🔗 Share this article

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. 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 mystical prison for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Stephen Rider's character bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), 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 end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and discloses her identity.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You aren't familiar with me, but we have a shared acquaintance,” she says.

If that surname is familiar, 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, 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 quite plausible that the two are identical.

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 “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 this pivotal character is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know that It is responsible 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 earlier discussion, the actor noted how glad he is 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 aren't provided with substantial material, you just tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.