The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn 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 seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the cinema killings.

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 at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a mutual friend,” 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 is later revealed as 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 character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of clues: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” 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 disguise of the entity, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that It is responsible 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 glad he is 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 don’t get all the meat, 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 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 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 doomed characters fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.