The Derry Prequel Just Revealed a Figure from It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Entire Duration

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, 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 ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank's situation. It is at this moment 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 familiar, 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 elderly lady that Beverly Marsh 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 Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has said, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm 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 attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the recent plot twists 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 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 three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is 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 generations to come.

Johnathan Fitzgerald
Johnathan Fitzgerald

Interior design expert and luxury lifestyle curator with over a decade of experience in high-end home styling and trend analysis.