🔗 Share this article

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse 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 needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, 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 demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.

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

If that last name 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 eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a real person, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is not yet verified, 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, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has said, in turn, 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 not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy 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 Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play roles as a Black actor on screen, and a lot of times you aren't provided with substantial material, you just tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But Hank has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for generations to come.