🔗 Share this article

The clown's influence on the children of the Derry series shapes them long into adulthood, twisting them into the very adults who perpetuate the town's cycle of animosity alive. It preys most easily on kids from broken households — youngsters who frequently grow up to repeat the identical behaviors as their parents. However, the Hanlon family distinguishes itself as one of the few households that never splinters, which may explain why Mike, even after electing to remain in Derry, persists as the sole member who doesn't completely succumb under the clown's influence.

Hanlon Household's Distinctive Resilience

In the fourth installment of the series, Leroy Hanlon finally becomes more aware of the paranormal entities surrounding the neighborhood, especially when It starts haunting his son, Will Hanlon, during their fishing trip. The Hanlon clan consists of some of the few adults who are aware that something is amiss with the town, notably the father, who was shown to be sensitive to psychic abilities when he was capable of sensing a fellow psychic's employment of it in episode 3. Later, Leroy spots one of the clown's trademark balloons outside his residence. This gift, coupled with his inability to experience terror, along with the foundation of his household, may be why he's able to see Pennywise's hauntings. However, consider if that psychic sensitivity is hereditary, and one of the reasons Mike is one of the only individuals in the town who didn't lose themselves to the town's malevolence?

Will is part of the group of kids at his school being terrorized by Pennywise. His classmates come from dysfunctional families, with caregivers who refuse to accept they're being haunted. The cause Will is being haunted is due to the cruelty of the town, combined with his likely receptiveness to psychic abilities, which renders him vulnerable. This family are ultimately strangers in the town during the early sixties, which lends itself towards the household feeling anomalies exist about the town from the onset. They also have a good foundation that remains unbroken, in contrast to the folks who come from the area, with relationships that have deteriorated internally.

Backstory Connections

Drawing from the It novel, we know the juvenile Will will find himself at the infamous nightclub, where the psychic will save him from a fire that the town bigots of Derry will cause. In the 2017 film, we observe that Will has a son named Mike and that the father eventually perishes in a configration, with his father outliving his own son and taking his grandson in. The public account in the motion picture is that Mike's parents were on drugs, but now that we see Will in the series, that's hard to believe. Maybe the shy boy, once he became an adult, leaned into alcohol to free himself of the torments, or perhaps the rotten town affected him first, with the KKK eventually completing the job it began years ago. Whether through the terror of Pennywise or via the cruelty of the community, instigated by It, the creature in the end gets the last laugh on him.

The Father's Evolution

This chain of events would clarify how Leroy transforms so drastically from what we see in the first film and Welcome to Derry. In his later years, Leroy appears bitter and much stricter with his parenting. Since he survived his own son, it's comprehensible to observe such a profound shift. However, his words hold greater significance now that we know he's witnessed Pennywise's hauntings and the impacts they wrought upon his son. In the initial sequence of the movie, we see the boy hesitate to use a stunning device on a sheep at the family property. His grandfather reprimands him for hesitating and offers 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,” Leroy states as he points to the sheep. “You waste time hemming and hawing, and someone is going to decide for you. Except you won't know it until you feel that bolt in your head.”

In hindsight, this could represent a piece of prediction, something he regrets not imparting to his own son. Maybe he desires he had acted differently in his youth, but for some reason, he was unable to avoid the repellent attraction of Derry.