The stakes are set high by IT: Welcome to Derry from the start, and a chilling hint now points to a terrible climax for one of its star children.
Foreshadowing points to Veronica as a marked target
Attentive viewers caught an eerie echo from IT that could dictate the course of Ronnie, the strong, kind-hearted boxer portrayed by Amanda Christine. Beverly hears the lifeless whisper names before geysers of blood erupt from her bathroom sink in the first IT film. The dead were Betty Ripsom, Patrick Hockstetter… and a Veronica. The new series reveals Ronnie’s full name: Veronica Grogan. This information isn’t a twist of fate; it’s fate. The connection is more preordained disaster than coincidence.
In the world of the Muschiettis, the voices come from those who “float,” and the bathroom scene functioned as a de facto roll call of the lost. If it follows canon, the series is forewarning us of Ronnie’s fate against the clown long before he arrives. Yes, Pennywise deceives. However, the films have laid careful crumbs when it comes to key names and imagery. “Veronica” wasn’t a random bathroom chant in IT; the filmmakers seemed to imply that a soothing name could also be its cruelest link. The prequel’s adeptness at such adaptations has been demonstrated; we’ll have to see exactly what the “and” includes.
Continuity constraints shape the prequel’s body count
For all that hope, though, Welcome to Derry operates inside a closed system. As an IT and IT Chapter Two prequel, it can’t give us Derry’s ultimate victory over the entity. Keeping Stephen King’s cosmology in mind—this cycle of horror recurs roughly once every 27 years—the body count is bound to fluctuate both ways. Some kids make it; others don’t. The monster remains.
Contending with that constraint, the series, at least at this early stage, seems to opt for a version of inevitability that is character-driven rather than random carnage—which makes the “Veronica” breadcrumb all the more horrifying. The franchise’s size gives its signals power. IT became the first modern horror film to make more than $700 million, according to industry trackers like Comscore and Box Office Mojo, and received a historic domestic release. With millions of HBO Max sign-ups Warner Bros. and HBO tout from the films’ impact, they’re saying continuity matters, and the signals pay off.
Ronnie isn’t simply courageous in this story; she’s uncompromising in every sense of the term. Her nightmare sequence—breaking free of a choking womb, turning down a contorted maternal ghost who tells her she has no option—represents her as the kind of survivor who will not submit to this tale. Beyond the supernatural, she confronts another demon: racism. When a young person’s investigation into a missing child focuses on her projectionist father, it shows how easily Derry seeks a Black scapegoat in him rather than identifying the real beast. This blending of demonic dread with systemic depravity is the essence of King and a wise choice by the Muschiettis and the show’s makers to do both. It also signals a higher risk of failure. If Ronnie fails, don’t count it as a surprise; it would fit as a heartrending example of how Derry first drains the pure and the oppressed.
How the series seeds tragedy and tests its new heroes
How the series seeds tragedy
Welcome to Derry has already shown its readiness to swing hard by eliminating characters the show has spotlighted as our next heroes. That sets a tone: no plot armor, not even for the children who feel like the core of a new Losers Club. From “Ronnie” to “Veronica” tightens the noose with one syllable—another technique consistent with the movies’ Easter eggs. Expect more quiet tells:
- Names murmured in background audio
- Props that echo future scenes
- Well-known phrases delivered at precise moments
What it means for the new Losers
If the “Veronica” connection proves true, Ronnie becomes the season’s emotional fulcrum. Her fearlessness will bring friends to her side, and her jeopardy will test them. For audiences, the message should not be nihilism, but rather how the series reflects choice, sacrifice, and remembrance: the qualities and actions that briefly enabled a group of children to injure a supernatural creature. HBO’s horror slate is saturated with details that invite repeat viewings, and this one is hidden in plain hearing. The scariest aspect in Derry might be the final common denominator: a single name spoken before the blood rises.