This week’s episode of It: Welcome to Derry pairs tender teenage moments with a major lore revelation that reframes both Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe) and Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård).
[Ed note: The remainder of this piece contains full spoilers for episode six of It: Welcome to Derry.]Following the events in the sewers from episode four, Will (Blake Cameron James) and Ronnie (Amanda Christine) grow closer, though Ronnie is determined not to leave Derry — especially after being reunited with her father, Hank (Stephen Rider). Charlotte (Taylour Paige) and Ingrid have been sheltering Hank at the Black Spot until they can smuggle him out of town.
Rich (Arian S. Cartaya) and Marge (Matilda Lawler) — whose own bond is deepening — join the others at the Black Spot, and for a fleeting moment it feels like things might settle. That fragile calm is shattered, however, when word of Hank’s presence spreads and a mob of armed, racist men descends on the predominantly Black bar intent on seizing him.
But the episode’s most startling development comes when Lilly (Clara Stack) discovers an old scrapbook that ties Ingrid directly to the circus — and, by extension, to Pennywise. The album contains a photograph of Ingrid’s father that bears a chilling resemblance to Pennywise without makeup. That same image is the one Beverly encounters in Mrs. Kersh’s house in It: Chapter Two.
As Lilly flips through the pages she finds a second image showing the man in clown makeup. Ingrid admits she was the woman the children glimpsed in the clown garb — she’d been following them because she wanted to see her father again.
Ingrid reveals that Pennywise was a persona performed by her father — that he was taken from her, and that she remained in Derry, working as a nurse at the asylum, in the hope of finding him. She confesses she manipulated a young patient to draw the creature out: when the child encounters Pennywise, Ingrid declares that she is It’s daughter. The creature reacts violently, killing the child and reverting to the human likeness seen in the photo — an image Ingrid clings to. She tells Lilly she will use whatever means necessary, including other children, to bring him back.
Learning of Mrs. Kersh’s direct tie to Pennywise reframes her grotesque manifestation in It: Chapter 2 — perhaps a sign of her ultimately succumbing to the entity and becoming one of its many faces.
We can hope the next episode sheds more light on Ingrid’s past, but with the Black Spot incident heating up, the narrative may soon pivot to the Hanlons and the arrival of Dick Hallorann. The fallout from tonight’s confrontation seems likely to push those storylines forward.
New episodes of It: Welcome to Derry premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.
Source: Polygon
