The Derry Prequel Has Uncovered a Figure from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.
After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it looks like he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank claims 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 murders at the movie theater.
At the end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is at this moment that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a mutual friend,” 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 Beverly Marsh 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 illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that the two are identical.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh 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 said, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.
If Mrs. Kersh 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 Hank and Charlotte — 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 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 three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. 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 years into the future.