Bloody Hell, Welcome to Derry Just Pulled a Phoenix! Episode 4 Review: Turning the Tide (and Our Stomachs)
AI Gaming News Author · IGN South Africa ·
After a shaky start, *It: Welcome to Derry* Episode 4, 'The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet's Function,' delivers a terrifying mid-season turnaround, deepening character drama, introducing genuinely gruesome horror, and expanding the chilling lore of Pennywise with expert precision.
Right, so after a bit of a wobbly start – you know that feeling when a new game drops, and you're just not quite sure if the dev team remembered to patch out the obvious bugs? – *It: Welcome to Derry* looked like it was heading for a 'meh' pile in my mental inventory. Apparently, the scariest thing about the first few episodes was, ironically enough, their downward quality trend. But then, *bam!* Episode 4, 'The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet's Function,' drops like a critical update, and suddenly, the series remembers how to terrify us properly.
Fair dinkum, this episode feels like the devs went back to the drawing board, remembered what made the original lore so compelling, and cranked the drama and horror up to a rolling boil. It's a proper mid-season comeback that not only fixes some of the wonkiness but sets up some truly intriguing future events. Colour me cautiously optimistic, mate.
We kick things off with our plucky band of kids – Lilly, Ronnie, Will, and Rich – who, after last week's rather grim cemetery shenanigans, march straight into Chief Bowers' office. They're armed with photographic evidence of their encounters with those 'dollar store ghoul children,' only to find the spooks have conveniently vanished from the pictures. Classic case of 'the game's bugged, and the NPC refuses to acknowledge reality,' isn't it? Chief Bowers, played brilliantly by Peter Outerbridge, is clearly a man simmering with a rage that's far more controlled than his future grandson's tantrums, and his dismissal of the kids only adds to the unsettling atmosphere. You just *know* he's got more skeletons in his closet than a dungeon crawler on discount.
This tension carries over into Charlotte's incredibly nuanced conversation with Bowers about Hank Grogan's treatment. The show dives headfirst into the racial dynamics of the era, with Charlotte, a civil rights freedom fighter, navigating Bowers' thinly veiled prejudice. He insists Derry 'isn't the South,' but his unconvincing tone and Hank's genuine terror of being lynched suggest otherwise. Stephen Rider, as Hank, absolutely nails the emotional weight here, revealing a secret affair with a white woman in town as the real reason for his silence. The smart money's on that lover being connected to a Derry cop, which, if it ever came out, would probably make Chief Bowers totally snap – imagine the boss fight that'd unleash!
While Charlotte and Leroy are grappling with this messy moral quandary, the kids, thanks to Will's clever deduction, figure out that 'It' feeds on fear. And here, my friends, we have the ultimate 'Chekov's gun' of the episode: Lilly hands out 'Mommy's little helpers' – her mum's anxiety meds – convinced they'll block fear. Loose pills and Pennywise? Yeah, that's not going to backfire spectacularly, is it? I'm genuinely excited and dread-filled to see the narrative fallout from that particular spell gone wrong.
Once the episode finishes laying all this narrative track, it's party time! We get a truly delightful sequence with Leroy and Will on the Kenduskeag River. Jovan Adepo and Blake Cameron James have some genuinely easy chemistry as Leroy needles Will about a crush and offers fly-fishing tips. It's a lovely, grounded moment... until Will gets dragged under by something wearing Leroy's burned face. These encounters with It are absolute masterclasses in using horror to shade in character backstories and fears naturally. It's like finding a hidden lore page just by getting jump-scared.
But the real showstopper? Marge's prank on Lilly. The show sets it up so cleverly, lingering on Marge squirming over a nature film about parasites in snail eyes. You just know the math is adding up to something disgusting. And when Marge's eyes brutally 'Judge Doom' out of her head – sending her stumbling into the wood shop for an unforgettable ocular omnishambles – it's pure, unadulterated *Evil Dead* shit of the highest order. Yeah, the CG had that slightly off 'early 2000s cutscene' sheen, but Matilda Lawler's utterly authentic reactions carried the whole thing through. I've always got space in my heart for gloriously grotesque horror like that. It's the kind of thing that reminds you why we love these digital realms of terror!
Just when you think it's time for the credits, the show doubles down with an extended flashback sequence via Dick Hallorann's 'shine.' Leroy, still reeling from Will's attack, grills Hallorann and Shaw about Operation Precept. This leads Hallorann into a psychic interrogation of Taniel, a member of Derry's Indigenous community, where we dive into their tribe's legend of The Galloo – their name for It. We witness It's arrival on Earth and how Taniel's ancestors figured out how to counteract it. This whole sequence feels like a snappy, self-contained short film, expanding the lore of Pennywise with a ton of flair and a deep sense of unease, especially given Hallorann's psychic vulnerability. The sound design alone, with its Kubrickian low-end warbles, ratchets up the tension perfectly.
In essence, 'The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet's Function' isn't just a fancy title; it's a statement of intent. It meaningfully advances every single storyline, packs a wallop on the horror front, and unveils fascinating new details about Pennywise's ancient arrival. This was precisely the shot in the arm *Welcome to Derry* needed at its critical midpoint. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go bleach my eyeballs.
--- *This analysis of 'It: Welcome to Derry - Episode 4' was inspired by and drew details from Tom Jorgensen's original review, "It: Welcome to Derry - Episode 4 Review," published on IGN South Africa.*
Tags: horror-series-review, television-lore, supernatural-thriller, character-development, creature-feature
Original article: IGN South Africa