It: Welcome to Derry follows a new 1962 ensemble, not the Losers Club from the films. Here is the full-season guide to the Hanlon family, the children investigating Derry’s disappearances, the military figures probing the entity, and the mythology surrounding Pennywise / It.
Spoiler warning: This is a full-season guide to It: Welcome to Derry. It discusses the major characters, family connections, Pennywise’s mythology, and the season’s final developments.
It: Welcome to Derry features a new 1962 ensemble rather than retelling the Losers Club story. Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo lead the adult Hanlon family storyline, while Clara Stack, Amanda Christine, Matilda Lawler, Arian S. Cartaya, Mikkal Karim-Fidler, Jack Molloy Legault, and Blake Cameron James form the central group of young characters. Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise—but the season is careful to present him as one recognizable form of the larger entity known as It.
The HBO original drama was developed by Andy and Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs. Its first season is set in Derry, Maine, in 1962, premiered on HBO and Max on October 26, 2025, and consists of eight episodes. It expands the continuity established by It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019) while drawing on Stephen King’s novel.
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#1 Best Overall
- Runtime: 109 minutes
The main cast of It: Welcome to Derry
Taylour Paige as Charlotte Hanlon
Charlotte Hanlon is Leroy Hanlon’s wife and Will Hanlon’s mother. Her storyline combines family protection with a confrontation against Derry’s institutional racism and supernatural denial. Charlotte is portrayed as an activist who refuses to accept the town’s explanations for the danger surrounding its children.
Her importance extends beyond the immediate 1962 plot. Charlotte is part of the Hanlon family history that later becomes significant through Mike Hanlon in the broader It mythology. The series uses her family to connect its new characters to the films without simply recreating the Losers Club.
Jovan Adepo as Leroy Hanlon
Leroy is a U.S. Air Force major, Charlotte’s husband, and Will’s father. He arrives in Derry with his family and becomes involved in the military investigation into the force beneath the town.
Leroy occupies the point where the show’s domestic, political, and science-fiction strands meet. He is trying to protect his family while dealing with superiors who see the entity as a possible military resource. His role also establishes the connection between the 1962 events and the later Hanlon family legacy.
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Will is the young son of Charlotte and Leroy. His place in the Hanlon family makes him one of the season’s most important links to the later mythology, although he is not simply a younger version of Mike Hanlon and the series does not reproduce the films’ Losers Club storyline.
Will becomes part of the network of children trying to understand Derry’s disappearances. Through him, the show also examines the danger of leaving children to interpret frightening events while adults dismiss, discredit, or institutionalize what they have seen.
Clara Stack as Lilly Bainbridge
Lilly is one of the season’s principal child protagonists and its emotional center. She is dealing with the death of her father, an absent mother, guilt, and trauma when the disappearances begin to expose Derry’s deeper horror.
Her friendship with Ronnie gives the story a personal anchor. Lilly is also an example of how the town’s adults respond to children who recognize that something is wrong: instead of investigating the danger, they often treat the child’s fear as a problem to be contained.
Amanda Christine as Veronica “Ronnie” Grogan
Ronnie Grogan is Hank Grogan’s daughter and Lilly’s close friend. She moves between the ordinary social world of Derry and the mystery surrounding the missing children.
Ronnie’s family connection to the Capitol Theatre makes that location more than a horror set piece. The theatre is tied to her father’s work, the investigation into the killings, and the season’s final confrontation. Ronnie’s loyalty to Lilly helps turn the children’s friendship group into an active resistance against Derry’s collective denial.
Matilda Lawler as Marge Truman
Marge begins the season preoccupied with popularity and with maintaining her position among Derry’s socially favored girls. Her experiences gradually force her to take the threat more seriously and become a more courageous member of the young ensemble.
Her character also carries a major connection to the future Losers Club mythology. That connection is revealed later in the season, so it is best understood as a spoiler rather than as part of the show’s initial premise. The series uses Marge to show how ordinary adolescent concerns can give way to loyalty and responsibility when the town’s horror becomes impossible to ignore.
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Rich is one of the younger members of the group forming around Lilly, Ronnie, Marge, Will, Teddy, and Phil. His storyline contributes to the season’s themes of friendship, fear, memory, and the cost of confronting It.
