TL;DR the specific way Pennywise expresses his his jaded perception of his own beginning and end is a cleverly written way to imply that Pennywise is in a bootstrap paradox and experiences his timeline simultaneously like Dr.Manhattan can.
No surprise there btw.
I still don’t rock with IT:Chapter Two, I hate how bro went out.
- specifically this thing they do when he’ll kill someone in seconds, no simmering, no fear seasoning, just straight up fatality (best parts of the show) but when it comes to others, all of a sudden he wants to play whack- a mole on level 0.
- Now it’s explained that he underestimates humans, plays with them, the problem is what happened to those kids in Episode 1 proved he can both season his food, underestimate humans, play games and finish his plate- all at the same time.
- The issue is plot armor, writing, not Pennywises hunting methods or hubris. Because thanks to Episode 1, we know the bullshit isn’t enough to stop him when he’s ALLOWED to go to work. It’s Michael Myers all over again. The writing ties his hands, but everyone else gets split second game overs.
If those kids had IT:Chapter Two Writing they would've all escaped that building in one piece or just traumatized Pennywise calling him a mean name which makes him hesitate & planting the foreshadowing his 2016 defeat. All of them would've survived because the Turtle willed it so, and it would've been a worse premiere for it. -- I digress.
Jeepers Creepers 2001 & The Descent Part 1 is how you do a survivor situation but the monster still gets to catch bodies in a realistic sense.
The finale reveal of his simultaneous temporal condition--
makes it clear that The Losers Club "victory" was just enabling his existence than ending it. Which thus improves what that movie did to Pennywise in terms of optics, which bothered me for years.
Not entirely a fix for that plot armor fest, but it’s been patched big time. All it took was a “Bootstrap paradox” (Little Nightmares 2)
He knows it's going to happen in the future, he already lost yet in the future but he's still in the past completely intact after and before his death, having the time of his life.
All the Losers Club did was diffuse his physical form, the lights, his true self, is eternal. They accomplished nothing but prevent his terror extending beyond their generation, but not only did not stop him in a non-linear sense, they saved absolutely no one.
His power extends beyond their understanding, so does his existentialism, and he knows it. They bullied him to death, but he's the one laughing because when they die of old age, he's still alive before they're born & his lights still exist their bodies reside in caskets, it's still alive after 2016, he just doesn't have a vessel.

So despite his "death" they didn't kill him, they just stripped him of his costume. That is cosmic horror--
(I'd go so far as to ponder what's to stop him from getting another costume, perhaps the same as always: Turtle Plot Device "Maturin" π’π)
I wasn't trying to watch this show tbh: I had zero interest. It was going to be another one of those 'try it in 4-10 years' deals.
- But while I'm unlikely to watch it in full ever again (understandable representation & social overtones that unfortunately & slowly became ham-fisted in the writing department as the show progressed. It was excruciating not because of the historical nature but because American lens in general/ or more accurately their media masters have a serious racism misery porn fetish as if they or Germany are the ONLY civilizations on the planet to ever commit such an atrocity or have committed the worst of it as if evil has a skin color.
When the real point of the in-meta of Pennywise is evil does NOT have a color, it shapeshifts, which is a brilliant metaphor that I think (?) the show misses. American media act like the U.S invented slavery & racism or something.
- Too little nuance in this show in that respect, but in context — I get it. Derry was supposed to be an isolated dimension, an intentional exaggeration, but the saint POC’s trope is very tiresome and where the plot loses me around episode 3.
- Just like I'm tired of most adults being jerks in this universe, like I get the point is to strip away the children's line of defense to make them more vulnerable but holy shit.
(it's part of what makes "Little Nightmares" horror affective, Adult indifference or predation to small innocence but it didn't play favorites or race. All adults were an extension of a degree of corruption.)
-but that didn't seem to affect Will's parents (maybe because they're not Derry natives) or Ronnie's dad (who I assume is a Derry native?), so even the show's own rules is being spat in the face of, though adult indifference is a good mechanism to manipulate children's mental health and state of isolation.
- However it is refreshing to see another black couple in tact on-screen, enduring and functioning. π✅ Even Ronnies dynamic & bond with her father was very comforting to see. That much the show did right.
