Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Character from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that deserves attention.
After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, 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 the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.
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 discloses her identity.
“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 the elderly 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 the clown's numerous disguises. 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 same person is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline 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 comparable rhythm to the film.
If this pivotal character 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 mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.
In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the latest story developments 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 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 three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is 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.