Derry Review assesses IT Chapter Two, in which CGI fright tactics supplant the psychological terror that rendered Pennywise so haunting and memorable.
When IT: Welcome to Derry aired on HBO at the end of 2024, fans of the genre thought it was going to be a new version of Stephen King’s horrifying world. But in its opening episode, the series offered something else — a very familiar (and not in a good way) experience. The very thing that made IT (2017) a triumph is what turns the prequel’s opening moments into a warning: the misapplication of horror principles that plagued IT: Chapter Two. And if you’re wondering where things went haywire, strap in — because it’s a lesson the franchise should have gotten the first time around.
“Young Matty Clements” The Original Story begins on the night of a snowstorm, a boy called Matty Clements running from his abusive father with nothing else but hope, young Matty Clements. He is taken in by a seemingly warm family, and for a fleeting moment the audience experiences genuine relief for him. Then everything goes horribly wrong. A grotesque, computer generated, winged thing explodes out of the car in a welter of blood. It’s supposed to echo Georgie’s death in the original movie — a chilling first taste of Pennywise’s real form. But here is the problem: it couldn’t be more wrong.
Compare with Georgie’s’s iconic death in IT (2017). Director Andy Muschietti choreographed that scene with surgical precision. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise was this chillingly intimate, yet threateningly expansive. The Georgie and clown talk gained genuine dread through conversation and psychology rather than spectacle. Every second seemed well-earned, every shock felt intimate. Pennywise took advantage of Georgie’s particular weakness — his faith in strangers, his wish to get back his boat. That’s efficient terror.”
That’s when it gets frustrating. IT: Chapter Two (2019) in particular was derided for eschewing the psychological horror that made the 1990 version so effective. The sequel padded itself out with a two-hour-and-forty-nine-minute running time, repetitive solo missions for every Loser Club member, and most damningly a dependence on cartoonish CGI monster moments. Critics were not shy about it—the attack on the Paul Bunyan statue, the grotesquerie creature designs, the visual spectacle that is not actually scary. It was like someone told the filmmakers: Bigger means better, and they darted off blindly downhill.
Chapter Two’s Rotten Tomatoes rating fell 23 points from the original. Box office receipts plummeted by more than $230 million. The message from the crowd was plain: we don’t want spectacle, we want atmosphere.
So what Welcome to Derry accomplishes in its first few minutes? It’s the exact same error. That demon baby on the fly, that horrific beast bursting out of the family vehicle, the extended gore set piece — it’s all Chapter Two’s playbook, dusted off and amazon prime-ready. The scene goes on uncomfortably long, giving up slow-building suspense for cheap scares.The winged creature reappears at the end of the episode and that moment works better narratively, though it can still not come close to the real terror of the opening of the original film.
Read More 👉 Fallout Season 2 Episode 2 Breakdown: Shady Sands’ Death & the Mojave’s Brutal New Rules
This isn’t just one badly staged scene. It’s a matter of philosophy.” IT worked because it knew something fundamental: Pennywise is scariest when horror feels close and personal. The warped Judith painting that plagues Stan, the leper that represents Eddie’s hypochondria, Georgie’s guilt-induced visions — these are mental terrors sculpted around each character’s unique fears.
Welcome to Derry had the formula for greatness. It was allowed to roam in the characters, new traumas, and the societal canvas of ’60s Derry, free from the constraints of a single Stephen King novel. It got a chance to fix Chapter Two’s mistakes. Instead, it fell all over itself, hurrying for a big monster moment without cultivating the mood of dread that makes Pennywise really scary.
Welcome to Derry has already made beats of learning this lesson in later episodes. Hallucination sequences customized to characters’ fears, atmosphere-building scenes using lighting and suspense, and sequences that prey on mental fragility have far outperformed those big CGI set pieces.
If the show continues on this path – sacrificing spectacle to pummel us with character-specific horror – maybe it’ll break its cycle for once. Because the big lesson isn’t that bigger is better. It’s that personal psychological terror will always stand the test of time over a computer-generated creature, no matter how cool it looks on screen.
IT: Welcome to Derry doesn’t come up short for lack of concepts, it wavers because it abandons what made IT so terrifying to begin with. The franchise was at its weakest when Pennywise ballooned into giant CGI monstrosities; it was at its best when fear tiptoed in silently, cloaked in guilt, trauma, and anxieties so personal they couldn’t be named. Instead of building suspense, the series starts with spectacle in what briefly amounts to the exact mistake that undermined IT: Chapter Two.
That’s not to say the show is irredeemable. Its succeeding episodes point to a more comprehensive approach to psychological horror derived from building atmosphere, character-based dread and the gradual disintegration of safety. If Welcome to Derry keeps playing to those strengths, it can still do right by Stephen King’s legacy instead of watering it down. Because Pennywise, at the end of the day, does not need wings, or blood sprays, or extra run time in order to be frightening — he just needs to get close enough to whisper.
