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The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with new information, offering the clearest look yet at Pennywise portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. Still, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been overlooked completely, and it's a aspect that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is more or less 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 the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Ingrid’s car. Initially, it appears he's seized control as a means of getting out of town. Yet, once in the woods, the two embrace with a kiss.

Hank asserts the bus was attacked (presumably by the sinister clown), 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 conclusion of the installment, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Leroy's mother, who is already intrigued 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 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 suggests that the character was a real person, 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 entirely possible 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, respectively, throughout the season, in a comparable rhythm to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh is indeed an real human and not just a disguise of the entity, it will spell trouble 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 probably encounter with the supernatural force.

In a previous interview, the actor 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 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 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 real identity of Ingrid shouldn’t be far off. And if she is indeed the same person, Ingrid will join the extensive roster of fated individuals fated to become entwined with Pennywise for years into the future.