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

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), 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 end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact 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 don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that last name is familiar, 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 implies 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 Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has said, 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 spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible 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 latest story developments 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 internal secret --- 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 revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.

Michael Taylor
Michael Taylor

A professional slot game analyst with over a decade of experience in online casinos and gaming strategies.