It: Welcome to Derry's closing chapter drops a time travel twist in Pennywise's lore, which comes off as the perfect setup for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. Since It: Welcome to Derry is not a direct adaptation of Stephen King's It, it cleverly retcons many aspects of the book. One of these retcons completely changes how one perceives Pennywise as it hints at the being's time travel abilities.
In It: Welcome to Derry season 1's ending chapter, it is revealed that, unlike humans, Pennywise possesses the ability to see beyond the linear confines of time. Owing to this, for him, the past, the present, and the future are unfolding simultaneously. Even if someone ends up killing him in the present, he can always target a previous generation of the Losers Club and ensure his survival.
While the bigger implications of this twist are yet to be explored, It: Welcome to Derry season 2 could introduce some complex sci-fi story beats if it embraces the time travel reveal. Netflix's Dark's creators, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, have also joined Welcome to Derry season 2's writing team, hinting that the Stephen King adaptation will delve deeper into its time travel elements.
Interestingly, a closer look at the Pennywise time travel reveal also seems to establish It: Welcome to Derry as the perfect prequel to the upcoming Dark Tower series. The two shows will likely not have any explicit connections, but, as a viewer, one can always imagine them as a part of a wider Stephen King TV universe.
After Its Pennywise Time Travel Twist, Welcome To Derry Is The Perfect Setup For The Dark Tower Show
Since tomorrow and yesterday are all the same for little Pennywise, the cyclical nature of his existence is reminiscent of the philosophical tenet of The Dark Tower: "Ka is a wheel." By revealing that Pennywise is experiencing his own death and returning to a past timeline at the same time, It: Welcome to Derry seems to bring its own spin on "Ka," where history is doomed to keep repeating itself until every generation defeats Pennywise.
According to The Dark Tower's lore, Pennywise spawns from the Prim, which is a chaotic void that existed long before the physical universe. Creatures of the Prim are known to exist beyond our limited three-dimensional vision of reality. This perfectly explains how Pennywise is able to see time in a non-linear way.
In more ways than one, even the show's portrayal of the 13 shards of a meteor used to contain Pennywise in Derry's forests seems reminiscent of the Beams from The Dark Tower. When the Beams/Shards are disrupted by the military, chaos ensues in the series, reminding one of how reality begins to bleed and fold in itself in The Dark Tower when the Breakers break the beams.
Andy Muschietti Has Confirmed Welcome To Derry’s Dark Tower Connection
What makes these subtle connections between The Dark Tower and It: Welcome to Derry even more fascinating is that Andy Muschietti has confirmed the show's future seasons will explore "the other side." Explicitly highlighting the series' Dark Tower connection (via TV Insider), Muschietti quoted:
"Everything that is on the other side, it’s connected to the Dark Tower because it’s the same universe, the macroverse."
As the director confirmed, the show will still focus primarily on the human perspective, but it will not shy away from giving audiences a glimpse of the wider Stephen King macroverse. This hints that after dropping several nods to the Maturin in season 1, It: Welcome to Derry will also likely give the primordial turtle a more prominent presence in its story.
Since little seems to be known about Mike Flanagan's upcoming take on The Dark Tower, it is too soon to tell whether It: Welcome to Derry will explicitly connect to it. If the upcoming show's rights end up going to HBO, a direct link between the two series could be possible. For now, though, It: Welcome to Derry seems to be giving its own unique interpretation of Dark Tower while delving deeper into It's lore.
Mike Flanagan’s Dark Tower Isn’t Happening Soon, But It: Welcome To Derry Can Fill The Void
Mike Flanagan is actively working on two major Stephen King adaptations right now: Carrie and The Mist. Both have been adapted multiple times in the past, but the director will seemingly give the two Stephen King books his own unique spin. Since his schedule is also packed with several other horror projects, like The Exorcist remake, it seems unlikely that he will hop on The Dark Tower's TV adaptation anytime soon.
While Flanagan has consistently assured audiences that the project will see the light of day, he has also compared it to "launching an oil tanker" because of the complications associated with its scale and rights (via Deadline).
Since It: Welcome to Derry season 2's production flywheels are already moving, it will almost certainly premiere before the highly anticipated Dark Tower series. If all goes well for the HBO show, its third season, too, might come out before Dark Tower's adaptation.
Owing to this, instead of feeling troubled by The Dark Tower's production challenges, viewers can embrace It: Welcome to Derry as a fascinating take on the Stephen King book series.
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