A lot went down in the latest episode of IT: Welcome to Derry, but the ending of this week’s fifth episode, “Neibolt Street,” may have been particularly confusing if you’re not intimately familiar with the continuity of Stephen King’s novels… And not even IT, because — spoilers past this point — the HBO hour introduces the concept of lock boxes, something Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) first mentions in Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining.
You might have a lot of questions, so we’ll break it down as simply as possible. On IT: Welcome to Derry, Dick is sent into his own mind by Pennywise, who finally makes an appearance in the flesh in this week’s episode. There, Dick replays a scene from childhood of his grandmother (Lazzelle Gelias) and grandfather (Andrew Moodie)… While it’s not 100% clear what is a memory and what is Pennywise manipulating things, both Dick and his grandmother had the Shining (aka, psychic powers), but his grandfather did not. However, his grandfather — or at least the Pennywise version — wanted to open the locked box Hallorann had built in his brain which kept the sum total of his psychic powers at bay. The Pennywise/grandfather shoots the grandmother, and mocking his grandson, opens the box, flooding Dick’s mind and overwhelming him.
The episode ends with Dick in a daze, wandering out of the sewers and seeing the ghost of Captain Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso), who Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) accidentally shot to death earlier in the episode. And then we see the glowing box again, lying on the bathroom floor next to a puddle of blood.
So, what exactly is going on here? What’s up with lock boxes, ghosts, and how do they connect with Dick Hallorann? Well, I’ll tell you, I will.
The first thing that’s important to clarify here is that while Hallorann dies in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, he does not die in the Stephen King novel. In fact, while young Danny Torrance and his mother recuperate from their experiences at the Overlook Hotel in Doctor Sleep, the ghosts — or at least the decrepit old lady from Room 217 — manage to track him down.
Enter former Chef Hallorann, who teaches Danny about lock boxes. Basically, they are boxes created in your mind that are used to store things… They’re similar to the way that some people can create a mind palace, or have file folders they flip through in their mind in real life. But here, thanks to the psychic gifts Hallorann and Danny share, they can create these lock boxes in order to store ghosts.
That’s what Danny does to save himself from the Overlook Hotel ghosts, and that’s what is going on in Welcome to Derry. Mind you: it’s not a great system. In Doctor Sleep, most of the action takes place with the adult Danny broken and alcoholic, partially from storing vengeful ghosts inside his mind for decades. As for young Dick, this is prior to the events of The Shining, so one wonders how this will all tie in, and whether he’s going to be storing Russo’s ghost inside his own lock box.
We’ve got three episodes to go, and there’s clearly more to come on this as we continue to explore the Young Hallorann Chronicles. As for what else he’s got stuck in his noggin? Stay tuned.
IT: Welcome To Derry Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of IT: Welcome To Derry premiere on Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9pm ET.
Here’s the full list of episodes in IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 with premiere dates:
- Sunday, October 26, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 1
- Sunday, November 2, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 2
- Sunday, November 9, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 3
- Sunday, November 16, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 4
- Sunday, November 23, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 5
- Sunday, November 30, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 6
- Sunday, December 7, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 7
- Sunday, December 14, 2025: IT: Welcome To Derry, Season 1, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
Where To Watch IT: Welcome To Derry
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