Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded 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 discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an ancient evil, 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 Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it looks like he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank claims the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then requests 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 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 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 suggests that the character was a actual individual, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the character itself 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, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.
If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.
In a previous interview, the actor noted how glad he is 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 tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] 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 revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid is likely imminent. 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.