Welcome to Derry Just Uncovered a Figure from Stephen King's 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. However, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.
After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers 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 the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid looks directly into the camera 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 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 old woman 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 implies that the character was a real person, 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 Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.
In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: 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 comparable rhythm to the film.
If this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with her companions — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.
In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play Black characters 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 hidden truth --- 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 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 destined to become linked to the clown for generations to come.