Who Is the Woman in the Epilogue?

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 finale!

The fog has cleared — both literally and figuratively — for the residents of Derry, Maine.

On Dec. 14, the season 1 finale of IT: Welcome to Derry premiered on HBO and HBO Max. The latest episode featured Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) continuing his horrific hobby of terrifying the town’s children, feeling unstoppable after escaping capture. But the residents didn’t run from a fight.

In addition to a major showdown with the Pennywise creature, IT: Welcome to Derry confirmed a connection between this generation of Derry residents and the ones who will eventually take down the frightening clown in the future.

Here’s what happened in the IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 finale, including how the episode’s ending directly connects it to It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019).

How does IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 end?

Pennywise blankets the town of Derry in a thick and mysterious fog. While Derry is shrouded, he calls the children of the high school to the auditorium, where he entrances them and leads them like a “Pied Piper thing,” as director Andy Muschietti told Deadline in December 2025, explaining It is “taking the kids for [a] travel snack.”

The surviving members of Welcome to Derry’s version of the Losers Club, and a group of adults — including Dick (Chris Chalk) — are led to a frozen river where Pennywise plans to escape the borders of Derry.

But Dick manages to use his psychic powers to slow down the creature, allowing the kids to utilize the mystical dagger they possess to reform the cage that keeps him in Derry.

After a fight with members of the military, the children stab the dagger into the ground beneath a tree on the other side of the river. This traps Pennywise, forcing him into hibernation and starting another sleep cycle.

Later on, following the funeral of their friend Rich (Arian S. Cartaya), the kids have a moment of peace as they reflect on their encounter with the clown, and temporarily defeating him. He will return someday, but as Lilly (Clara Stack) tells Marge (Matilda Lawler), “I guess it’ll be someone else’s fight.”

Which kids survive It: Welcome to Derry?

The kids who survive the terrifying events of the IT: Welcome to Derry season finale are Lilly, Marge, Ronnie (Amanda Christine) and Will (Blake Cameron James).

Another member of the group, Rich, tragically died in the Black Spot fire in episode 7, but his spirit shows up in the finale. His supernatural assistance is crucial, as he helps his friends complete the cage that will keep Pennywise in Derry.

Is Pennywise killed?

No, Pennywise is not killed at the end of IT: Welcome to Derry, but he is contained.

Using the mystical dagger made from the comet that It crash-landed in, the kids reconstruct the cage that keeps Pennywise within the borders of Derry.

The clown creature is banished and forced to return to the sewers beneath the town, to hibernate and wait until he can wake again after his 27-year sleep cycle is over.

Who does Marge turn out to be?

In the IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 finale, it is revealed that Marge is the future mother of Richie Tozier, played by Finn Wolfhard and Bill Hader in the It movies.

As a member of the 1980s Losers Club, Richie is part of the group that finally kills It.

What happens to Dick?

In the finale, Dick tells Leroy (Jovan Adepo) — whose family has decided to stay — that he’s leaving Derry and is headed to London.

“Got an old buddy back there who owns a hotel, wants to give me a shot cooking in the restaurant,” Dick explains.

Stephen King fans know that Dick’s next position will eventually lead him to be the head chef at The Overlook Hotel, where The Shining takes place.

Is Pennywise going to time travel back to the past?

Pennywise reveals that he doesn’t experience time in a linear manner, and he already knows how he will die.

Multiple generations of children have thwarted the creature, and he appears determined to travel back in time to prevent their ancestors from attempting to rid themselves of him.

“His experience of time is non-linear. How is that and why, that’s a whole exploration that we intend to flesh out during the next two seasons,” Muschietti told Deadline. “But that was pretty much [the idea] from the beginning. The pitch to Stephen King was we’re going to tell a story backwards, and it has to do with that hint.”

In an October 2025 interview with Variety, Muschietti said, “Our big story arc involves three seasons, mainly based on the three critical cycles of Pennywise, which are 1962, 1935 and 1908.”

Who is the elderly woman at the end of the IT: Welcome to Derry season finale?

The episode concludes with an epilogue set in 1988, 26 years after the events of the season finale, directly connecting it to the 2017 and 2019 It films.

In the scene, actress Joan Gregson reprises her It: Chapter Two role Ingrid Kersh, who is a resident at Juniper Hill Asylum. Ingrid is painting in her room when she hears screams. She walks down the hall to room 115, where she finds a young Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis, also reprising her role from the It movies), hysterical after discovering the body of her mother, Elfrida Marsh, who has killed herself.

Beverly turns to Ingrid, who tells her, “You know what they say about Derry? No one who dies here ever really dies” — which is the same line she says to the adult Beverly (Jessica Chastain) in It: Chapter Two, when It takes the form of Ingrid.

“It was important for me to make a stronger connection to the movies,” Muschietti revealed to Entertainment Weekly. “The idea of bringing Beverly back in the epilogue was a last-minute idea.”

IT: Welcome to Derry series co-creator and co-showrunner Jason Fuchs explained to the outlet, “Once we made the decision to see the wanted poster of Richie and you see Finn Wolfhard’s face, it suddenly whet our appetites to see a little bit more of the Losers from that first film.”

Gregson’s appearance on IT: Welcome to Derry was her last role. According to EW, the actress filmed the scene in April 2025 and died two months later in June 2025 at age 92.