The below article contains major spoilers for It Chapter Two.

Long before the internet decided evil shapeshifting clown Pennywise was gay (and dating the Babadook), many queer Stephen King fans regarded his 1986 novel It with a certain amount of dread. The prolific author’s work isn’t exactly rife with LGBTQ+ representation; over nearly 70 novels and short story collections, King has written only a handful of queer characters. That’s part of what makes It’s Adrian Mellon stand out. In the novel, Adrian and his boyfriend, Don Hagarty, are terrorized by a group of teenagers who violently beat Adrian and throw him over a bridge into the water below, where he’s murdered by Pennywise. Adrian’s death restarts the cycle of violence that It wreaks every 27 years, drawing the adult Losers’ Club back to their hometown of Derry. Inspired by the real-life murder of Charlie Howard, it’s a graphic and deeply upsetting depiction of a hate crime, and one of King’s most haunting scenes.

While the 1990 It miniseries shied away from any mention of Adrian Mellon, It Chapter Two — the sequel to the 2017 feature film It that hits theaters this Friday — features Adrian (Xavier Dolan) and Don (Taylor Frey) in one of its first scenes. Adrian’s murder hews closely to the book’s description of the attack; it’s a shocking moment of violence that feels too close to real-world hatred to shake off. It makes sense that the movie would include the scene: part of the films’ appeal is their ability to depict aspects of the novel that were too explicit or controversial for a ‘90s TV audience. Yet the real surprise of It Chapter Two is that Adrian and Don are not the only queer characters onscreen. By the film’s end, we discover that Richie Tozier (Bill Hader) has been in love with Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone) since they were kids.

Warner Bros.

The idea that Richie secretly harbors feelings for Eddie is not exclusive to It Chapter Two, but only the closest readers of King’s novel are likely to have noticed any homoerotic subtext. The evidence is debatable, but it’s there. As Jaime Burbatt writes in an essay on King’s “ambiguously gay trope,” “One of the most interesting details to [It] is not something scary at all, but the chemistry Eddie holds with Richie Tozier, fellow member of The Losers Club. Between the two of them is something different and sweet that pops up all throughout the book.” In the novel, Richie repeatedly calls Eddie cute, and while Eddie brushes him off, there’s a suggestion the attraction could be mutual: at one point, he asks Richie for a lick of his (ahem) Rocket popsicle, despite his debilitating fear of germs. When the adult Eddie dies, Richie has the hardest time leaving his body behind, with Richie kissing his cheek before they go.

When these moments are presented together, the queer subtext seems obvious, but these are fleeting scenes in a novel that tops 1,100 pages, and King never confirms anything. It Chapter Two takes things a step further. First, there’s a flashback in which Richie remembers his younger self (Finn Wolfhard) being teased for having a crush on another boy. When Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) confronts the adult Richie, he threatens to reveal Richie’s “secret.” And although there’s no cheek kiss after Richie sobs over Eddie’s body, his heartbreak is undeniable. In case there’s any doubt left, the film concludes with a montage in which Richie finishes the message he began carving onto a bridge decades prior: “R+E.” Richie and Eddie. Whether his crush was ever reciprocated is unclear.