Welcome to Derry Just Uncovered a Figure from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.
After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here 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 surname 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. 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 character itself 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 enunciates 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 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 theater murders. 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 likely cross paths with the supernatural force.
In a previous interview, 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 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 disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.