Rich is not presented as a direct replacement for a member of the film Losers Club. Like the other children, he belongs to the show’s 1962 generation and helps establish that Derry’s cycle affects more than one famous group of friends.
Mikkal Karim-Fidler as Theodore “Teddy” Uris
Teddy is one of Lilly’s school-age friends and part of the group attempting to understand what is happening to Derry’s children. His surname is an intentional mythology connection for viewers who know the later It characters.
However, Teddy should not be described as the adult Stanley Uris from the films. The name creates a connection to the wider mythology, but it does not mean the series is showing Stanley himself or that every detail of the later character has been transferred to Teddy.
Jack Molloy Legault as Philip “Phil” Malkin
Phil is another member of the young ensemble and is associated with Teddy, Susie, Lilly, and their peers. The Malkin family name connects the series to the wider history of Derry in King’s novel and the screen adaptation.
Phil’s role is best viewed as part of the show’s expanding map of Derry families. The series uses surnames and family histories to suggest continuity, but a familiar name is not automatically proof that a character is a direct ancestor of someone from the films.
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The adult investigation and Derry’s institutions
Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann
Dick Hallorann is a young military figure involved in the investigation of the supernatural threat. His presence is the clearest confirmed character-level connection between Welcome to Derry and another major Stephen King property: Hallorann is the character associated with psychic abilities in The Shining.
The series uses Hallorann in a timeline that differs from the chronology of King’s original novel and instead aligns with the continuity established by the Muschietti films. His inclusion broadens the story’s supernatural vocabulary without turning every visual or thematic resemblance to King’s other works into a confirmed crossover.
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James Remar as General Francis Shaw
Francis Shaw is Leroy’s superior and a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general. He is searching for a possible weapon that could help end the Cold War, which gives the season its military-science-fiction dimension.
Shaw’s interest in controlling or weaponizing the force beneath Derry makes him dangerous for a reason separate from Pennywise. It is not only the entity that threatens the town; powerful institutions are also willing to experiment with an incomprehensible predator if they believe it might provide a strategic advantage.
Stephen Rider as Hank Grogan
Hank Grogan is Ronnie’s father and the projectionist at Derry’s Capitol Theatre. His work places him at the center of the theatre’s killings and the investigation into the disappearances.
Hank’s relationship with Ronnie gives the Capitol a family dimension. For Ronnie, the theatre is not merely the place where horror occurs; it is part of her father’s life and part of the ordinary Derry that the supernatural threat corrupts.
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Ingrid Kersh is a mysterious adult figure whose past is tied to Bob Gray, the performer identity associated with Pennywise before the creature’s familiar clown presentation.
Her story expands the mythology behind Pennywise and helps explain why some people retain—or recover—memories that Derry’s supernatural influence usually suppresses. Ingrid is therefore important not only as a character with a personal connection to Bob Gray, but also as a way for the season to explore memory, repression, and the town’s participation in forgetting.
Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise / It
Bill Skarsgård reprises his role from the two It films. The most accurate description is Pennywise / It: Pennywise is the entity’s most recognizable manifestation, but It is a shape-shifting supernatural predator that exploits fear and repeatedly returns to Derry.
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- Number of discs: 1
Season 1 expands the history of the Bob Gray identity while preserving the clown as the central visual presence. Treating Pennywise as only a murderous clown misses the larger point of the character. The entity changes form according to the fear it wants to exploit, and the season’s mythology is concerned with the relationship between those forms, the town’s history, and the recurring cycle of violence.
The child friendship group
The principal young-character network consists of Lilly Bainbridge, Ronnie Grogan, Marge Truman, Rich Santos, Teddy Uris, Phil Malkin, and Will Hanlon. Their relationships change as the season progresses, but their shared investigation gives the show its human center.
This is not a second version of the Losers Club. The films focus on the group in the late 1980s and in adulthood; Welcome to Derry creates a new 1962 ensemble. Some surnames and family histories point forward to the later mythology, but the children’s identities, conflicts, and experiences belong to this story.
The group also reflects the show’s broader concerns. Lilly’s grief, Ronnie’s loyalty, Marge’s social anxiety, Will’s family position, and the other children’s fear all matter independently of the monster plot. Their willingness to believe one another becomes a direct challenge to Derry’s adult culture of denial.
