I think Welcome to Derry is one of the few shows that understood how to do a penultimate episode properly
I just seen the recent penultimate episode of The Boys and for fuck sake they literally made the same mistakes the Stranger Things writers made when they made that penultimate episode for the last season where they decided to do even more setup instead of resolving the majority of the major plot beats to set up the conclusion of the story.
The whole point of a penultimate episode isn't to keep adding in more major sub plots for the finale. It's whole purpose is to raise the stakes and be the climax for the finale. The penultimate episode for WTD is perfect because it was literally the climax of the story. The major sub plot of setting up Pennywise's last rampage before his sleep was resolved in the penultimate episode. The episode was intensed and gave a conclusion to many of the major characters like Rich, Ingrid and Pennywise before we go to the finale. The penultimate episode then ends with the major stakes being raised way higher than before when Pennywise became even more of a major threat after he was finally set loosed by the US military. The Boys kind of did a similar thing to one of their main characters ,but the showrunners decided to add even more characters from one of their spin off shows which ends up becoming alot more distracting and probably made the finale even more convoluted than it should be. Stranger Things literally the dropped the ball on their penultimate episode because nothing major happened at all ,but they decided to do even more boring set ups.
I seriously hope season 2 doesn't repeat the same mistakes that the other shows have made and continue what they have been doing from season 1 of the show.