Welcome to Derry Has Revealed a Character from 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 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 aspect that needs to be discussed.
After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it looks like 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 Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. 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 mutual friend,” she says.
If that surname 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 real person, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the same person is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh identical.
In It: Chapter 2, which exists in the same timeline as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh 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 uttered, in turn, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.
If Mrs. Kersh 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 conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.
In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the latest story developments 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 tell exposition," 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 disclosures from the latest episode, the real identity of Ingrid is likely imminent. 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.