Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Character from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact 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 Kersh, Ingrid. 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 old woman 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 character itself is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible that the two are one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: the way she pronounces 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 similar cadence to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, the actor noted how glad he is 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 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 narrative threads to intersect 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.