'IT: Welcome to Derry' Finale: A Fan-Favorite Scene Was Improvised!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

The IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 finale was one of the most talked about TV moments in the past year, and now we know even more about a particular moment that was celebrated by fans.

During the episode, Losers Club members Marge (Matilda Lawler), Lilly (Clara Stack), Will (Blake Cameron James) and Ronnie (Amanda Christine) were nearly about to lose control of Pennywise.

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However, the spirit of Rich Santos (Arian S. Cartaya) came from the dead right in time to help his friends keep Pennywise at bay.

In one of the best moments, not only did Rich return, but he held up a middle finger at Pennywise as he ran to his friends. And now we know: it wasn’t in the script!

Executive producer Andy Muschietti confirmed it in an interview with TVLine.

“We did a lot of improvisation in general, and that’s one of the things we created on the day, or a couple of days before. And I’ll tell you, the [resurrection] of Richie was something I came up with probably in the last few weeks [of production],” he said.

“In a world where we have someone — Dick Hallorann — who sees dead people, and in a world where we lost one of our beloved heroes, which is Richie, I thought of giving a little comfort to the audience by bringing him back.”

The middle finger was Andy‘s idea, but Arian apparently loved it.

“We see the monster crawling, and it’s a very anxiety-ridden ending, and that was allowed by the presence of Rich — the Loser that was not there. And yeah, the middle finger came as the result of improvisation at the end, and since [Arian] is a phenomenal kid and a great actor, of course he was down,” he explained.

Get to know the actor exclusively with these 10 Fun Facts he told Just Jared about himself!