It: Welcome to Derry introduces a new group of children fighting the sinister force of Pennywise, but a twist involving Matty Clements is one of the franchise's cruelest tricks yet. The new HBO Max horror show is set in 1962, 27 years before It (2017) and 54 years before It: Chapter Two. The series occurs in Derry during another active cycle of the sinister entity known as "it" and introduces a new group of young characters who endure the evil being's fear-inducing nightmares during a time of peak fear for the USA.
The new It prequel series has been well received, and is overseen by Stephen King veterans Andy and Barbara Muschietti, with Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane serving as showrunners. The cast includes Pennywise actor Bill Skarsgard, who is reprising his role, and new cast members Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, James Remar, Chris Chalk, Kimberly Guerrero, and many more. The first episode of It: Welcome to Derry premiered on October 27.
Who Is Matty In IT: Welcome to Derry?
The first character audiences meet in the It: Welcome to Derry premiere is Matty (Miles Ekhardt), a young boy attempting to run away from home and leave Derry. Matty is often shown sucking a pacifier, which he is considered much too old for, and is seemingly bullied for being too childish.
In the opening, Matty hitchhikes with a family to try to leave town, only for the group to become increasingly strange. The pregnant mother eventually gives birth to a mutant demon baby, which attacks and kills Matty.
This opening mirrors the one shown in It, in which Pennywise takes young Georgie Denbrough after luring him into a sewer drain. To avoid replicating this opening, the showrunners told Decider they avoided using Pennywise in his clown form, opting for him to shapeshift into the flying mutant baby instead:
Jason Fuchs: "We were just hoping to start the show in a way that felt both familiar and fresh. Obviously, the book, the movie, begins with Georgie being taken. So it felt appropriate to have Matty Clements have our first It abduction, but we wanted to do it in a fresh way.”
Brad Caleb Kane: "We wanted to do it without Pennywise. We wanted to see another manifestation of It and specifically a manifestation that took advantage of the fears of the time period."
Is Matty Pennywise?
Matty is the first child to be abducted during Pennywise's active period in 1962, but despite his apparent demise in the opening, it's not the last audience sees of Matty in It: Welcome to Derry.
Four months after the opening sequence, Matty's friend, Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack), is still reckoning with his disappearance and is haunted by Matty's voice from the drain in her bathtub. She shares these visions with her friends Phil, Teddy, and Susie, and they begin investigating Matty's disappearance, suspecting he may be alive.
This comes to a head in the episode's climactic theatre scene, in which Matty appears alive in the movie they are watching, holding a swaddled baby. The group calls to Matty, trying to entice him out of the screen, and he engages with them. But their hopes are dashed when Matty blames them for his predicament, telling them, "You're the reason I'm in here. Because you lied. Because you weren't there."
Matty's face then morphs into Pennywise's triangular smile, confirming he was never really Matty and was the shapeshifting entity in disguise. Pennywise (as Matty) then releases the baby he's holding. The mutant bat baby is unleashed into the theatre, killing the majority of the group in a violent bloodbath.
While the group might've had hope that Matty was alive, it all ended up being a cruel trick from Pennywise to lure them in. Pennywise has used such a strategy before with Georgie in the 2017 film. Pennywise took on the form of Georgie to trick Bill into thinking his brother was alive, only for Georgie to become twisted and deranged in his nightmare sequences, distracting Bill so Pennywise could strike.
The same applies in It: Welcome to Derry, with Pennywise utilizing the children's guilt around abandoning Matty against them, encouraging them to search for him. It then takes on the form of Matty to get close enough to feed on the children's fear and then to kill them.
Pennywise (whose proper clown form will receive the perfect introduction in Welcome to Derry) is known for taking on the appearance of the things that people fear most, and often that ends up being twisted versions of their loved ones. In It: Welcome to Derry, Matty is the victim at the heart of the mystery, and taking on his form is the clown's way of continuing to string along the children closest to him in the hope of luring them in to feed off of.
