Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Character from Stephen King's 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 clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank's situation. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that surname is familiar, 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 Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of clues: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how glad he is about the latest story developments and that Hank is being given more depth. "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 storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals destined to become linked to the clown for years into the future.

Martin Compton
Martin Compton

A seasoned casino strategist with over a decade of experience in gaming analysis and player psychology.