Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Figure from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill SkarsgĂĄrd. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially 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 attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. 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 find someone who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that last name is recognizable, 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 old woman that one of the Losers' Club 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 offspring of this character or the same person is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible that the two are 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 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 this pivotal character is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we are aware 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, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play roles as a Black actor 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 develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.

Steven Morrison
Steven Morrison

Lena is a seasoned mountaineer and outdoor writer with over 15 years of experience scaling peaks across Europe and Asia.