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The latest installment of It: Welcome to Derry is jam-packed with new information, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a subtle reveal might have been missed entirely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character discovers that Derry is more or less a mystical prison for an ancient evil, 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 the state penitentiary was attacked. Later, viewers find him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. Initially, it appears he's taken her hostage as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank claims the bus was assaulted (presumably by Pennywise), 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 situation. It is at this moment that Ingrid looks directly into the camera and discloses her identity.

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

If that surname 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 one of the Losers' Club mistakenly visits, who eventually turns out to be one of the clown's numerous disguises. However, Welcome to Derry implies that the character was a actual individual, not just a manifestation of Pennywise. Whether Ingrid is the offspring of this character or the same person is unconfirmed, but it's entirely possible that the two are 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 pronounces 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 Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a form of It, it will spell trouble for Ingrid, especially as she attempts to unravel the conspiracy behind the cinema slayings. 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 Hank and Charlotte — will probably encounter with the otherworldly being.

In a previous interview, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments 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 deliver background information," he says. "For him to have that hidden truth --- 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 real identity of Ingrid 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 linked to the clown for years into the future.