Welcome to Derry’ Simply Shared a Creepy Backstory for Considered one of Its Most Mysterious Characters

Last week on It: Welcome to Derry, we realized some essential new details about Madeleine Stowe’s character Ingrid, the top housekeeper at Juniper Hill Asylum who befriends the troubled Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack).

Even when Lilly’s now not a affected person, she seeks out the kindly older girl for consolation and recommendation—and why not, contemplating Derry is a hellscape and optimistic position fashions are exhausting to come back by? Nonetheless, each Stephen King fan watching was startled to study final week that Ingrid’s final identify is “Kersh.” As in Mrs. Kersh, the manifestation of Pennywise that torments the unique It character Beverly Marsh. What’s the connection precisely? This week’s sixth episode lifted the lid on who Ingrid Kersh is and what her motivations are for being such an excellent good friend to Lilly.

First, although, let’s look again at what else we learn about Mrs. Kersh from Welcome to Derry up to now. We all know she’s the alibi for accused killer Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider); he was along with her when the movie-theater bloodbath came about in episode one. However she’s a married white girl—making her reference to Hank taboo on a number of ranges, particularly in a small city circa 1962.

We don’t know what is going to turn out to be of her relationship with Hank now that he’s a fugitive. The present could decide again up with them finally. However up to now, we’ve witnessed many extra scenes between her and Lilly, beginning in episode three.

Lilly’s wrapping up a quick return to Juniper Hill Asylum after a breakdown within the grocery retailer—you’d want your treatment adjusted too should you noticed your useless father’s head in a pickle jar—and is sharing a second along with her pal Ingrid earlier than she goes.

“It’s going to be okay, expensive,” Ingrid reassures her; clearly, Lilly has unloaded many woes on her, together with her rift with Ronnie (Amanda Christine), who occurs to be Hank’s daughter.

“My father used to say that life is concerning the journey,” Ingrid continues. “However I feel it’s extra about who you’re taking that journey with. And if this Ronnie means as a lot to you because it sounds, you’re going to discover a method to make issues proper one way or the other.”

She additionally affords this very welcome reassurance: “If you happen to inform me that you simply’ve seen the unattainable, then I consider you. Most individuals, they solely consider what they will see with their very own eyes.”

Ingrid Kersh says all the proper issues, and it occurs once more in episode three when Lilly seeks her out once more. The youngsters are beginning to poke into Derry’s grim historical past, and Lilly desires Ingrid’s insights.

“I do keep in mind some children going lacking within the ‘30s,” Ingrid muses, although she claims she hasn’t thought of that in years. It was the Despair. Occasions have been powerful again then.

She’s encouraging of Lilly’s detective work, although: “My father all the time mentioned that with good buddies at your aspect, something’s potential. And it seems like you may have these.”

In episode 5, we study she’s Ingrid Kersh, married to an disagreeable man who largely cares about how his steak is cooked. Lilly runs to her with the information that Matty—the boy who went lacking at the start of Welcome to Derry’s first episode—has one way or the other escaped his extended captivity within the sewers. What’s worse, he’s fairly positive one of many children from the theater, Phil, remains to be alive down there too.

Mrs. Kersh sensibly tells Lilly to go to the police, nevertheless it’s clear by now that authorities in Derry have zero endurance for youths and their clown nonsense.

Mrs. Kersh, a minimum of, is prepared to pay attention, however she begs Lilly to not go to the sewer searching for Phil. Lilly agrees, however as we noticed in episode 5, it wouldn’t be a present about Pennywise if children didn’t barge into Derry’s underground tunnels and discover a demonic clown ready for them.

Episode six begins with one other flashback to an earlier Pennywise “cycle,” a glimpse into 1935. We see a youthful model of Ingrid Kersh main a little bit lady into the Juniper Hill Asylum basement as a result of “that is the place the clown advised you to satisfy him.” A pink balloon seems, which is rarely an excellent signal.

Earlier than we see the total scope of that encounter, we return to Welcome to Derry’s current day. Lily has one other freak-out, this time in math class when she sees her father’s pickled corpse slithering round in her desk. “Who’s gonna aid you now, loopy?” the apparition cackles.

