Warning: This article contains spoilers for the upcoming movie It Chapter Two.
27 years after IT, the Losers' Club is back in town. Derry, Maine is almost exactly the same as they had left it decades ago. Quiet streets. Quaint houses. And, you know, a shape-shifting force of pure evil taking the form of a clown and preying on people. That, too.
IT Chapter Two, out September 6, is a parade of familiar villains. In addition to Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) itself, there's also Henry Bowers (now played by Teach Grant), the perfectly human, but still terrifying, bully who tormented the Losers' Club as kids. For the past 27 years, Henry, who the Losers Club generally refers to as simply “Bowers,” has been a patient at Maine’s Juniper Hill Insane Asylum. When Pennywise emerges from the sewers yet again, Henry finds his ticket out. After all, a villain needs a sidekick — and for IT, that’s Henry Bowers. To understand his role in IT Chapter Two, let’s go over Bowers’ greatest hits in IT (2017).
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Henry’s home life is a disaster.
Henry wasn't born a bully. He was made one. His father, Butch Bowers, was a misogynistic, racist person who taught Henry how to hate. At one point, Butch fires a gun at his son’s feet and calls him a coward. Butch is that kind of unhinged.
He also taught him to use a switchblade. More on that later.
Thanks to his father, Henry becomes a heinous bully.
Even if IT had never crawled out of the sewers, the Losers' Club still would’ve been traumatized by their interactions with Henry, a teenager with a perplexing fixation on tormenting middle-schoolers.
Henry is terrible in the movie — he attempts to carve his name into Ben’s belly (but only makes it as far as the letter “H”). Shockingly, he’s even worse in the Stephen King book. He kills Mike's dog by feeding it tainted meat. He breaks Eddie's arm. He tries to rape Beverly.
In both the book and the movie, the Losers’ Club and Henry’s clash culminates in a rock fight. Henry is hit in the head with a rock (as tends to happen during a rock fight). Incredibly humiliated, Henry loses his grip on his sanity and vows to kill all seven members of the Loser’s Club.
Much like every other kid in Derry, Henry loses a friend to IT.
Everyone in Derry knows someone who’s snatched up by IT. Henry is no exception.
It happens right after Henry and his friends trap Ben and carve the letter “H” into his stomach. Ben gets away, sending the switchblade flying. Patrick and Belch run after Ben while Henry looks for his father’s switchblade.
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Patrick runs straight into IT’s arms and is never seen again.
By the end, Henry becomes possessed by IT.
With his built-in reservoir of hate and violence, IT has no trouble converting Henry into becoming a foot soldier.
IT sends Henry a balloon containing the lost switchblade – how convenient. Then, IT persuades Henry into murdering Butch. The carnage continues. In a deleted scene, Henry kills his two remaining friends. His friends’ death is slightly different than the book — Henry watches as Pennywise kills Vic and Belch, and is obviously traumatized.
What happens to Henry after IT?
The last time we see Henry in IT (2017), Mike pushes him down a well. Henry’s recovery seems pretty unlikely. That’s a long way to fall.
But Henry’s story isn’t over. In King’s novel, Henry is arrested for his father’s murder, and ultimately convited of murdering the children as well. He’s imprisoned at the Juniper Hill insane asylum, which appears in many of King’s other books and the Hulu show Castle Rock, a mash-up of the King universe.
All these years later, IT returns to Derry and summons his old buddy, Henry. They have a job to finish. The Losers’ Club is back, and somehow — still alive.
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