🔗 Share this article

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a subtle reveal might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears 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 attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that surname is recognizable, 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who is later revealed as 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 daughter of this character or the character itself 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, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of clues: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” 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 attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with her companions — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.

In a previous interview, the actor noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play Black characters on screen, and a lot of times you aren't provided with substantial material, you just deliver background information," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] But he has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the real identity of Ingrid is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.