Welcome to Derry Has Uncovered a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Entire Duration
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.
After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.
Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then requests 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 interested in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.
“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a shared acquaintance,” she says.
If that surname is recognizable, 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 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 not yet verified, but it's entirely possible that the two are one and the same.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline 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 Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a disguise of the entity, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle 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 Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.
In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play roles as a Black actor 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 hidden truth --- as actors, we have to develop those nuances independently. [...] But he has that."
With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more storylines to collide as the season races to its conclusion. After the disclosures from the latest episode, 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 linked to the clown for years into the future.