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The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that needs to be discussed.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is essentially a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he promptly gets his family out of town to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, 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 attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), allowing him to escape. He then requests Ingrid to locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the cinema killings.

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 addresses the audience and discloses her identity.

“Mrs. Hanlon, my name is Ingrid Kersh. 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 illusion created by It. Whether Ingrid is the daughter of this character or the same person is not yet verified, 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 tells: the way she enunciates the word “father” and the line “nobody in Derry ever really dies,” 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 spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she seeks to untangle the mystery behind the theater murders. Of course, we are aware that It is responsible for the killings. That means the likelihood is high that she — along with Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how glad he is about the latest story developments 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 deliver background information," 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 three episodes left, expect more narrative threads to intersect as the season barrels toward its finale. After the disclosures from the latest episode, the real identity of Ingrid is likely imminent. And if she really is Mrs. Kersh, Ingrid will join the long list of fated individuals fated to become entwined with Pennywise for generations to come.