The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Figure from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the clearest look 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 Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, 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, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to locate a person who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.

At the end of the episode, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Kersh, Ingrid. You don’t know 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 elderly lady 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 actual individual, 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 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 tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, throughout the season, in a similar cadence to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, the actor noted how glad he is about the recent plot twists 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 develop those nuances independently. [...] But he has that."

With only three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. After the revelations in episode 5, the real identity of Ingrid shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for generations to come.

Sandra Harrington
Sandra Harrington

A tech journalist and digital culture analyst with over a decade of experience covering emerging technologies and their societal impacts.