This week’s episode of It: Welcome to Derry brings one of the most tragic stories from Stephen King’s novels to life on screen.

Those familiar with King’s original It, the words The Black Spot, would surely bring tears to their eyes. In the 1986 novel, The Black Spot was a safe haven for Black soldiers and townspeople in the 1930s (1962 in It: Welcome to Derry). One night, a white supremacist group, The Main Legion of White Decency, decided to douse the club with gasoline and set it on fire, making sure that no one inside the building came out alive.

While Pennywise didn’t instigate the attack, it did feed on it. It took on the form of a large bird and fed off the immense fear and suffering from the disturbing event. Additionally, the hatred that triggered the attack created an environment in which the entity could thrive, making it all the stronger.

This horrifying event unfolded on the screens of fans this week during It: Welcome to Derry season 1, episode 7, aptly titled The Black Spot. The show’s creators, Andy and Barbara Muschietti, revealed to TV Insider what it was like to deliver such a traumatizing, racially charged event to a new generation of fans and the immense pressure they felt to get it right due to the sensitive nature of the tragedy.

Andy explained how The Black Spot was one of the most important parts of the hit horror show’s first season. The storyline was their “finish line” because it was the event that essentially started it all. He further elaborated that the entire first installment of the series was building up to that moment, and the stories of the remaining two seasons will branch off from the attack.

He added that it was also crucial to do King’s novel justice. He wanted to make it loud and clear that the people of Derry could be just as bad as Pennywise, if not worse, which is one of the “big truths of the book.”

Well, the Black Spot also was one of those big tent poles when we decided to create the story. This story has a conclusive moment, even though that there’s a third act, as you will, of things happening after the Black Spot, but it is one of the big catastrophic events around which the story is built, which was the idea of the show in big terms, is making three seasons and making one season where there’s a big climatic moment based on one of the big catastrophic events of the interludes. So the Black Spot was very important for us. It was sort of like a finish line for us, and so basically everything that you see, that builds to this. It’s a buildup towards the Black Spot. All the stories converge there. And that’s why it was very important.

And also because we have to make justice to the impact of the Black Spot in the book. Such a tragic event. Such an atrocity committed, not by It, but by the people of Derry. And it’s another layer, another bit of information that tells us basically one of the big truths of the book, which is: Humans are capable of doing things as bad or worse than this monster.

The final episode of It: Welcome to Derry season 1 will air on December 14, 2025, at 9:00 PM ET and 6:00 PM PT on HBO. All existing episodes can be streamed on HBO Max.