Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS forward for IT: Welcome to Derry season 1, episode 8!IT: Welcome to Derry co-creator Jason Fuchs has unpacked Richie Tozier’s confirmed connection to the prequel and one large demise’s true that means. Throughout episode 7 of the horror prequel collection, Wealthy Santos sacrifices himself to save lots of Marge Truman in the course of the Black Spot assault. Nevertheless, IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 ends together with his spirit returning to assist his buddies re-cage Pennywise.
On the similar time, nonetheless, the present revealed a significant twist concerning how he connects to Richie Tozier, a member of the Losers’ Membership within the IT films. Earlier than he makes an attempt to kill Marge, Pennywise reveals he would not see time linearly. He says that she’s Richie’s mom sooner or later, naming her youngster after the boy that helped save her life.
In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns for IT: Welcome to Derry, Fuchs defined how Marge and Wealthy’s Richie Tozier connection was shaped to supply a deeper emotional connection to the Losers’ Membership. The co-creator defined how the tragedy of Wealthy’s demise and his serving to the group on the finish, and the way it kinds a generational connection:
ScreenRant: One other large factor that got here from episode 7 is the heartbreaking demise of Wealthy. I might love to listen to the way you honed in on him being the one to ship off, so to talk, particularly since he will get the total circle heroic second within the finale of serving to them re-establish the cage.
Jason Fuchs: The Wealthy resolution actually was generated earlier than I even knew who Wealthy was. What I knew was that I needed to seek out actual emotion and heartbreak within the present, and I needed to discover a technique to join that emotion to the tales of our Losers in 1989 in ways in which may really feel surprising. Definitely, there are linkages all through the season to the movies and to the later cycles which can be proper in entrance of your face and apparent. We perceive the linkages between the Hanlon household and Mike, however I believed it might be attention-grabbing if we had a personality who was the father or mother of one in all our losers, who possibly we did not perceive to be that initially of the season.
We all know a bit of bit about Wealthy’s mother from canon, however what if the story of her relationship on this present is the story of why she named her son Wealthy? What if the one two males she ever actually cherished in her life have been the boy who saved her as an adolescent and the son she’d later have? Naming him Wealthy was a reference to that, whether or not she is aware of it or not – as a result of she’s been in Derry a very long time, so possibly these reminiscences aren’t all nonetheless there. There’s one thing much more tragic about the truth that she’s sitting in that hospital the day she provides beginning to Wealthy Tozier and would not know why Wealthy seems like the suitable identify; she simply is aware of that it does.
That connective tissue, that emotional beat, was one of many earliest issues I pitched Andy. I feel I pitched him that again in the course of the growth of the pilot in 2021, so we knew that was going to be part of it. We knew we have been going there, however we did not know precisely how it might all work. We knew he was going to be a personality named Wealthy who had a pet love with Marge that turns into one thing possibly a bit of bit extra profound by the tip of the season, in these last waning moments of the newly named Wealthy’s life.
Fuchs went on to elucidate how Wealthy serving to the bottom on the finish balanced out the tragedy of his demise, providing hope regardless of the layers of darkness within the story. He additionally emphasizes how the flicks play on the identical concepts of hopefulness and “the ability of affection to push again the darkness of hate,” one thing embodied in Wealthy’s last moments:
We knew this was a present that was going to have quite a lot of darkness and bleakness, simply by advantage of the cycle and what this materials is. However we needed to seek out one thing inspiring and hopeful too. Wealthy’s sacrifice is likely one of the saddest moments of the season, however I additionally suppose it is one of the vital tragically lovely. To have the ability to pay it again and have him return in episode 8 and assist his buddies full their mission, that every one felt just like the type of hope I needed to imbue the present with.
There’s quite a lot of demise, there’s quite a lot of violence, and there is great quantity of evil in Welcome to Derry. However basically, I do not discover it to be a hopeless story. I do not discover the flicks to be hopeless both. I stroll away from these movies with a certain quantity of hope concerning the energy of the human spirit, concerning the energy of unified perception, and most of all, the ability of affection to push again the darkness of hate. We could not finish this season on a observe of hopelessness. There’s sufficient of that on this planet, and there is sufficient of that within the season, so saving Wealthy come again in the way in which that he does felt proper.
The revelation about Marge being Richie’s mom connects practically all the principle youngsters in IT: Welcome to Derry to the youngsters within the Losers’ Membership sooner or later. Will Hanlon is the daddy of Mike Hanlon, whose place in Derry makes the Membership reuniting in IT: Chapter Two potential. This confirms simply how linked the collection is to the flicks.
As Fuchs says, nonetheless, Wealthy’s arrival to assist the group makes for a hopeful ending. Regardless of his demise, he nonetheless had a hand in utilizing the dagger to cage Pennywise in Derry as soon as extra. His identify being the inspiration for Richie’s additionally additional connects with the hope the Membership has towards preventing IT, showcasing the true connections between its cycles.
Given Pennywise appears intent on making an attempt to forestall his demise within the movie duology, future seasons of IT: Welcome to Derry will possible have related connections to the unique film. Ought to the deliberate seasons 2 and three be greenlit, there is a sturdy likelihood there might be extra acquainted lineages to return as different feeding cycles get explored.
- Launch Date
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October 26, 2025
- Community
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HBO
- Administrators
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Andy Muschietti
- Franchise(s)
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IT