The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Figure from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose 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 so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, 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 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 ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is at this moment 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 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 is later revealed as one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a real person, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.
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 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 this pivotal character is indeed an real human and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the theater murders. 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 previous interview, the actor noted how glad he is 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 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 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become linked to the clown for generations to come.