🔗 Share this article

Pennywise's influence on the young residents of the Derry series shapes them long into adulthood, transforming them into the exact individuals who keep the community's pattern of animosity alive. It finds easy targets on kids from fractured homes — youngsters who often mature to repeat the same patterns as their parents. However, the Hanlon family stands apart as one of the few family unit that remains intact, which could clarify why Mike, even after electing to remain in the town, persists as the sole member who never fully falls under Pennywise's sway.

The Hanlon Family's Unique Resilience

In episode 4 of Welcome to Derry, Leroy Hanlon at last grows more aware of the supernatural forces enveloping the community, especially when the entity begins tormenting his son, Will, during their angling excursion. The Hanlon family consists of a small number of adults who are aware that things are not right with the town, especially the father, who was revealed to be sensitive to psychic abilities when he was capable of sensing Dick Hallorann's use of it in the third episode. Later, he sees one of the clown's trademark balloons outside his house. This gift, coupled with his inability to feel fear, along with the base of his family, may be why he's capable of perceiving the entity's manifestations. However, consider if that shining is generational, and a key factor Mike is one of the only adults in the town who didn't lose themselves to its cruelty?

The boy is part of the collective of children at his educational institution being terrorized by Pennywise. All his school friends hail from broken homes, with caregivers who refuse to accept they're being haunted. The reason he is being haunted is because of the viciousness of the town, paired with his potential sensitivity to shine, which renders him vulnerable. The Hanlons are fundamentally outsiders in the town during 1962, which lends itself towards the household sensing something is off about the locality from the beginning. They also have a good foundation that isn't fractured, unlike the residents who come from the town, with relationships that have decayed within.

Backstory Connections

Drawing from the original book, we know the young Will Hanlon will find himself at the Black Spot, where Hallorann will rescue him from a fire that the local KKK members of the community will ignite. In the recent movie, we see that Will has a son named Mike and that the father eventually perishes in a fire, with Leroy surviving his own son and taking his grandson in. The official story in the film is that Mike's parents were on drugs, but given our current view of him in the series, that's hard to believe. Perhaps the shy boy, once he grew up, leaned into alcohol to free himself of the torments, or maybe the rotten town affected him first, with the hate group eventually completing the task it started long before. Whether through the terror of the entity or via the malice of the town, instigated by It, It eventually gets the last laugh on him.

Leroy's Transformation

These occurrences would explain how the elder Hanlon changes so radically from what we see in the first film and the prequel. In his later years, he seems bitter and much stricter with his parenting. Because he outlived his own son, it's comprehensible to observe such a profound shift. Nonetheless, his statements hold greater significance now that we know he's seen Pennywise's hauntings and the effects they wrought upon his son. In the initial sequence of the movie, we observe Mike hesitate to use a bolt gun on a animal at Leroy's farm. His grandfather chastises him for hesitating and provides an analogy that results in a survival-of-the-fittest scenario.

“There are two places you can be in this world. You can be out here like we are, or you can be trapped inside,” he states as he gestures to the sheep. “You dawdle indecisive, and another is going to make that choice. But you will be unaware it until you feel that bolt between your eyes.”

In hindsight, this could be a piece of foreshadowing, a lesson he wishes he had told his own son. Perhaps he wishes he had done something in his past, but for some reason, he was unable to avoid the repellent attraction of Derry.