By DAVID SILVERBERG
If you’re a Stephen King nerd, you’re probably neck deep in the red balloons and sewer water making up the new HBO series, IT: WELCOME TO DERRY.
Perhaps you’ve found the most obvious references to other King books. Still, we all can’t be eagle-eyed and poring through our mental palace of Derry lore to find every nugget when we’re so busy waiting for Pennywise to show his menacing face.
Fear not, Chud heads, as we present you with the top 10 Easter Egg references to other King IP in the new series, up to the fifth episode.
Spoilers ahead!
Shining a Spotlight on Hallorann
The most eye-popping crossover character goes to Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), Danny’s mentor in The Shining. In Welcome to Derry, Hallorann is a young Army sergeant whose uncanny abilities are used by the military to find the evil spirit they believe can stoke fear in any enemy daring to bomb the U.S.
His “shining” skills even let him peek into the Pennywise lair in an early episode as the clown hisses, “Who are you?” Shivers!
In the fifth episode, we also learn more about how Hallorann has kept the evil spirits he has seen over the years in a mental box, similar to what he told Danny in Doctor Sleep. When Pennywise forces Hallorann to hallucinate, we see what Hallorann mentioned about his grandfather’s abusive cruelty in Doctor Sleep.
The Threat of Juniper Hill
In both Derry and Castle Rock, King has crafted the mental institution Juniper Hill as the main site for both characters who end up needing psychiatric help and as a threat to them. That comes through in WELCOME TO DERRY when Lily (Clara Stack) is threatened with being institutionalized if she doesn’t fess up about the murders of several children.
Juniper Hill makes an appearance in Gerald’s Game, The Dark Half, The Tommyknockers, Bag of Bones, Insomnia and Needful Things.
Shawshank Reflections
When projectionist Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) is arrested for the grisly murder at his movie theatre, horrendously perpetrated by Pennywise in the form of a toothy demon, the police chief routinely teases him with the electric chair at Shawshank.
As you may remember, The Green Mile focused on another innocent Black man framed and sentenced to death.
Also, we see a close-up shot of Chief Bowers (Peter Outerbridge) stomping out his cigarette on the ground, mirroring the framing of Frank Darabont’s shot of Warden Norton’s cigarette in the exercise yard, which is used as a signal by the warden to execute Tommy Williams.
Finally, a portrait of actress Rita Hayworth can be seen in a Derry bar, which could also reference the Hayworth poster featured prominently in the original novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption from King’s 1982 collection Different Seasons.
Turtle Power
Throughout the series, turtles make their presence known, including the kids being shown a duck-and-cover video about nuclear warfare, featuring a turtle narrator. But the most explicit scene is when we’re told how the entity came to be: Centuries ago, once its meteorite of a home shattered on Earth, the rock broke apart, leaving shards scattered. The Indigenous tribes populating Derry centuries ago sought to contain the spirit by burying shards of that rock around the forest like beacons or bars on a cage.
One scene shows a tribal burial ritual of one of those shards placed in a turtle shell.
In the IT book, Maturin the Turtle is viewed as the cosmic opposite of Pennywise and is described as being beneath everything, carrying the universe. Also, Maturin is a key figure in the overarching mythology of The Dark Tower. That series has repeated this phrase several times, “See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth…”
Shades of Carrie
In episode 4, the writers toy with a theme that crops up in King’s first book, Carrie. The lonely Margie (Matilda Lawler) decides to join a group of popular girls, and she’s initiated into the crew by being tasked to set up her friend Lily with a prank. She starts a rumor that the most popular guy in school is interested in her.
In Carrie, a similar setup leads to a disastrous prom, but so far, the only consequence of this prank in WELCOME TO DERRY isn’t mass destruction but some cringey self-inflicted eyeball harm. Up to this point, Marge’s mutilation was the toughest scene in the show to stomach.
Little Shop of Horrors
When the main military leader of the show, General Francis Shaw (James Remar), says that he was given a drug by the Department of Defense that restored his memories of Derry, you could link back to The Shop, a secret organization that appears in King’s Firestarter, The Tommyknockers, and is responsible for the creatures in The Mist. It’s their kind of handiwork.
Shout-out to the Car that Kills
It may not be much, but King die-hards might be tickled to see this particular chalkboard phrase: “Mike loves Christine.” If that isn’t a sneaky reference to the novel Christine, then we don’t know what is.
A Nod to Oswald?
Call it a stretch, but when Hank is in custody and is about to board a bus to Shawshank, an angry parent rushes from the crowd and attempts to assassinate him with a pistol. We’re reminded of Jack Ruby’s murder of alleged JFK killer Lee Harvey Oswald, and the dad’s outfit is similar to what Oswald wore when he was arrested. King’s novel 11/22/63 focuses on a man who travels back in time to prevent the Kennedy murder.
Misty Foreshadowing
In the show’s trailer, a thick fog swirls around Derry. For other series, this may just seem like atmospheric cinematography, but for King fans, the presence of a mist carries weight – as in The Mist. Also, the showrunners have noted that fog represents a tangible darkness that surrounds Derry.
King’s Alien Roots
In one scene in the first episode, we look inside the bedroom of Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), a young boy enthralled by science fiction and the possibility of alien life. His wall is covered with a poster for the 1956 sci-fi classic Earth vs. Flying Saucers. This film has to be a hat-tip to a formative real-life event for King. In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, King writes about being at a Saturday matinee of this exact film, when the movie was suddenly stopped. The theater manager walked on stage to announce that the Soviet Union had just launched Sputnik into orbit.
