The Derry Prequel Just Revealed a Character from 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 Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a subtle reveal 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 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 the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank claims the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to break free. He then asks Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera 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 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 Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry suggests that the character was a actual individual, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the same person is not yet verified, but it's quite plausible 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 similar cadence to the film.

If this pivotal character is indeed an actual person and not just a disguise of the entity, it will not bode well for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle 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, the actor noted how glad he is 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 develop those nuances independently. [...] But Hank has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, 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 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 generations to come.

Melissa Carter
Melissa Carter

A seasoned gaming analyst with over a decade of experience in casino reviews and player strategy development.