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 jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, 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 uncovers 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 attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character 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 asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience 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 familiar, it’s because a character named the elderly Mrs. Kersh appears in the It novel, as well as both the It miniseries and It: Chapter 2 film. She’s the elderly lady that Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who is later revealed as one of the clown's numerous disguises. 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 entirely possible that the two are one and the same.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of clues: 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 actual person and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle 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 supernatural force.
In a previous interview, the actor noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "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 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 races to its conclusion. 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 fated individuals fated to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.