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Pennywise's influence on the young residents of Welcome to Derry shapes them long into adulthood, twisting them into the very adults who perpetuate the community's cycle of hatred ongoing. It finds easy targets on kids from fractured households — children who often mature to replicate the same patterns as their parents. However, the Hanlon household stands apart as one of the few family unit that remains intact, which may explain why Mike, even after choosing to stay in Derry, persists as the sole member who never fully falls under the clown's influence.

Hanlon Household's Unique Resistance

In the fourth installment of Welcome to Derry, Leroy Hanlon at last grows more aware of the paranormal entities surrounding the neighborhood, especially when the entity begins tormenting his child, Will Hanlon, during their angling excursion. The Hanlon family consists of some of the few grown-ups who are aware that something is amiss with the town, especially Leroy, who was shown to be sensitive to the Shining when he was able to detect a fellow psychic's use of it in the third episode. Later, Leroy spots one of Pennywise's signature balloons outside his residence. The ability, coupled with his failure to experience terror, along with the foundation of his household, could be why he's able to see Pennywise's hauntings. But what if that shining is hereditary, and a key factor Mike Hanlon is one of the only adults in the town who resisted succumbing to the town's malevolence?

The boy is part of the collective of kids at his educational institution being terrorized by Pennywise. His classmates hail from dysfunctional families, with caregivers who refuse to accept they're being haunted. The cause he is being haunted is due to the cruelty of the town, paired with his potential sensitivity to psychic abilities, which makes him susceptible. The Hanlons are ultimately strangers in the town during 1962, which lends itself towards the family feeling something is off about the locality from the onset. They also have a solid base that remains unbroken, in contrast to the residents who come from the town, with bonds that have decayed internally.

Backstory Connections

Drawing from the It novel, we understand the juvenile Will Hanlon will end up at the infamous nightclub, where Hallorann will rescue him from a blaze that the local KKK members of Derry will cause. In the recent film, we observe that he has a son named Mike and that Will eventually perishes in a fire, with Leroy surviving his own son and adopting his grandchild. The public account in the motion picture is that Mike's parents were on drugs, but given our current view of him in Welcome to Derry, that's hard to believe. Perhaps the timid youth, once he grew up, leaned into drink to free himself of the torments, or maybe the rotten town got to him first, with the hate group eventually finishing the job it started long before. Whether through the terror of the entity or through the cruelty of the town, seeded by It, It eventually gets the last laugh on him.

Leroy's Transformation

This chain of events would clarify how Leroy changes so radically from what we witness in the first film and Welcome to Derry. In his later years, he appears bitter and much harsher with his parenting. Because he outlived his own son, it's comprehensible to observe such a profound shift. However, his words carry more weight since we are aware he's seen Pennywise's hauntings and the effects they wrought upon his child. In the opening scene of It, we observe Mike pause to use a bolt gun on a animal at Leroy's farm. Leroy chastises him for delaying and provides an metaphor that leads to a survival-of-the-fittest scenario.

“You have two options you can be in this existence. You can be in the open like we are, or you can be in there,” he says as he gestures to the creature. “You dawdle hemming and hawing, and someone is going to make that choice. Except you will be unaware it until you experience that bolt between your eyes.”

In hindsight, this could represent a piece of prediction, a lesson he wishes he had told his own child. Perhaps he desires he had done something in his youth, but for certain factors, he was unable to avoid the repellent attraction of Derry.