Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) in 'IT: Welcome to Derry'Image via Warner Bros. Television
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Shawn Van Horn
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Shawn Van Horn is a Senior Author for Collider. He's watched way too many slasher movies over the decades, which makes him an aficionado on all things Halloween and Friday the 13th. Don't ask him to choose between Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees because he can't do it. He grew up in the 90s, when Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, and TGIF were his life, and still watches them religiously to this day. Larry David is his spirit animal. His love for entertainment spreads to the written word as well. He has written two novels and is neck deep in the querying trenches. He is also a short story maker upper and poet with a dozen publishing credits to his name. He lives in small town Ohio, where he likes to watch professional wrestling and movies.
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Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 5.
On this week's episode of HBO Max's IT: Welcome to Derry, Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) finally appeared. Although he was given a few terrifying scenes, including an intriguing one that showed a potential way to defeat him, "29 Neibolt Street" ended not with the clown or the new group of Losers, but with Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk). Although he's made it out of the sewer tunnels under Derry, Hallorann's box of buried fears is now wide open. An earlier scene showed just how much the box means to the character, but it's not the first time we've seen this method to suppress the monsters the shine has shown him. It was actually first explained in Mike Flanagan's follow-up to Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining, Doctor Sleep.
Dick Hallorann's Box of Fears Is Opened in 'IT: Welcome to Derry' Episode 5
Much of the focus in Welcome to Derry might be on Lilly (Clara Stack) and her new group of unfortunate friends, but the adults play a big role, too, mostly due to General Francis Shaw (James Remar) leading a secret government mission to find the buried entity with the hope of turning it into a Cold War weapon. He needs the help of the reliable and brave Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) to achieve this, but more than anyone, his hopes are pinned on Dick Hallorann's "shine." In Episode 3, Dick is sent up in a helicopter to be a compass of sorts, and he finds what he's looking for, coming eye to eye with a curious Pennywise in the sewers.
After invading the mind of Taniel (Joshu Odjick), Dick learns about how Derry's Indigenous people developed a weapon made out of the star the entity first came to Earth in, also creating 13 barriers to keep it contained. The U.S. military, including Hallorann and Hanlon, ventures down into the sewers beneath an abandoned house on Neibolt Street in search of the fear-inducing creature. However, not too far in, despite walking in shallow water, Hallorann sinks under the surface, coming up in a bathroom where his grandmother (Lazzelle Gelias) stands over him, speaking about someone "coming for you again." That someone turns out to be his grandfather (Andrew Moodie), or so it appears.
In Hallorann's vision, his grandfather says he knows all about how his wife and grandson talk to each other with their minds to keep secrets from him. He also demands that Hallorann open a small box currently under lock and key, but when Hallorann refuses, the man shoots his own wife in the leg. Laughing like the infamous clown, Hallorann's grandfather, or something resembling him, forces open the box, and Hallorann can only grab at his head as an impossibly bright light emits from it.
Dick Hallorann Helps Danny Torrance in 'Doctor Sleep'
Dick Hallorann may be one of the focal points of IT: Welcome to Derry, but his most famous appearance in the world of Stephen King is in The Shining. As an older man, he works at the Overlook Hotel, where he meets a young Danny Torrance when his father, Jack, is hired to be the winter caretaker. Hallorann immediately is able to figure out that Danny has the same shine he does and talks to him using only their minds. In both the climax of the novel and movie, Hallorann comes back to help Danny in the battle against his possessed dad, although with wildly different endings. In King's book, Hallorann lives, but in Kubrick's film, Jack Torrance kills the man mere moments after he returns to the Overlook.
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Posts 7 By Liam Gaughan 5 days agoFour decades later, Stephen King returned to arguably his most famous story with a sequel, Doctor Sleep, which follows a now-adult Danny Torrance as he struggles with his gift while also trying to save a young girl named Abra, who also has the shine. This led to a 2019 film written and directed by King superfan Mike Flanagan, starring Ewan McGregor as Danny. One scene contains a flashback of Danny (Roger Dale Floyd), shortly after the events of the Overlook, meeting with the ghost of his old friend. Sitting on a park bench, Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) tells the boy how to fight back against the scary monsters who now crowd his mind. He speaks about how his grandfather was a mean, dark man who beat him and his grandmother. Even after he died, Dick would still see him, so his grandmother gave him a present in the form of a box. He shows it to Danny, telling him to build one in his mind and put his fears in there "so the next time that bitch comes around, you'll be ready."
Will Hallorann's Box of Fears Be a Weapon or a Curse in 'IT: Welcome to Derry'?
Rudy Mancuso as Captain Pauly Russo looking to the left in the woods with cloudy eyes in IT: Welcome to DerryImage via HBO
In the final act of Doctor Sleep, the adult version of Danny, now in the Overlook, being attacked by the equally gifted but evil Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), opens the box of fears in his mind and unleashes the hotel's ghosts on her, who quickly kill his attacker before setting their sights on him. Danny is taken over by them, but is able to hold them off long enough to save the girl and destroy the Overlook. At the end, Abra goes into a bathroom to confront her own monster, indicating that the box trick has been passed down to her.
At the end of IT: Welcome to Derry's latest episode, a dazed Hallorann is surprised by a white-eyed Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso), even though that shouldn't be possible — because Leroy Hanlon accidentally shot and killed him minutes earlier. Hallorann looks away, and in his mind, we're back in that bathroom. The unlocked box sits on the floor, lid wide open, bright light flowing out. For that to be the last image the episode focuses on means that Hallorann and his box will likely play a very important part in what happens next on IT: Welcome to Derry. Will Hallorann's unleashed fears consume him, or will he team up with Lilly, who now possesses the dagger made of the alien's fallen star, and let out his ghosts to attack Pennywise? The clown lives on fear, but It might not be able to withstand Hallorann using his own as a weapon.
It: Welcome to Derry
TV-MA
Horror
Mystery
Drama
6
10
Release Date
October 26, 2025
Genres
Horror, Mystery, Drama
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