Welcome to Derry 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 fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.
After Leroy Hanlon uncovers 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 Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. 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. Yet, 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 asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed 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 here 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 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 eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. 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 unconfirmed, 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 tells: the way she enunciates 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 this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know 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 Hank is being given more depth. "I play Black characters 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 storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, 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 fated individuals destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.