He’s planning something big.

As for Charlotte, while she’s not involved in Pennywise’s shenanigans yet, her storyline connected her to Hank and finding a way to keep him out of prison. Yay to Charlotte bringing up calling Civil Rights supporters if she wasn’t allowed to meet with Hank. Derry needed a wakeup call. The outside world had changed.

Hank finally told Charlotte what he was up to on the night of the cinema attack. While the fandom was hoping for Hank to be revealed to be a queer character, Hank shared that he was out with a married white woman. Unfortunately, during that particular era, such a thing would mean being lynched.

Coming back to the kids, Lilly met with Madeleine Stowe’s character Ingrid to learn about whether something similar had occurred in Derry before. While Ingrid wasn’t able to share much information, she did encourage Lilly to continue with her mission to fight for what she believed was the truth. I don’t know about you, but I’m still side-eyeing Ingrid hard. I just can’t bring myself to trust her.

At school, the narrative finally opened the door for Marge to be part of Lilly’s group, even though it came at the cost of Pennywise attacking Marge, leading her to injure an eye. I liked the visuals of Marge running around with snail-like eyes. I don’t know what caused Marge to hurt herself to get rid of said eyes (It’s hallucinations didn’t negate the pain associated with certain actions), but I understand the writers wanting to amp up the blood and gore during that particular sequence.

I think Pennywise has chosen Lilly as his “favorite” for now. He seems particularly interested in making her appear deranged while using her to get to more kids. Lilly was the one who formed a group with Ronnie, Phil, and Terry (leading to the death of the boys), and it’s because of Lilly (and somewhat Ronnie) that Will, Rich, and Marge got involved.

Another interesting development had to do with Dick being given permission to use a decommissioned storage unit as a place for his Black army mates to hang out in. For those not familiar with the lore, said location is likely going to become The Black Spot, which was burned down because of racial hate. A vision from Dick’s grandmother (who also had psychic powers) did deliver a warning. Pennywise is clearly out to get him.

We’re halfway through the first season of It – Welcome to Derry and I can’t wait to see more of what the writers have in store!

What did you think of It – Welcome to Derry season one episode 4, ‘The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function’?

Let us know.

–

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

The Geekiary was recently targeted in financial fraud, leading us to launch a GoFundMe to help with bill payments to keep the website afloat.

Please consider donating and sharing the campaign.

Thank you!

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

Twitter

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary