Welcome to Derry just revealed a character from It that’s been under our nose the whole time

The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, and the show’s clearest look at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise yet. Still, with so much baked into one episode, one of the more subtle reveals could have been missed entirely, and it’s something that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town and moves them into the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan’s (Stephen Rider) bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s (Madeleine Stowe) car. At first, it looks like he’s taken her hostage as a means of getting out of town. However, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was attacked (presumably by Pennywise), allowing him to escape. He then asks Ingrid to find someone who can help him prove he was framed for the murders at the movie theater.

At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is here that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend,” she says.

If that last name is familiar, it’s because we meet a character in the It novel, as well as both the It miniseries and It: Chapter 2 film, named Mrs. Kersh. 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 entirely possible that Ingrid and Mrs. Kersh are one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh (Joan Gregson) has a couple of tells: the way she pronounces the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has said, respectively, throughout the season, in a similar cadence 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 seeks to untangle the conspiracy behind the theater murders. Of course, we already know It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.

Speaking with Polygon in a previous interview, 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 internal secret — as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [… ] But [Hank] has that.”

With only three episodes left, expect more storylines to collide as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters fated to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.