Welcome to Derry Just Revealed a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time
The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill SkarsgĂĄrd. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.
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 air force base on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears 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 claims the bus was attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to find someone 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 here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and discloses her identity.
“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 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 old woman 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 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 enunciates 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 similar cadence to the film.
If this pivotal character is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the cinema slayings. 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 likely cross paths with the supernatural force.
In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how glad he is about the latest story developments and that Hank is being given more depth. "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 create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."
With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect 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 is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.