It: Welcome to Derry has references to other Stephen King books, and episode 5 just referenced one of his most underrated works. It: Welcome to Derry has arrived to expand the world of Andy Muschietti’s It movies, taking the audience 27 years before the events of the first movie, to 1962.

Welcome to Derry follows a new group of kids who come across the evil, shapeshifting creature known as “It.” Parallel to their story is one following adults in Derry, as the military wants to capture and weaponize It, and the mission is led by Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk).

Hallorann is mentioned in Stephen King’s It, novel but his story isn’t explored. Welcome to Derry is taking a look at Hallorann’s time in the military, Derry, and his experience with It, and episode 5 referenced an underrated book he also appears in.

Dick Hallorann’s Mental Box In Welcome To Derry Comes From Doctor Sleep

Episode 5 of Welcome to Derry sees General Shaw (James Remar) instructing his team to go to the house on Neibolt Street and into the sewers to find It’s lair. Hallorann is part of the team, but while in the sewers, Hallorann is pulled into the water. From then on, Hallorann is haunted by It, which gets into his head.

Hallorann finds himself in a bathroom where he first sees his grandmother, an important figure in his life as established in a previous episode, when he saw her floating in It’s lair. Hallorann’s grandmother also had the “shine”, and she was the one who taught him everything he knows about it.

Moments later, Hallorann’s grandfather enters the bathroom with a box, demanding that he open it or he will kill his grandmother. Although Hallorann refuses and resists even after his grandfather shoots his grandmother in the leg, his grandfather opens the box, and a bright orange light comes out of it. The box in Hallorann’s mind is a reference to Doctor Sleep, the sequel novel to The Shining.

At the beginning of Doctor Sleep, Hallorann teaches Danny Torrance to create mental lockboxes to contain the ghosts from the Overlook that continue to haunt him, such as the woman from Room 217 (or 237, in the movies). Hallorann’s box in Welcome to Derry, then, contains ghosts that he had been keeping for years.

What Hallorann’s Open Mind Box Means For Welcome To Derry

Brooke Palmer/HBO

Welcome to Derry has already teased what Hallorann’s open mind box will unleash for him in the upcoming episodes. At the end of episode 5, Hallorann makes it out of the sewers, where he sees a dead Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso) walking in the woods. Opening the box has unleashed the darkest and most unpleasant parts of Hallorann’s “shine”, and seeing Russo is only the beginning.

This, combined with being in Derry during It’s awakening, will bring some truly nightmarish visions to Hallorann, which, if Shaw finds out, will be exploited by the military. Hallorann is about to be terrorized by It like never before, and it’s to be seen if he will be able to contain the ghosts in a box again.