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The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Leroy Hanlon uncovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, viewers find him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. 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 requests Ingrid to find someone who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

At the conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is at this moment that Ingrid addresses the audience and reveals her full name.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. You aren't familiar with 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 old woman that Beverly Marsh mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry suggests 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 unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that the two are identical.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, Mrs. Kersh has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” both of which Ingrid has uttered, respectively, 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 Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "I play Black characters on screen, and a lot of times you aren't provided with substantial material, you just tell exposition," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But Hank has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is is likely imminent. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of doomed characters fated to become linked to the clown for generations to come.