Welcome to Derry Has Uncovered a Character from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character 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. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him prove he was framed 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 case. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

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

If that surname 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 actual individual, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible 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 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 comparable rhythm to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we are aware 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 previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play roles as a Black actor 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 create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. 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 doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.