The Derry Prequel Just Uncovered a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison 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 escaping Derry. Yet, 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 find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. 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 shared acquaintance,” 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 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 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, Mrs. Kersh 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 mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the recent plot twists and that Hank is being given more depth. "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 shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.