Welcome to Derry episode 3 adds needless meaning to Bill’s slingshot

The joy of It: Welcome to Derry is how the HBO prequel series expands on the terrifying story created by Stephen King and brought to the big screen by Andy Muscietti. Now, three episodes in, we know how the Hanlon family wound up in Derry, which character connects the Maine town to the Overlook Hotel of The Shining, and even met a horrifying non-Pennywise version of It in the latest episode. And while that’s all great world-building, there’s also a line when it comes to creating new lore in the King universe. Unfortunately, Welcome to Derry might have just crossed it.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for the first three episodes of It: Welcome to Derry follow.]

If you have even a passing familiarity with It, chances are you know something about the importance of Bill Denbrough’s slingshot. In the books and their various adaptations, Beverly uses it to attack Pennywise when the main characters are kids. While we never learn where Bill gets that particular slingshot from, episode 4 of Welcome to Derry either gave us that answer — somehow — or created lore for the concept of slingshots.

The episode opens in the early 1900s, during one of It’s previous feeding cycles. We meet General Shaw (James Remar) as a child, and he acquires a slingshot while at a fair with his dad. He also comes face-to-face with a form of It that is an elderly one-eyed man who terrifies the young Shaw because, well, he’s a creepy-looking old man.

On their way home from the fair, the Shaw family’s car overheats, leading the boy to trade his slingshot to a local Indigenous girl in exchange for a jar of water to fill the car’s radiator. Later, we see the same boy being chased by the one-eyed man through the woods. As It transforms into a much larger monster, the girl comes to his rescue and fires the slingshot. The impact makes It bleed, letting Shaw and the girl slip away.

They escape together and form a bond, but their friendship eventually ends when Shaw’s family leaves town, with the girl returning his slingshot. Decades later, General Shaw returns to Derry to lead the mission to track It. Being back in the town unlocks memories of his childhood, including the girl that grew up to be Rose (Kimberly Norris Guerrero), one of the town’s shopkeepers.

We also learn that Shaw still has the slingshot and, after that encounter with It during his childhood, it’s now connected to the entity somehow. In episode 3, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) uses it in his mission to locate the monster.

Here’s the thing: There is no link between Shaw and Bill in the original book or any of the previous It adaptations. In fact, the General isn’t in the story at all, as he’s a new character created for Welcome to Derry. So what’s the plan here? Is Shaw going to be connected to Bill, perhaps through his mother’s side of the family to explain the different last names? Did Bill unknowingly find this magical slingshot at a thrift store? Or is Welcome to Derry making the leap that slingshots in general (often a tool used by children) are especially dangerous against a monster that feeds on kids?

Elements like this being added to the story of It don’t really make for interesting lore, but instead could possibly damage the original narrative. Nobody who has seen or read any version of It has been champing at the bit to find out where Bill’s slingshot came from. In fact, the way the story plays out, the real danger wasn’t the slingshot, but the silver slugs Beverly fired from it — and Beverly herself, being the best shot of the group. In It, the most useful weapon against the entity is the kids themselves as they stand firm against the fear Pennywise is attempting to instill in them. When a young Eddie sprays his asthma inhaler at the clown, declaring that “this is battery acid, you slime,” it works to damage Pennywise as he’s standing up for himself in the face of terror.

If the key to defeating It is, in fact, the children who stand up against him in the face of being killed and devoured, why is there a haunted slingshot making the rounds in Derry? I’m fearful of the series making the slingshot It’s kryptonite, rather than the kids eschewing their fears and standing up to the creature.

Thus far, Welcome to Derry has been superb, outside of this potential lore overstep. It’s already revealing so much about the town of Derry, drawing a beautifully haunted picture of the town and the people who live in it. When that’s the focus, it’s an engaging tale that I can’t wait to see more of. When it starts inserting lore into places where it’s unnecessary, though, I can feel myself beginning to check out. Hopefully that doesn’t last, because there are still five more episodes of Welcome to Derry season 1 to go.

The first three episodes of It: Welcome to Derry are streaming now. The show airs Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.