The Derry Prequel Just Uncovered a Figure 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 new information, 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 uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, 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 discloses her identity.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. 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 the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a real person, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is not yet verified, 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 clues: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, throughout the season, in a similar cadence 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 mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame 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 latest story developments 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 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 narrative threads to intersect 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 fated individuals destined to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.