Dive deeper into the cinematic world with Fandomfans to get all the details from your favorite genre.
Netflix One Piece Season 2 teases fans with early appearances of Sabo, Brook, and Bartolomeo. Learn how Eiichiro Oda sanctioned the timeline twist. Read more!
The team of One Piece Season 2 has stated that the quick-paced cameos of multiple characters were far more difficult to animate than fans would think. Sabo, Brook, Bartolomeo, and Yorki make brief appearances in Season 2. These characters make their actual appearance much later in the original manga, though the show used them early on in cameo roles.
From editor Eric Litman Such a jump of characters into the story early on was a lot of planning. The writers, producers and directors collaborated closely to ensure that these events embraced the narrative and would not contradict the source material written by Eiichiro Oda.
For a long time, adapting manga and anime into Western live action was essentially a Disaster Waiting to Happen. Fans and critics even referred to it as a “curse.” Between the absolute disaster of Dragonball Evolution and the lukewarm reception of Cowboy Bebop, it just wasn’t in the industry’s stars.
The problem, as usual, was that the executives wanted to “Westernize” the narratives, purging the strange, amazing soul of the originals so they could feel more “mainstream” like Netflix’s One Piece.
By embracing the complete ridiculousness of Eiichiro Oda’s world instead of apologizing for it, the show changed everything. “Into the Grand Line,” the second season, proves the series wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder. It did the unthinkable, lived in a world where physics and logic didn’t exist — fleshing out a universe based on characters who were little more than sticks of gum.
One of the things that makes One Piece Season 2 so good is the way it goes about building its world. The showrunners rolled out a huge (but fantastic) gamble in unveiling characters like Sabo, Brook, Bartolomeo and Captain Yorki well in advance of their introduction in the original story.
These fan favorites never appeared in the manga for years. By incorporating them into the narrative now the show is accomplishing two things:
This approach not only “corrects” the narrative, it respects Oda’s original vision by applying hindsight to make the live-action adaptation seem like a unified, epic jigsaw.
The reasoning behind One Piece Season 2’s success can be attributed to a straightforward yet fortuitous and probably unrepeatable alignment between the showrunners and the original creator. In order to make those early character cameos work without shattering the story, all departments needed to be aligned perfectly.
Co-showrunners Matt Owens and Joe Tracz have a few things to say about the old Hollywood way of doing things. Typically when a studio adapts a manga, the question is: “How do we make this less weird for our Western audience?”
Owens and Tracz went in the opposite direction. Their rule? Don’t change a thing. They made no apologies for the giant campy telepathic snails (Transponder Snails).
Since they embraced the absurdity, they could shove characters like Sabo or Brook into the background early on. To someone seeing it for the first time, these characters just feel like cogs in a huge, living world. But to the fan for years, they are massive “Easter eggs” that indicate the writers know exactly where the story is going.
One cannot discuss this series without discussing Eiichiro Oda, the man behind the One Piece Season 2 creator. Unlike the vast majority of authors who simply sign a contract and then get out of the way, Oda is the ultimate gatekeeper on this project.
Netflix and the studios established a “veto” policy: Nothing is released without approval from Oda.
| Leader | Role | The Contribution |
| Eiichiro Oda | The Creator | The ultimate authority. He ensured to keep the story true to the manga. |
| Matt Owens | Co-Showrunner | The long-time superfan who fought to get this made and keeps the long-term story on track. |
| Joe Tracz | Co-Showrunner | The Season 2 addition who pushed the “unapologetic” philosophy—no censoring or watering down the fantasy. |
Most of the success of One Piece Season 2 was actually a product of the editing room, in large part thanks to Eric Litman. If you’re wondering who he is, he’s worked on big things including Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the pirate drama Black Sails.
It was his expertise that helped the show find its footing, mixing heartfelt character moments with the big action and craziness that fans of One Piece are used to.
Since One Piece Season 2 relies so much on special effects, the editors couldn’t just wait for the footage to come in. They utilized something called Pre-Visualization (Previs) in essence a 3D animated storyboard to map out each scene well in advance.
This was huge for those “early cameos” we talked about. For instance, during the Loguetown scenes, Litman and the VFX crew had to work out how to hide characters such as Sabo or Bartolomeo in the background.
Netflix’s One Piece Season 2’s biggest technical nightmare? The Giants. Episode 4 introduces Dorry and Brogy, two gigantic warriors from the island of Elbaph. If the proportions were ever skewed for a split second, the whole production would start looking like a cheap B-movie. Litman and his team had to become obsessed with “forced perspective” to ensure the math worked out:
If the group can get you to believe in 70-foot Vikings, then a talking skeleton or a time-traveling revolutionary will be easy sells down the road. The technical triumph of the giants actually facilitates accepting the strangest parts of the tale.
