The Derry Prequel Just Revealed a Figure from 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 clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s 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 attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests 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 situation. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera 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 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 elderly lady that one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a real person, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that the two are one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of clues: the way she pronounces the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has said, in turn, throughout the season, in a similar cadence to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame 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 previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the latest story developments and that his character is receiving richer layers. "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 develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season races to its conclusion. 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 long list of doomed characters fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.

Michael Watkins
Michael Watkins

A seasoned gambling analyst with over a decade of experience in online casino reviews and player advocacy.