Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Figure from 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 subtle reveal might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, we see 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 claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and discloses her identity.

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

If that surname is recognizable, 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 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 entirely possible that the two are identical.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline 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 “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 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 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 supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider 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 tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that internal secret --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the real identity of Ingrid shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.

Anthony Sanchez
Anthony Sanchez

A seasoned gaming analyst with over a decade of experience in slot machine mechanics and strategy development.