The Derry Prequel Has Revealed a Figure from Stephen King's It That's Been Under Our Nose the Entire Duration

The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a point that needs to be discussed.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison 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 Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was assaulted (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is here 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 mutual friend,” she says.

If that last name is recognizable, 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 Pennywise’s many forms. 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 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 pronounces the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” 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 actual person and not just a form of It, 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 the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the likelihood is high 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 recent plot twists and that Hank is being given more depth. "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 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 revelations in episode 5, 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 fated individuals destined to become linked to the clown for years into the future.

Leslie Norris
Leslie Norris

Lena Schmidt is a senior industrial engineer with over 15 years of experience in automation and process optimization, specializing in sustainable manufacturing practices.