It: Welcome To Derry Halloween Episode Features Live-Action Debut Of Iconic Stephen King Character

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Spoilers follow for the "It: Welcome to Derry" prequel episode "A Story of Derry."

This Halloween brought a surprise from HBO Max: a special prequel episode of "It: Welcome to Derry." Set hundreds of years before the main series, "A Story of Derry" is an extended version of the origin story that was sketched out in "Welcome to Derry" Episode 4. Kiawentiio ("Avatar: The Last Airbender") plays the lead character, Necina, a Shokopiwah youngster who unwisely decides to go hunting in the forbidden Western Wood. There, she and her friends learn the hard way that the stories about the evil that lurks in the trees are true.

While the episode doesn't add too much "Welcome to Derry" lore that we didn't already know, it does something that no other Stephen King adaptation (and there have been a lot of them) has done before. It shows Maturin, the cosmic space turtle, in all his glory on screen for the first time. 

Maturin's appearance comes after Necina and her friends, Kino (Isabel Deroy-Olson) and Maneese (Michael Podemski-Bedard), are rescued by a mysterious stranger (Zahn McClarnon). He wields a knife made of the glass meteor-rock that is one of It's only known weaknesses, and has been communing with the great space turtle by smoking powdered Maturin root. Kino, a medicine woman in training, takes the bag of root powder and later uses it herself to speak with Maturin and learn how to keep their village safe.

Maturin finally gets his moment of glory in A Story of Derry

Now, the turtle didn't come out of nowhere. There have been plenty of allusions to Maturin in the lead-up to "A Story of Derry." Andy Muschietti's movies "It Chapter One" and "It Chapter Two" featured a recurring turtle motif that was continued in "It: Welcome to Derry," most prominently in the form of school mascot Bert the Turtle. But Easter eggs are one thing; introducing casual TV viewers to a giant cosmic space turtle god who vomited the universe into existence after getting a tummyache is a more daunting prospect.

Fortunately, the circumstances presented in "A Story of Derry" make Maturin's long-awaited appearance feel more natural. The great turtle appears in an ethereal form to a character in a dream induced by a dubious substance. And Maturin's appearance is brief, checking in only long enough to tell the Shokopiwah how they can use shards of meteorite glass to create a new cage for It.

This is the first time we've seen Maturin on screen, but it may not be the last. Over at Amazon (which owns the rights to "The Dark Tower," the novel where Maturin plays his biggest role), horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan recently laid the groundwork for a larger Stephen King universe narrative with his "Carrie" TV adaptation. Flanagan has been working on a TV adaptation of "The Dark Tower" for years. If it comes to fruition, perhaps we'll see another take on Maturin before too long.