🔗 Share this article

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 such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the military installation on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), 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 makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank's situation. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that surname is familiar, it’s because a character named the elderly 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 suggests 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 unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline 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 “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 attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments 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 internal secret --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But Hank has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. After the revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.