The Derry Prequel Just Uncovered a Character from It That's Been Under Our Nose the Whole Time

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment 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 Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, we see 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. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry implies 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 not yet verified, 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 tells: the way she pronounces 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 actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we already know that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, the actor noted how glad he is 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 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 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.

Walter George
Walter George

A cybersecurity expert with over a decade of experience in IT infrastructure and network monitoring, passionate about helping organizations stay secure.