Last Thursday, around two in the morning, I was updating the r/WelcomeToDerry subreddit. I had just been invited to join the mod team and was setting up new posts when I came across something unexpected — a Mashable article that broke down four Easter eggs from Episode 1 of HBO’s Welcome to Derry.
It looked official. It was detailed. And it was definitely published too early.
Something about it didn’t feel right, so I took screenshots of every line and image. A few minutes later, the article was gone. Mashable had pulled it completely. No update, no correction, no trace.
The piece described four very specific callbacks to Stephen King’s It universe, the kind of details that could only come from someone who had actually seen the episode.
The first was Major Hanlon, who fits the right age to be Mike Hanlon’s grandfather, given the show’s 1962 timeline. Then came the Paul Bunyan statue, which we know later comes to life and chases Richie Tozier in both the book and It: Chapter Two.
The third was a small but chilling detail: “Alvin Marsh” carved into a heart on a school bathroom wall — a reference to Beverly Marsh’s abusive father. And the fourth connected to one of the deepest threads in King’s multiverse: the turtle.
According to the article, a sign outside Derry High reads “Bert the Turtle says duck and cover,” and later in the episode, a character trades a Cracker Jack toy turtle for a rocket ship. The girl replies, “Turtles are lucky.” For King readers, that’s a direct nod to Maturin, the cosmic turtle who represents balance and light against Pennywise’s darkness.
Every one of these details fits perfectly within It lore. Which makes me think the article was not pulled for inaccuracy, but timing. It likely went live before embargo or review clearance. And if that’s the case, this early drop might have given us a glimpse at just how deeply Welcome to Derry plans to tie into King’s mythology.
Since then, our r/WelcomeToDerry community has grown by more than two hundred members, all digging into these screenshots and trading theories. For now, those images might be the only surviving record of what Mashable revealed.
Whether it was an accident or an early upload that slipped through, one thing is clear — Derry’s secrets are already starting to surface.
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Follow for updates, breakdowns, and new theories as HBO’s Welcome to Derry gets closer to release.
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