The Derry Prequel Has Uncovered 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 fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill SkarsgĂĄrd. 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 Leroy Hanlon 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. It is also revealed that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it looks like 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 assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.
“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 Mrs. Kersh appears in the It novel, as well as both the It miniseries and It: Chapter 2 film. She’s the elderly lady that one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who is later revealed as one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, 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 entirely possible 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 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 actual person 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 already know 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 otherworldly being.
In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how pleased he feels 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 create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he 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 real identity of Ingrid shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.