Important supporting and mythology-linked characters
The season also includes Susie Malkin, Matty Clements, Taniel, Rose, Captain Pauly, and members of the Hanlon, Malkin, Grogan, and Kersh/Gray families. Several of these roles are revealed through individual episodes, twists, or episode-specific credits.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Because the show uses revelations to reframe its families and relationships, supporting characters should be discussed with care. A name may connect a character to Derry’s history without establishing a permanent relationship, survival status, or direct ancestry. The safest approach is to identify the relevant episode before making a definitive claim.
Character relationships at a glance
| Connection | Characters | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Hanlon family | Charlotte and Leroy Hanlon; Will Hanlon | The family anchors the adult storyline and links 1962 Derry to the later Hanlon mythology. |
| Grogan family | Hank Grogan; Ronnie Grogan | Hank’s work at the Capitol Theatre makes the location central to Ronnie’s family story and the investigation. |
| Young-character group | Lilly, Ronnie, Marge, Rich, Teddy, Phil, and Will | The children investigate the disappearances and challenge Derry’s collective denial. |
| Military investigation | Leroy Hanlon, Dick Hallorann, and General Francis Shaw | The Air Force investigation tries to understand—and potentially exploit—the force beneath the town. |
| Pennywise mythology | Pennywise/It, Bob Gray, and Ingrid Kersh | This thread explores the entity’s performer identity, history, and effect on memory. |
How the series connects to the films and King’s novel
It: Welcome to Derry is best described as a prequel and expansion of the continuity established by the Muschietti films. It is based on Stephen King’s It, but it does not simply adapt the novel’s Losers Club plot in an earlier decade.
The strongest confirmed links are the Hanlon family, the expanded history of Derry, Pennywise/It, and Dick Hallorann’s connection to The Shining. Other apparent connections may be visual, thematic, or interpretive. They should not be presented as confirmed family relationships unless the series explicitly establishes them.
That distinction is especially important when discussing the children’s surnames. Teddy Uris is not the same character as Stanley Uris from the films, and the presence of the Malkin name does not by itself establish every possible genealogical link. The show is building a larger mythology, not supplying a direct family tree for every familiar name.
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Where to watch and what to know before starting
Season 1 premiered in the United States on HBO and Max on October 26, 2025, and ran for eight episodes through December 2025. It is primarily set in 1962 Derry, Maine. Streaming catalogs, platform names, and regional availability can change, so viewers outside the United States should check their local listings.
The series includes horror violence, child endangerment, racism, institutional abuse, grief, and mental-health trauma. The Black Spot and the show’s depictions of historical racism belong to the fictionalized world of Derry; they should not be confused with an account of real-world institutions or historical events.
Bottom line
The cast of It: Welcome to Derry is built around two generations of characters: the Hanlon-led adults confronting Derry’s institutions and the children whose friendships allow them to recognize what the town wants to forget. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise remains the headline presence, but the season’s larger story belongs to It, Derry, and the families caught in the entity’s repeating cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is It: Welcome to Derry set, and how many episodes are there?
Season 1 of It: Welcome to Derry is set in 1962 and contains eight episodes.
Is the child group in It: Welcome to Derry the Losers Club?
No. The series creates a new group of children in 1962. It connects to the Losers Club mythology through selected families, names, and continuity links, but it does not retell the films’ Losers Club story.
Who plays Pennywise in It: Welcome to Derry?
Bill Skarsgård plays Pennywise / It, the shape-shifting entity whose clown form is its best-known manifestation.
How is It: Welcome to Derry connected to The Shining?
Dick Hallorann is the confirmed character-level connection to The Shining. He is associated with psychic abilities in that story and appears here as a young military figure.
Where can you watch It: Welcome to Derry?
The season premiered on HBO and Max in the United States on October 26, 2025. Availability can differ by territory and may change as streaming catalogs are updated.
The Bottom Line
It: Welcome to Derry is not a retelling of the Losers Club story. Its 1962 cast creates a new child ensemble and an adult Hanlon-and-military storyline, while selected surnames, family histories, Bob Gray’s identity, and Dick Hallorann expand the continuity of King’s Derry and the Muschietti films.
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