🔗 Share this article The Derry Prequel Has Uncovered a Character from Stephen King's It That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight the Whole Time The fifth episode 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 overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention. After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison 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 ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, 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 asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then requests 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 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 reveals her full name. “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 familiar, 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 old woman that Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a real person, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh one and the same. In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity 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, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm 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 seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the theater murders. 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 likely cross paths with the supernatural force. 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 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 truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.