Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, 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 ancient evil, 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 ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him prove he was framed for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” 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 elderly lady that Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who is later revealed as one of Pennywise’s many forms. 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 shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of clues: the way she pronounces the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has said, in turn, throughout the season, in a similar cadence to the film.

If this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame 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, the actor noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists 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 deliver background information," he says. "For him to have that internal secret --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.

Megan Owens
Megan Owens

Cybersecurity specialist with over a decade of experience in digital asset protection and secure storage solutions.