The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time
The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, 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 more or less 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 Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), 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 conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is at this moment 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 shared acquaintance,” she says.
If that last name 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 manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, 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 clues: the way she pronounces the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, 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 spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery 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 her companions — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.
In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how glad he is about the latest story developments 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 hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."
With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid 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 years into the future.