Who else however Lilly’s finest good friend on the earth, and possibly solely good friend now that she’s on the outs with Ronnie and the remaining? Ingrid doesn’t reply her door, however Lilly goes inside anyway. Sitting in plain view is a photograph album, full of marriage ceremony portraits and the like; the pictures become older and older as Lilly flips via, till we lastly arrive at 1908 and see a person who’s clearly Pennywise out of make-up.

It’s Ingrid’s father. The one with all of the homespun recommendation. That is sinking in as Ingrid out of the blue seems; as an alternative of being indignant concerning the intrusion, she provides the distraught Lilly an enormous hug, telling her, “No matter it’s, it’s going to be okay.”

Then, Lilly notices one other picture over Ingrid’s shoulder. It’s the person from 1908, this time in full Pennywise regalia. Ingrid notices her it and asks, “Have you ever seen him?”

Uh-oh. “You noticed him! Oh, sweetheart, you probably did it! You introduced him again!”

Lilly, rising ever extra uneasy, spies a classic clown costume and a sharp white wig; it’s precisely what the clown within the cemetery was carrying when the youngsters went on their picture mission. Later, we noticed that very same pointy wig spying exterior Will’s home. It’s additionally what the little lady clown was carrying within the 1908 flashback in episode three.

“I assumed he would possibly seem that night time. I used to be fearful I would miss him!” Ingrid explains, admitting it was her within the graveyard with the youngsters. Then, she tells Lilly what we’ve already guessed: “My father was a carnival performer. He referred to as himself Pennywise the Dancing Clown.” Additionally, “I adored him, and he was taken from me.”

There’s no elaboration past that, however we are able to guess her father was Bob Grey, a reputation recognized from It lore that Welcome to Derry’s creators have been teasing will appear. Whereas we’re pondering what “he was taken” means, we return into the Thirties and see that Ingrid overheard a younger affected person, Mabel, speaking about Pennywise, solely to be scolded, “There aren’t any things like clowns in pipes.”

Pennywise? As in, Ingrid’s long-lost father? With Mabel in tow, Ingrid heads to the basement, and it goes about the way you’d count on. The sequence is filmed in black-and-white apart from pops of yellow (Pennywise’s eyes) and pink (the balloon, Mabel’s blood), however regardless of witnessing a toddler devoured by a supernatural clown—a toddler she delivered as much as be slaughtered—all it takes is an look from “Papa” to get Ingrid on board with this system.

Bob Gray seems to his daughter, calling her “pumpkin” and saying he’s missed her. “Don’t be scared; I can clarify all the pieces. Simply open the door and let me in! Every little thing’s gonna be all proper!”

There’s a literal door that will get opened right here, however you may infer that It wormed its method into Ingrid Kersh proper then as properly, exploiting her need to reunite along with her beloved father once more.

“I did what I needed to do to see him once more,” she explains to Lilly, who’s quaking in fright. “If he may simply see me as soon as extra as his Periwinkle [Ingrid’s clown character], remind him of the love we shared, I do know that he’ll be capable of break away.”

Although Ingrid assures Lilly she would by no means let something damage her, how will you consider the phrase of a girl who’s been dressing up in a 50-year-old clown outfit making an attempt to reconnect along with her long-dead father? “Nobody who dies right here ever actually dies,” she tells Lilly. “Include me tonight and let me present you!” Lilly’s response to this invitation is to slice her with the alien dagger and get the hell out of there.

This certainly received’t be the one Bob Grey look on Welcome to Derry, particularly since we now know that Ingrid has been making an attempt to resurrect her father for 27 years—all whereas encouraging children to consider the unbelievable, since children are tasty bait for Pennywise.

We’re glad that Lilly has realized in Derry, you’d higher be extraordinarily cautious earlier than you belief anybody—even somebody who seems fully innocent. It’s a lesson Beverly Marsh has to study for herself many years later when she has her personal encounter with Mrs. Kersh in It: Chapter Two.

New episodes of It: Welcome to Derry arrive Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

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