Welcome to Derry Star Slams Charlotte's Finale Decision
Taylour Paige openly criticizes her character's shocking choice to remain in the cursed town, calling the writing unrealistic despite acknowledging the 1962 setting's constraints on women.
Following Pennywise's return to his decades-long slumber, several characters in the season finale made their escape plans from the cursed town. Rose, the Grogan family, and Dick Hallorann all prepared to leave Derry behind. However, the Hanlon family chose a different path entirely, deciding to remain and take control of Rose's abandoned farm, despite Leroy's previous objections to staying.
"Maybe the next damn fool mission needs to be together," Charlotte tells her husband with a grin, hinting that her family would become Derry's new guardians against future supernatural threats.
Actor Questions Character's Motivation
Taylour Paige found it difficult to believe her character would make such a choice after everything the family had endured. "I'm not happy with the way this was written, if I'm being honest," she revealed in a recent interview. "I'm like, 'There's no f*cking way.' I mean, I guess the lore is that you forget when you're in Derry, but I don't buy it."
The actress expressed wanting "more" for Charlotte, Leroy, and their son Will, though she acknowledged that a woman choosing to return to domestic life made sense given the era's limitations. "I think it would have been maybe too radical for Charlotte to leave," she observed. "And also too radical for women of 1962 to be like, 'I'm out.' That was very rare. It just didn't really happen then, right? Most people stayed in loveless marriages. Most women, I think, had to deny themselves to keep the family together."
Finding Bright Spots in the Story
Despite her frustrations with Charlotte's ending, Paige praised certain aspects of her character's journey. She particularly enjoyed the mother-son dynamics and Charlotte's storyline involving Hank Grogan, whom she assisted after he was falsely blamed for the theater killings.
"I think, being a mother – at least I can speak to it now after, I wasn't a mother when I was shooting -- but I think becoming a mother gives you these superpowers, and this super kind of compassion," she explained. "That was a nice way to kind of get a little bit of more of Charlotte's inner world and the way that she thinks, and what she believes in, kind of gives you a little bit more color than just like, she's at home cooking, stewing."