The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.
After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary 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 escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks 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 intrigued in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You aren't familiar with 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 Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a actual individual, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that the two are one and the same.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson 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 not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.
In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how pleased he feels 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 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 barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.