Published May 6, 2026, 10:29 PM EDT
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A genre shift in It: Welcome to Derry season 2 almost seems inevitable after a new update surrounding the Stephen King show. Towards its ending moments, It: Welcome to Derry season 1 retconned many aspects of Stephen King's original book, especially after revealing Pennywise's ability to see beyond humanity's linear perception of time.
The twist towards the end of It: Welcome to Derry established that killing Pennywise in one timeline is not enough, as the creature will still keep existing as the creature will still keep existing across multiple points in time simultaneously. The reveal not only made Pennywise even scarier and suggested he is immortal but also added a layer of high-concept sci-fi to Stephen King's original story.
Most details surrounding It: Welcome to Derry season 2's story remain under the wraps. However, a new update about the HBO show's upcoming installment suggests that it will double down on its sci-fi elements. While the Stephen King show's season 1 remained true to its horror roots, its season 2 will likely experiment more with high-concept sci-fi storytelling.
Dark’s Creators’ Addition To Welcome To Derry Season 2 Hints At Its Sci-Fi Genre Shift
Reports (via Nexus Point News) indicate that the creators of Netflix's Dark, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, have joined the team behind It: Welcome to Derry season 2's development. Along with them, Stranger Things' writer and producer, Jessica Mecklenburg, and The Penguin's writer, John McCutcheon, have also joined the show's writers' room. With so many exciting additions to the series' upcoming installment, its future seems bright.
Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar's addition, in particular, seems intriguing because they are known for the complex sci-fi plots of their shows and their ability to brilliantly capture time travel on the small screen. With Netflix's Dark, they delivered one of the best portrayals of time travel in modern television history.
Instead of treating time travel as a cheap narrative device to undo the past and fix the future, their Netflix German series used it to explore themes surrounding fate, generational trauma, grief, and humanity's inability to escape predetermined cycles.
Throughout Dark's runtime, they also did not shy away from riffing on real scientific concepts while ensuring that the overarching drama remained grounded in relatable human conflict. Dark remains one of Netflix's best sci-fi shows to date, proving the timelessness of its brilliant portrayal of time travel. In season 1, It: Welcome to Derry also established that Pennywise exists beyond humanity's linear perception of time.
The show revealed that even if Pennywise is killed by one generation of characters, he will continue to exist for the past generations and try to change the future by manipulating events across different timelines. Although Welcome To Derry was fairly linear in its storytelling, the time travel twist established that Pennywise hopes to turn his existence into an endless temporal loop instead of a linear life cycle.
Since Dark's creators have already delivered a near-perfect portrayal of interconnected timelines and causality-driven storytelling, their involvement in season 2 allows the HBO series to fully embrace its newly introduced sci-fi horror elements.
IT: Welcome To Derry Could Turn Into The Most Mind-Bending Stephen King Adaptation
It: Welcome to Derry is not the first Stephen King adaptation that dabbles with time travel. 11.22.63's entire premise revolves around the idea of a man traveling back in time to fix the future. Even movies like 1408 have subtle time travel elements. In It: Welcome to Derry, however, the concept seems far more cosmic and existential because Pennywise is not merely jumping from one timeline to another.
He is not a time traveler like the main character from 11.22.63. Instead, the terrifying clown can perceive and exist across all timelines simultaneously. Owing to this, even if the members of the Losers Club manage to kill him in their timeline, he will continue to exist for all past generations and attempt to secure his own future.
It: Welcome to Derry expands the backstories and interludes from Stephen King's IT instead of directly adapting the original book.
By portraying Pennywise as a looming shadow over all timelines of the IT franchise, It: Welcome to Derry makes him seem even more intimidating and invincible. This allows the show to become incredibly mind-bending and twisty in its upcoming installment, where it can unfold across multiple timelines at once and even borrow sci-fi elements from Netflix's Dark.
While only time will tell how It: Welcome to Derry season 2 will turn out, so many promising updates surrounding its development make it one of the most exciting Stephen King adaptations of recent years.
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