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The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a subtle reveal 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 military installation on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Stephen Rider's character bus to the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank claims the bus was assaulted (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 makes contact to meet with Leroy's mother, 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 shared acquaintance,” 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 is later revealed as one of Pennywise’s many forms. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a actual individual, not just a illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, 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, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “no one truly perishes in Derry,” both of which Ingrid has said, 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 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 the entity is to blame for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the otherworldly being.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the recent plot twists and that his character is receiving richer layers. "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 internal secret --- as actors, we have to create those secrets for ourselves. [...] But he has that."

With only a trio of installments remaining, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season races to its conclusion. 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 years into the future.