Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Character from It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time
The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.
After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison 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 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 looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.
Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.
At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You don’t know 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 is later revealed as one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, 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 Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same.
In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, in turn, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm 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 attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. 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 probably encounter with the otherworldly being.
In a previous interview, the actor noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play roles as a Black actor 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 storylines to collide 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 extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.