🔗 Share this article

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was attacked (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 murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You don’t know me, but we have a shared acquaintance,” 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 old woman that Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests 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 unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh 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 pronounces the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, 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 spell trouble 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 likely cross paths with the supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play roles as a Black actor on screen, and a lot of times you aren't provided with substantial material, you just deliver background information," he says. "For him to have that internal secret --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters destined to become linked to the clown for years into the future.