Welcome to Derry’s Halloween special, “A Story of Derry,” gives Stephen King’s cosmic turtle Maturin his first live-action appearance in the series and connects him to the objects that can contain Pennywise.
The special’s origin story reaches back to a battle before Earth existed. Maturin defeated It, the entity that takes the form of Pennywise, and imprisoned it. That prison later fell to Earth as a meteorite, breaking on impact and releasing It into the area that would become Derry’s Western Wood.
The wreckage retained the power to restrain its former captive. In the show’s mythology, the Shokopiwah people used fragments to create a dagger and, later, 13 pillars that help keep It confined around Derry. A warrior the girls encounter says Maturin revealed the fragments’ location to him in a vision so he could make the weapon.
That connection brings a larger piece of King’s universe into the adaptation. Maturin is an ancient, godlike turtle and one of the Guardians of the Beams supporting the Dark Tower, the structure at the center of King’s multiverse. His protective, creative nature puts him in opposition to It’s appetite for destruction.
Readers of It encounter the Turtle through the Losers’ Club’s cosmic visions during their confrontation with It. By then, he’s old, tired and largely passive. He offers guidance, but the children must draw on their own belief, their bond with each other and the Ritual of Chüd to face It themselves.
The Halloween special keeps Maturin’s appearance brief and symbolic, while making his ancient prison part of the explanation for how It can be held in Derry.
