🔗 Share this article

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it looks like 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 Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks 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 here that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

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

If that last name 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 is later revealed as one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh 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, 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 not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the latest story developments and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play Black characters 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 develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

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