Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Character from It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Entire Duration
The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.
After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, 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 attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the cinema killings.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera 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 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a real person, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.
In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity 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, in turn, 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 mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.
In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is 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 internal secret --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But Hank has that."
With only a trio of installments remaining, 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 really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.