What connects Stephen King’s The Institute and IT: Welcome to Derry? Here’s what we think

IT: Welcome to Derry might just be HBO’s most exciting Stephen King project in years, but there’s something familiar about it, especially if you’ve been watching The Institute on MGM+.

Both stories share eerie similarities: children trapped in terrifying systems, adults too blind to help, and a hidden thread of psychic power that ties everything together. The big question is: are they set in the same world? Well, maybe not officially, but King fans can’t help spotting the connections everywhere.

While there’s no official confirmation that these shows share the same universe, the thematic and symbolic parallels are notable.

---

The shine, the kids, and the monsters: They all meet somewhere in King’s world with IT: Welcome to Derry

In The Institute, young kids like Luke Ellis aren’t your regular small-town teens. They’ve got special abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and even flashes of future visions. It’s the kind of stuff King fans instantly recognize as “the shine,” a power famously explored in The Shining.

Over on IT: Welcome to Derry, one of the most familiar faces, Dick Hallorann, also possesses that same gift. Played as a chef in The Shining, here he’s reimagined as a military man helping track down Pennywise.

Actor Jovan Adepo, who plays Hallorann, told Entertainment Weekly,

“He’s a man caught between following orders and understanding the real evil he’s chasing.”

His sixth sense, or telepathy, or his “gift,” feels like a direct mirror of The Institute’s children, where people are cursed with knowledge no one else can handle. Both shows explore how “the shine” isn’t just a superpower; it’s a burden.

Whether it’s Luke being forced into psychic experiments or Hallorann sensing the evil crawling beneath Derry, King uses their abilities to show how terrifying it can be to see too much.

---

Different towns, same fears: Children paying the price for adult greed

Even though The Institute and IT: Welcome to Derry look worlds apart, where one’s about secret government labs and the other about a cursed town, their bones are still the same. In both, adults ruin everything.

The Institute’s scientists claim they’re saving the world by torturing gifted kids. In Derry, the military use Hallorann’s powers to track a monster they barely understand. Either way, the adults justify the horror while kids become the victims.

Director Jason Bateman, who produced The Institute, said in an interview with Collider,

“What makes King’s stories so timeless is that the monsters aren’t always creatures—they’re people who think they’re doing the right thing.”

That’s exactly what Welcome to Derry digs into, too. Pennywise might be the big, flashy terror, but it’s the town’s silence, the ignorance of its people, that lets the horror thrive.

Even their settings, i.e., Maine, make it feel like they’re breathing the same cursed air. It’s almost poetic how these two shows mirror each other’s themes: power abused, children exploited, and evil hiding in plain sight.

---

Whether intentional or not, IT: Welcome to Derry and The Institute feel like pieces of the same dark puzzle. They may never officially cross paths, but their worlds speak the same language, with psychic powers, lost innocence, and the kind of fear that grows when adults stop listening.

Together, they remind us of what Stephen King does best: turning small towns and small minds into the biggest horrors imaginable.

---

Stay tuned to SoapCentral for more updates.

Also read: IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 2 recap: Lilly and the pickles that weren’t real