🔗 Share this article

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse 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 aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

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

At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You aren't familiar with 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 is later revealed as 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 offspring of this character or the character itself 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, respectively, throughout the season, in a similar cadence to the film.

If this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle 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 otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the recent plot twists 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 tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that internal secret --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more storylines to collide as the season races to its conclusion. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for generations to come.