The 5th episode of Season 1 of It: Welcome to Derry doesn’t just dive deeper into the mystery of the infamous house on Neibolt Street; it also reveals a mysterious box that Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) kept hidden during his flashback scenes. Given Hallorann’s established connection to The Shining and its sequel Doctor Sleep, the contents of this box take on even greater significance.
Hallorann himself makes a striking confession about what the box contains:
“This is everything he’s been afraid of since childhood. Unlike his mother, who coped with stress by suppressing it, Dick didn’t push his trauma down—he locked it inside this psychic box he could protect. So the box literally contains all of his nightmares, and the ‘heroes’ inside’ are none too happy about it.”
The Art of Locking Away Trauma
This psychic lockbox technique is a key concept in Stephen King’s works, most prominently featured in the film Doctor Sleep (the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining). In that movie, Hallorann’s spirit (played by Carl Lumbly) teaches young Danny Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) how to use these mental lockboxes to trap and contain the malevolent ghost entities that hunt people with the shining.
In Doctor Sleep, the lockboxes become one of the most crucial weapons against Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her cult. When adult Dan returns to the Overlook Hotel, he ultimately defeats Rose by opening the boxes and unleashing all the trapped, hostile entities he had stored inside them over the years.
By showing that Hallorann was already using this lockbox technique at a young age in It: Welcome to Derry, the series reveals just how early he developed his coping mechanism for dealing with his shining ability. It also strongly suggests that viewers can expect a similar psychic confrontation between Hallorann and Pennywise in upcoming episodes.
Series Info Summary
- Series: It: Welcome to Derry (Season 1)
- Platform: HBO Max
- Character: Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk)
- Themes: Trauma, psychic abilities, connections to Stephen King’s The Shining and Doctor Sleep universe.
Note: Hallorann uses this technique to mentally lock away his nightmares and traumas.
