Although every episode of Welcome to Derry has had its fair share of scares, the show managed to thoroughly outdo the It movies that preceded the prequel with one horrific scene from episode 4. From Welcome to Derry’s opening scene onward, it was clear that the series wouldn’t be for the faint of heart.
Sure enough, the pilot episode ended with the brutal, violent deaths of three children on-screen, two of whom had seemed destined to be the show’s main characters. This jarring brutality was a vicious reminder that Welcome to Derry is a horror series through and through, with all the disturbing shocks that implies.
As such, it is surprising to say that episode 4 manages to up the ante considerably even in comparison to its predecessors. While the Welcome to Derry pilot’s cold open might have included a sly reference to the Terrifier movies, episode 4 featured a scene that was gross enough to appear in one of director Damian Leone’s controversial horror movies.
Marge Tears Out Her Own Eye In Welcome to Derry Episode 4
Since the show’s pilot, Welcome to Derry has repeatedly teased a bigger role for Matilda Lawler’s Marge. An insecure friend of Lily Bainbridge, Marge is constantly pulled in two directions by her fondness for Lily and her loyalty to the Pattycakes, a group of ruthless popular bullies.
In episode 4, Marge appears to finally make her choice as she helps set up a mean-spirited prank on Lily. Pretending to be her friend again, she tells Lily that a schoolboy likes her and that Lily should freshen up in the bathroom, then go talk to him.
Marge and the leader of the Pattycakes have already arranged for this boy, Tim, to humiliate Lily, so it seems like the trajectory of this scene is as predictable as it is unpleasant. Then Marge follows Lily into the bathroom and struggles with whether she should come clean about the cruel plan.
That’s when, mirroring a documentary newsreel that the kids watched in class earlier in the episode, Marge’s eyeballs begin to protrude from her head and change color. Margie soon finds herself screaming in agony as, like a snail attacked by a parasite, her eyes wind out of her skull as if they have a mind of their own.
Marge runs screaming from the bathroom and heads straight for the school’s wood shop, where, in a jaw-dropping moment of body horror, she uses a table saw to cut off her own eye at the stalk. Viewers are spared none of the cringe-inducing horror of this visual, and it’s a shock that outdoes anything from It or 2019’s It: Chapter Two.
Marge’s Welcome to Derry Episode 4 Fate Fixes An It Movie Problem
The aftermath of Marge’s encounter with Pennywise is upsetting in its own regard, as Lily is blamed for the attack when the entire student body walks in at the worst possible moment. However, the scene itself is what will linger with viewers longest, as the episode ends without confirming whether Marge died as a result of her horrific trauma.
Although Welcome to Derry’s Hank storyline proves that Pennywise could grow even stronger before season 1 ends, this episode showed just how powerful and unsparing the evil entity is. Pennywise seemingly targeted Marge because of her insecurity and her closeness with Lily, meaning this attack allowed him to both further isolate Lily and feed off Marge’s pain and terror.
While this all makes logical sense, it doesn’t make the scene any less shocking or brutal. In terms of moments of boundary-pushing TV gore, Marge’s eye injury will likely go down in infamy alongside The Mountain vs The Viper from Game of Thrones or the horrific events of The Walking Dead season 7’s premiere.
In doing so, this sequence also solved an issue that the It movies struggled with throughout their story. Both movies, but particularly, infamously, It: Chapter 2, sometimes made Pennywise too comical and absurd for the killer clown to seem truly threatening. In contrast, this episode 4 scene is grotesque, but still genuinely disturbing despite its wild, bizarre visuals.
Welcome to Derry Episode 4’s Worst Shock Ups The Ante For the Franchise
Among It: Chapter Two’s more problematic moments were Pennywise taking the form of a giant Paul Bunyan statue to run after Richie, and appearing as a leper that vomited all over Eddie to the tune of Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning.” These scenes learned more into comedy, gross-out, and surrealism than outright horror, whereas Marge’s fate got this tricky balance right.
The sight of Marge’s eyes squirming out of her head like slugs did initially seem like something from Men In Black, and there was a moment where her fate seemed more absurdly funny than scary. However, from the moment she started trying to pry her eyes out of her head, the scene nosedived into deeply disturbing body horror.
Of course, this presents a new dilemma for the series. Now that the show has profoundly outdone the preceding movies when it comes to disquieting scares, it will be hard to top this sequence later in season 1. Thus, since it is scarier than either of the It movies, Welcome to Derry has become its own worst enemy.
- Release Date
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October 26, 2025
- Network
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HBO
- Directors
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Andy Muschietti
