Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Character from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time
The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.
After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the cinema killings.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.
If that surname is recognizable, it’s because a character named Mrs. Kersh appears in the It novel, as well as both the It miniseries and It: Chapter 2 film. She’s the elderly lady that one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who is later revealed as one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a real person, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible that the two are identical.
In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of clues: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.
If this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with her companions — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.
In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play Black characters on screen, and a lot of times you don’t get all the meat, you just tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."
With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.