- It seems who's good or bad is very much color lensed, which is not how evil works lmfao, cause then the Ghetto would be a paradise.
(Imagine Pennywise setting up shop in Detroit or Chicago: Banquetπ)
Again, zero nuance.
Despite all that. I’m glad I gave it a try, good acting, the kids pulled their weight big time, solid performances. A lot of good directing decisions, good shots, good transitions, we get a pretty decent one-take style shot in EP7, the effects: The show was impressive stylistically.
But that few seconds of dialogue in the final episode served Pennywise immensely, that's all I care about.
His "death" (not rly) is still whack but it has an extra dimension solely because now: it doesn't matter. ¯_(γ)_/¯
Edit 1-5-26:
I took a gander at Chapter Two just for the hell of it and stumbled on this--
"You haven't changed anything yet; you haven't changed their futures. You- you haven't saved any of them." - Pettywise (Chapter Two)
With the cycle in context, he said that to spite Beverly, and it is 100% spite because his eyes are tearing up, watery & red with apparent frustration, because he knows what he's trapped in.
Again, Episode 8 didn't fix Chapter Two for me, but it's clear that the seeds of Pennywises condition was planted even back then, props to the writers, clearly there's vision here. I respect that even if I don't cosign the executions here and there.
He knew what they did stopping him then, eventually saved absolutely no one now, then in the past, his future after his death, to the future birth after he dies all over again.
After they total his heart, it's fair to say those deadlights just went forward to his conception, extradimensional transfer.
But at the same time he simultaneously sees he's at the end of his rope in 2016, an animal acting on primal impulse, defiance even. He can't escape because he's a prisoner in that goddamn place called "Derry", hence the watery eyes and snot dripping nose:
- Go watch that specific scene, pay attention to his eyes, & maintain this context and think "Why is he damn near crying?", bro was legitimately distraught. He knew.
Beverly was too far away to truly see his expression, but in terms of vulnerability?
Very human level of presumable despair in something as old as dirt. And while I'm not watching CHP Two no time soon: Not only was Bev the only one of the club he Deadlighted but (I believe) she was the only one he showed that level of emotional compromise to & spitefully told her straight up their coming victory saves no one.
All that damn power and that Turtle has It by the balls, so much so he's done-in by some humans calling him names--
Pennywise has a lot more depth than we give him credit for, than I GAVE him credit for all these years.
He's not "seeing" the future nor travelling, that's a human dimension of understanding, he's not seeing or going anywhere.
He's present collectively in his entire timeline, his death is not his end, that's the point. *The Christ effect*
"(some articles debate time travel vs. pure simultaneous experience)."
Again, It's a little bit of both; because he is simultaneous, he's more so not travelling his knowledge back & forth because he's there now.
- He can't travel knowledge back to himself that knows what didn't happen yet, because it happened already.
- Pennywise, like Osterman- can't travel to any time because they are already there, thus have access to all knowledge of it.
Mono can't do that, The Thin Man is simply an older Mono that remembers what happened before but the omniscience would apply if Mono maintained what The Thin Man will know, knows, knew.
This is why Pennywise had Richie's wanted poster. He's not physically travelling because to him it's presumably already happening, happened, dead, alive.
Like Jesus Christ, a much older example of this with knowledge of the full picture from jump, full control.
- Or Elizabeth Comstock (*after the Siphon is destroyed, thus she's closer to Mono's situation because she's not aware of the full picture the entire time but unlike him, she is not a prisoner.
- She has the agency to make changes like Osterman *Doomsday Clock when he created & unmade The New52* but she's only capable of that after when she wasn't aware of the grand tapestry of the cosmos, after the destruction of the Siphon, the tower, her limiter. So she's a hybrid of both categories.) both a good example, Christ & Comstock.
So when a Christian or the book implies or says "God is everywhere", they really meant "everywhen", leagues more daunting. You can't "find" something in space that has no location.
That makes as much sense as giving Pennywise a Birthday & SSN.
All they have to do now is adhere to this, & not negate or ruin that element with Native American plot device bullshit, or more importantly that goddamn turtle.