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The fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry is loaded with fresh details, offering the clearest look yet at Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. However, with such a dense narrative packed into a single episode, a understated disclosure might have been missed entirely, and it's a point that deserves attention.

After Jovan Adepo's character uncovers that Derry is more or less a supernatural containment for an ancient evil, he swiftly relocates his family to the air force base on the outskirts. We also learn that Hank Grogan's bus to the state penitentiary was ambushed. Later, we see him in the back of Madeleine Stowe's character car. At first, it looks like he's seized control as a means of escaping Derry. However, once in the woods, the two share an intimate kiss.

Hank claims 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 end of the episode, Ingrid reaches out to meet with Mrs. Hanlon, who is already interested in Hank’s case. It is here 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 last name 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 elderly lady 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 character itself is unconfirmed, but it's quite plausible that the two are one and the same.

In It: Chapter 2, which shares the same continuity as Welcome to Derry, the character portrayed by Joan Gregson has a couple of clues: the way she pronounces 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 comparable rhythm to the film.

If Mrs. Kersh 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 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 otherworldly being.

In a earlier discussion, Stephen Rider noted how pleased he feels about the latest story developments and that Hank is being given more depth. "I play Black characters 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 internal secret --- 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 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 fated to become linked to the clown for years into the future.