The Derry Prequel Just Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.
After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, 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 the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.
At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued 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 last name 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 eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a actual individual, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person 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, 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 said, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.
If Mrs. Kersh 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 mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware 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 otherworldly being.
In a previous interview, Stephen Rider 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 deliver background information," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] 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 extensive roster of doomed characters destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.