🔗 Share this article

The clown's impact on the young residents of the Derry series shapes them throughout their adult lives, twisting them into the very adults who perpetuate the community's pattern of animosity ongoing. The creature finds easy targets on children from broken homes — youngsters who often mature to repeat the same patterns as their guardians. However, the Hanlon household distinguishes itself as a rare example of a households that remains intact, which may explain why Mike, even after choosing to stay in Derry, persists as the sole member who never fully falls under the clown's influence.

The Hanlon Family's Unique Resilience

In episode 4 of Welcome to Derry, Leroy at last grows increasingly conscious of the paranormal entities enveloping the community, especially when the entity starts haunting his child, Will, during their angling excursion. The Hanlon family consists of a small number of grown-ups who are cognizant that something is amiss with the town, notably the father, who was revealed to be receptive to psychic abilities when he was able to detect a fellow psychic's use of it in the third episode. Later, he spots one of Pennywise's signature inflated orbs outside his residence. The ability, coupled with his inability to experience terror, along with the base of his household, may be why he's able to see Pennywise's hauntings. But what if that shining is hereditary, and one of the reasons Mike is one of the only individuals in Derry who didn't lose themselves to the town's malevolence?

Will is a member of the collective of kids at his school being tormented by the clown. All his school friends hail from dysfunctional families, with parents who don't believe they're being haunted. The reason Will is being pursued is due to the cruelty of the town, paired with his potential sensitivity to psychic abilities, which makes him susceptible. The Hanlons are ultimately outsiders in Derry during the early sixties, which contributes towards the family sensing something is off about the town from the onset. Additionally, they possess a good foundation that remains unbroken, in contrast to the folks who originate in the town, with relationships that have decayed within.

Backstory Connections

Drawing from the It novel, we understand the juvenile Will will find himself at the Black Spot, where the psychic will rescue him from a fire that the town bigots of Derry will cause. In the 2017 movie, we see that Will has a son named Mike and that the father eventually perishes in a fire, with his father outliving his own son and adopting his grandchild. The public account in the motion picture is that the parents were on substances, but now that we see him in Welcome to Derry, that's difficult to accept. Perhaps the timid youth, once he grew up, turned to alcohol to free himself of the hauntings, or maybe the rotten town affected him first, with the hate group ultimately completing the job it began long before. Whether through the terror of the entity or through the malice of the town, seeded by It, It in the end gets the last laugh on him.

Leroy's Transformation

This chain of events would explain how the elder Hanlon transforms so radically from what we witness in the first film and the prequel. In his older age, Leroy appears resentful and much stricter with his parenting. Since he survived his own offspring, it's understandable to observe such a drastic change. However, his statements hold greater significance now that we know he's witnessed the clown's activities and the effects they wrought upon his son. In the initial sequence of It, we see Mike pause to use a stunning device on a animal at Leroy's farm. Leroy reprimands him for hesitating and offers an metaphor that leads to a kill-or-be-killed scenario.

“You have two options you can be in this world. You can be out here like we are, or you can be in there,” he states as he points to the creature. “You dawdle indecisive, and another is going to decide for you. Except you won't know it until you experience that projectile in your head.”

In hindsight, this could be a bit of foreshadowing, a lesson he regrets not imparting to his own son. Perhaps he desires he had acted differently in his youth, but for some reason, he couldn't resist the sickening allure of Derry.