🔗 Share this article

The fifth episode 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 subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison 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 Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of getting out of town. Yet, 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 demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank's situation. 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 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 implies 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 not yet verified, but it's quite plausible 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 “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 real human and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. 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 earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is 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 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 Hank has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals destined to become linked to the clown for years into the future.