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The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the most vivid glimpse yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Still, with so much baked into one episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Leroy Hanlon discovers that Derry is essentially a mystical prison for an eldritch monster, he promptly gets his family out of town to the military installation on the outskirts. It is also revealed that Hank Grogan's bus to Shawshank State Prison was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it looks like he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. Yet, 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 locate a person who can help him demonstrate his innocence for the murders at the movie theater.

At the end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already intrigued in Hank's situation. 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 shared acquaintance,” she says.

If that surname is recognizable, it’s because a character named the elderly 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 real person, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the daughter 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 shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of tells: 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 real human 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 It is responsible for the killings. That means the chances are pretty good that she — along with her companions — will likely cross paths with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, the actor 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 aren't provided with substantial material, 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 barrels toward its finale. After the revelations in episode 5, the truth about who Ingrid is shouldn’t be far off. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the long list of doomed characters destined to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.