The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Character from It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time
The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point 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 ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, 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 assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, 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 Ingrid Kersh. You don’t know me, but we have a shared acquaintance,” 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 old woman that Beverly Marsh 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 manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.
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, respectively, 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 attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the theater murders. 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 previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists 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 deliver background information," 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 a trio of installments remaining, 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 is likely imminent. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.