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

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an eldritch monster, 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 attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it appears he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank’s case. It is at this moment 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 mutual friend,” she says.

If that surname 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 old woman 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 same person is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that the two are one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh 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 said, respectively, 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 not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels 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 aren't provided with substantial material, 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 three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid 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 linked to the clown for years into the future.