- Primary Subject: The timeline, story details, and plot outline for IT: Welcome to Derry season 2.
- Key Update: Showrunners confirmed IT: Welcome to Derry season 2 moves the timeline back 27 years to 1935, exploring the infamous Bradley Gang massacre during the Great Depression.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: October 22, 2026
- Quick Answer: IT: Welcome to Derry season 2 is set in 1935, leaping back 27 years to explore Pennywise's awakening during the Great Depression.
After the smash-hit spinoff debut on HBO, Andy and Barbara Muschietti's prequel series, IT: Welcome to Derry, is officially returning for a second terrifying chapter.
Based on the cosmic horror lore Stephen King wrote, the prequel sheds light on the history of Derry, Maine, and the 27-year cycle Pennywise goes through before returning for his next victims. Here's when fans can expect Pennywise in IT: Welcome to Derry season 2!
When Is IT: Welcome to Derry Season 2 Set? Timeline Explained
Considering Pennywise's 27-year hibernation cycle, season 2 is jumping backward through time. When season 1 took place in 1962, during the Cold War, the second season moves the timeline back 27 years to 1935.
"We're making something very exciting for season 2 that I can't talk too much about, but it's got a different palette," showrunner Brad Caleb Kane told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview. "It's the Depression, it's 1935. Imagine a Warner Bros. gangster picture through the lens of Pennywise and Stephen King. That's kind of what we're doing."
Kane also notes to fans that as they break in over half of the story to tell for season 2: "It's very exciting. It's very, very bloody, and it's very different from season 1."
Moving back all the way to the height of the Great Depression, Derry is now being depicted outside the quiet suburban town we knew from the original 2017 film.
Instead, the franchise covers a time when Derry had become a graveyard filled with Hoovervilles, jobless runaways, street urchins, and the like.
What Fans Can Expect From IT: Welcome to Derry Season 2's Return
With IT: Welcome to Derry season 2 shifting to a 1935 setting, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane and co-creator Andy Muschietti have teased mashing up genres and fresh terrors for the show's comeback.
IT: Welcome to Derry season 2 is confirmed to spotlight the arrival of the Bradley Gang, a notorious group of bank robbers fleeing authorities who come to Derry to purchase some ammo, only to trigger a bloody town massacre thanks to Pennywise's corrupted influence on the townspeople.
To be clear: Bradley Gang Massacre is a fictional event originally written in Stephen King's 1986 novel. In the novel, the Bradley Gang was an eight-member Midwest band-robbing crew, Pennywise's next massive massacre victims upon his cyclic return.
Kane described the upcoming season's comeback as a cross between classic 1930s Warner Bros. gangster cinema and cosmic body horror, which blends bank heists, religion, and Depression-era survival altogether into one streamlined story.
Bill Skarsgård will return as the shapeshifting entity, but the showrunners snhowrunners promise a version of IT audiences have never seen before, tailored to the very atmosphere that lived and haunted the 1930s.
Keep in mind that since every season moves back nearly three decades, season 2 will feature a brand-new ensemble of characters, instead of the same cast from the show's debut. Stay tuned for more updates on this story!
Keep it locked on EpicStream, your go-to site for film, TV, and celebrity coverage!