This article contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 and Doctor Sleep.
The latest episode of HBO Max’s IT: Welcome to Derry revealed more about Dick Hallorann’s past, yet for fans of Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, 2013’s Doctor Sleep, and Mike Flanagan’s 2019 movie adaptation of that book, what we saw was thrillingly familiar. The episode presented a skewed, IT-fueled version of information King had previously introduced about a special skill set available to some who possess the shining.
Dick Hallorann was first introduced in King’s novel The Shining in 1977 and Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version as the infamous Overlook Hotel’s head cook. More importantly, he shared the same psychic abilities as young Danny Torrance, helping Danny to understand more about how his powers work and the “shining” name he used for them. Hallorann explained that when he was a child, he and his own grandmother were able to psychically communicate thanks to both of them sharing this trait.
Dick Hallorann’s Bogus Journey
Stephen King has always had most of his books take place in a shared universe, and Hallorann was included briefly in King’s IT in 1986; he appeared in one of that book’s flashback interludes, explaining what happened to Derry’s Black Spot nightclub. In Welcome to Derry, we’ve been following a younger Dick (Chris Chalk) who’s an airman stationed in Derry in 1962. In this week’s episode, Dick got separated from his troop while on a mission into the Derry sewers. After being pulled into the water, Dick surfaces in his own childhood bathroom, where he and his grandmother are terrorized by his grandfather, who bursts into the room carrying a locked box.
Dick is horrified that his grandfather has found this box, which his grandfather in turn demands to be opened. Communicating psychically, his grandmother warns him, “You know what’s in there boy. Don’t let him open it!” But as it turns out, not so dear-old Grandpa is able to open the box himself, his face contorting into a Pennywise-esque grin as Dick screams at whatever is being unleashed.
This is an especially exciting scene if you’re a fellow Doctor Sleep fan, because while most people associate Dick Hallorann with The Shining, he’s also a part of that story’s sequel, which is where all of this specific information about Dick’s backstory comes from. Dick’s role in both the Doctor Sleep book and film are very similar with a few deviations, most notably the biggie that Dick died at the end of The Shining movie but not in the book, so his appearances in the Doctor Sleep movie are entirely (friendly) ghost-based. But the crux of what occurs is the same, so for the purposes of clarity, I’m going to mainly stick to the Doctor Sleep movie here, partially because that excellent film is the superior version of the story.
