‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Episode 2 Ending Explained: All About Pennywise and the Bradley Gang Car

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 “The Thing in the Dark” ends with a couple of wild reveals about what young Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), and the U.S. government are actually doing in Derry. HBO‘s new Stephen King series posits that the existentially evil force known as “It” or “Pennywise” (Bill Skarsgård) might not be as big a mystery to the powers that be than we initially thought…

**Spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 “The Thing in the Dark,” now streaming on HBO Max**

In this week’s IT: Welcome to Derry, we discover that the reason why Leroy Hanlon was brought to Maine — and the reason he was attacked my mysterious men in masks in Episode 1 — are tied directly to Pennywise. You see, Leroy’s amygdala was injured during his time fighting in the Korean War. So now, he literally cannot feel fear. That makes Leroy a perfect foil to face down a creature like Pennywise that trades in fear.

General Shaw (James Remar) explains to Leroy that he’s in charge of a secret plan called “Operation Precept,” a military project where the U.S. Government is trying to capture Pennywise to use as a weapon.

When DECIDER spoke with IT: Welcome to Derry star James Remar, we asked him if he saw Shaw’s hubris in thinking he could use Pennywise as a weapon as a metaphor for the nuclear arms race.

“Well, it’s almost exactly a metaphor, but it’s not a metaphor because we have all just witnessed a few years earlier the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Remar said. “Through this, we ushered in the atomic age and and jet powered aircraft and, even by this point, Sputnik and the space program.”

“So harnessing this kind of power was really not inconceivable,” he added. “It wasn’t a stretch, emotionally or mentally, for General Francis Shaw to think I can control that thing.”

This week’s IT: Welcome to Derry also reveals why The Shining‘s Dick Hallorann was in Derry at this time. Dick is using his psychic abilities — his “shine,” as he describes the power to young Danny Torrance in The Shining — to locate various “beacons” that seem to be surrounding Pennywise. IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 ends with the military excavating a Depression era car, covered in bullet holes and filled with corpses. Hallorann says he told them it was here.

So what’s the deal with this car? How is it connected to the real life Brady gang? And was Pennywise responsible for the Bradley gang massacre in Derry? Here’s what you need to know about the end of IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 “The Thing in the Dark”…

IT: Welcome to Derry Ending Explained: All About Pennywise and the Bradley Gang Car

One of the features baked into Pennywise’s lore is that he slumbers for about 27-28 years before waking up to feed on frightened people once again. That means that for generations, Derry has been attacked by It in various forms and manners. Stephen King alludes to several of Pennywise’s past atrocities in It, including the 1908 Kitchener Ironworks explosion and the 1930s Bradley gang massacre. Both of these events are teased as Easter eggs in the IT: Welcome to Derry opening credits, but we get eyes on a relic from one of these events at the end of Episode 2.

The car that the military dredge out of the earth at the end of IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 “The Thing in the Dark” is very clearly connected to the Bradley gang. In the original novel It, Derry pharmacist Norbert Keene told the adult version of Mike Hanlon the story of the Bradley Gang. They were a Depression era group of bandits let by brothers George and Al Bradley who descended upon Derry, robbing local shops and killing shop owners. Eventually, though, the townspeople fought back, mowing the Bradley gang down with their own guns.

Norbert tells Mike that townspeople recall seeing a clown shooting, too. In Welcome to Derry‘s opening credits, there’s a ghoulish scene where Pennywise is seen partaking in a Depression era gun fight in the streets of Derry. This seems to confirm that, yes, Pennywise was involved.

Norbert Keene (Joe Bostick) has already been seen in Andy Muschietti’s IT franchise, first as a creepy pharmacist flirting with a teen Beverly (Sophia Lillis) and later haunting a grown up Eddie (James Ransone). [Shoutout to Decider’s resident Stephen King expert Zach Dionne for these Easter eggs.]

The Bradley Gang was also influenced by the real life Brady Gang, a Depression era gang of bandits who were eventually shot down by FBI agents in a fierce gun fight in Bangor, Maine. The Brady Gang was led by Al Brady and Bangor is the inspiration for Derry.