The Derry Prequel Just Revealed a Figure from It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Entire Duration

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the clearest look 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 point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was attacked (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 conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here 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 shared acquaintance,” she says.

If that surname is recognizable, 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 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 daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that the two are identical.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: the way she pronounces the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has said, in turn, throughout the season, in a similar cadence to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human 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 chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play roles as a Black actor on screen, and a lot of times you aren't provided with substantial material, you just tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.

Tracie Williams
Tracie Williams

Lena is a seasoned casino reviewer with over a decade of experience in the online gambling industry, specializing in slot game analysis.