The showrunner of One Piece Season 2 understood that manga readers can wait a decade for a payoff, but television audiences have to have stakes now. To remedy that, they’ve moved the narrative from a “linear” timeline to a “layered” one. They brought in huge fan favorite characters like Bartolomeo and Sabo years before they were supposed to. This not only rewards the fans, it makes the world seem like one giant interconnected puzzle beginning with the first episode.
In the original, Bartolomeo was just a random fan who witnessed Luffy survive an execution and rose to become his #1 fan. In One Piece Season 2, however, they made him a real character we actually care about.
He begins life as a street rat who tries to pickpocket Nami. When the villains capture Luffy, Bartolomeo has to watch the six-pack execution from the front row. But now he really knows Luffy, so when the lightning blasts him and saves him, that miracle isn’t just some cool thing to happen in the world — it’s a soul-shaping event. He even picks up Luffy’s discarded hat in awe.
There has almost been a One Piece fan upheaval the size of Marineford following the appearance of a small silhouette that was in one single manga panel in the year of 1999. Many thought it might be Luffy’s supposedly “dead” brother Sabo, quietly watching from the shadows. That minor detail would lead to years of theories and speculation among the fan community.
The Reveal: The series eventually confirmed it. In One Piece Season 2, a man in a top hat and goggles appears with Dragon.
Hunting for that twist: Fans know the story is going to end tragically at some point. He is literally standing there watching his brother escape, but he has no idea who Luffy is.
The show also connects with the story about Laboon, the giant whale that wait at the doorway of the Grand Line. We don’t learn who Laboon is waiting for in the manga until much later. In teasing the Rumbar Pirates and their skeleton musician Brook now, the series is making the world feel lived in and heartbreakingly real right from the jump.
| Aspect | Original Manga Canon | Netflix Adaptation | Output |
| Initial Debut | Chapter 705 (Dressrosa Arc) | Season 2, Episode 1 (Loguetown) | Narrative Establishes early season to grab interest |
| Relationship to Luffy | Passive spectator at the execution; retroactive “fanboy” | Active participant; personal interaction prior to the execution. | Deepens the emotional weight of his eventual loyalty; makes his motivation character-driven rather than coincidental. |
| Execution Scene Role | Distant crowd member | Forced to watch by Buggy from the “front seat”. | Highlights the contrast between Luffy’s optimism and true villainy. |
| Symbolic Resolution | Witnessed the lightning strike | Picks up Luffy’s straw hat in awe. | Provides a visual, cinematic anchor to his transition into piracy. |
The silent cameos in One Piece Season 2 serves as an excellent payoff for longtime fans that reward Oda’s detailed pre-planning, and it doesn’t require any dialogue or context that might alienate curious non-fans. Some critics noted that in an era when movies are increasingly laden with heavy-handed cinematic universe cross-promotion, Sabo’s is a welcome bit of underplaying.
It’s not a nod to the camera curt instructing the audience to know how important he is, to a new viewer, he’s just “some other weirdo in the background” of a bustling pirate city. For the fandom though it is a ground shaking event that spans decades of theorizing.
Editor Eric Litman and the showrunners acknowledged that bringing in Brook sooner was essential to selling the emotional weight behind Laboon’s story. By turning the vague “lost crew” concept into concrete, highly sympathetic characters, the adaptation instantly elevates the emotional stakes.
Most likely Oda when writing the Reverse Mountain arc back in the late 1990s did not have Brook or the Rumbar Pirates fully made up yet. The live-action series benefits from hindsight, and is able to integrate those elements from the beginning.
This indicates that the series had a very strong start, especially among the readers who were already familiar with the manga since 1997. Still, the audience can be drawn in by more complicated concepts of teamwork, leadership, and what it means to have a “found family,” instead of just keeping an eye out for punches and kicks.
On the other hand, Two years later, on March 10, 2026, One Piece Season 2 was also a massive success. It regained the top spot in about 50 countries within a few days after release, including key markets such as Germany, Brazil, and Japan. Early reports indicate the viewership numbers are rising around 30% faster than they did in Season 1.
One Piece Season 2 is declared as a masterclass by critics because of its outstanding timeline twist. Season 2 received 9/5 Critics (so far), its high as Season 1 get 86% from Critics and 90% from the Audience.
The highest praise? The show “accidentally” manages to be a dense fantasy epic without turning your brain to mush. You don’t need to have watched a single episode of the anime to enjoy the show as a blockbuster.
Even having all this success it seems that the hardcore community is split into two camps when it comes to those early character cameos.
The Hype Camp (The Majority)
Most fans with long memories are about to have a collective aneurysm. Spotting Sabo’s top hat or hearing Brook’s laugh for the first time were huge rewards for years of loyalty.
