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

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, 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 point that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he swiftly relocates his family to the military installation on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary 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 escaping Derry. 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 escape. 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 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 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 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 actual individual, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter 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 shares the same continuity 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 “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has said, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel 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 otherworldly being.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels 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 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 Hank has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. 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 extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.

Michael Lloyd
Michael Lloyd

A seasoned gambling analyst with over a decade of experience in reviewing European online casinos and developing winning strategies.