The Purist Camp (The Minority)
On the flip side, there are some purists who are a tad nervous. Their concerns are mostly pragmatic:
| Metric | Result | Why? |
| Viewership | 30% Growth | High retention of old fans + new “mainstream” interest. |
| Critical Score | 100% | Flawless integration of complicated lore. |
| Main Audience | 69% Male / 63% 30+ | Taps into nostalgia and mature themes of leadership. |
| Fan Sentiment | Mostly Positive | “Easter eggs” are winning over the “purist” complaints. |
The early appearance of characters like Bartolomeo, Sabo, Brook and Yorki isn’t just shallow pandering to the fans, it’s a deliberate structural engineering move.
With guidance from executive producers showrunners Matt Owens and Joe Tracz and under the ultimate authority and blessing of Oda, through the painstaking editorial management of Eric Litman—these cameos serve to deepen the theme of the current story while setting up future sagas in an elegant fashion.
Read More:- Monarch Season 2 Twist Explained: What It Means for the Monsterverse
The One Piece Season 2 is evidence that those surprise cameos weren’t just some random fan service. Characters such as Sabo, Brook, and Bartolomeo, were deliberately seeded earlier in the narrative to connect different story arcs and to expand the world.While collaborating closely with the manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, the production team was able to keep the adaptation faithful, yet still generate excitement for later seasons.
Stay connected with Fandomfans to get the latest updates from movies, series and celebrities.
The Pitt Season 2 is set during the July 4th ER crisis in 2026. Cast updates, story theme is becoming darker, release date and more.
If you have been on social media at all recently, you probably know what “Anxiety TV” means. It’s a genre characterised by the non-stop, nail-biting tension of The Bear or Industry. But as we look ahead to January 2026, the undisputed king of this category is making a comeback: Max’s breakout medical hit, The Pitt Season 2.
Having dominated the 2025 Emmys — including a well-deserved Lead Actor win for Noah Wyle — the series prepares for a second season that promises to be even more powerful than the first. Here’s why The Pitt is the consummate post-pandemic drama and what to expect when the next shift starts.
Though the showrunner (Wells), executive producers (R. Scott Gemmill), and lead actor (Noah Wyle) from the legendary series ER have all come back to play a part this is a completely different animal. It’s not nostalgic, it’s raw and “real time” as it responds to a post-2020 healthcare system.
Noah Wyle has described the series as an “answered prayer” for the industry — a way to move beyond the “superhero” mythos of old med shows to examine how “moral injury” and burnout affects today’s frontline healthcare providers.
This is no mere hospital drama, it is a documentary-style takedown of the American safety net.
Season 2 (airing January 8, 2026) follows 10 months after the end of Season 1 with us now in the midst of a Fourth of July shift. But the boom isn’t the only issue.
In a chillingly believable development, a cyber-attack necessitates the hospital to “go analog.” A modern ER without computers:
The PITT aren’t afraid to put in the headlines. This season plunges full tilt into the consequences of fictional federal Medicaid cuts (the “Big Beautiful Bill”).
This is not supposed to be partisan; it’s just the logistical reality of the ER being the provider of last resort. When you cut out social services, the trauma center is the last place you have left to send people. —- Executive Producer John Wells said
It’s a daring narrative turn that lifts the series from a workplace drama to a work of urgent social comment.
Read More 👉 Oscar 2025 Shortlist Revealed: Best International Film Nominees
| Actor | Character | Role |
| Noah Wyle | Dr. Robby Robinavitch | Facing burnout; eyeing a “sabbatical.” |
| Sepideh Moafi | Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi | New regular; a metrics-driven foil to Robby. |
| Patrick Ball | Dr. Frank Langdon | Returning to triage after 30 days in rehab |
| Taylor Dearden | Dr. Mel King | Fan-favorite neurodivergent resident |
What really distinguishes The Pitt is its “No Music” rule. No violins descend on cue to prod you to sadness and no drums are summoned to stoke tension. The mood is conveyed all through the sounds of monitors, footsteps, and people’s breath. This dedication to accuracy—along with a wide new emphasis on Respiratory Therapists and Nurse Practitioners—indicates a production team that actually takes heed of real-world healthcare pros.
So, the showrunner of The Pitt is premiering some episodes from January 8, and The Pitt is no longer just a “doctor show.” It’s a mirror held up to our present world, showing that even in the midst of systemic collapse, there is still humor, dignity and a desperate, beautiful heart.
The Pitt Season 2 in 2026 not for comfort watching, but for a raw, panicked portrayal of contemporary healthcare. With its stripped-down realism, political commentary, and emotionally spent characters, the show demonstrates that it’s not just a medical drama — it’s a reflection of a system in crisis, and the people who continue to keep it.
Fandomfans is a platform where you can get the latest updates on the high rated shows, our goal is to provide accurate details in easy conclusion.
