IT: Derry Welcomes You – Episode 6: Is Mrs. Kersh Actually Pennywise’s Daughter?

As IT: Welcome to Derry progresses, the number of familiar faces continues to enrich the narrative. The most recent addition is Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe), who works at Juniper Hill and is in a secret relationship with Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider). In episode 5, we finally learn her notable last name. In both the IT movies and Stephen King’s novel, Mrs. Kersh is an elderly woman visited by Beverly Marsh, revealing her connection to the creature in one of its many forms. However, in the show, she appears to be a tangible character. Episode 6 provides intriguing insights about her.

So, what unfolds, and what might this mean for her character?

What happens in IT: Welcome to Derry episode 6? A spiraling Lilly (Clara Stack) visits Mrs. Kersh’s house, where she discovers black-and-white photographs from 1908, featuring a young Ingrid alongside a familiar-looking man in a clown costume. “My father was a carnival performer,” shares Mrs. Kersh, who seems oddly uplifted by the idea Lilly has encountered IT. “He called himself Pennywise the Dancing Clown. I adored him. And he was taken from me. The carnival moved on, but I stayed in Derry. I suppose you could say I felt…drawn.”

In a black-and-white flashback, we witness a younger Mrs. Kersh encountering Pennywise—whom she believes to be her father—while working at Juniper Hill. Even when he harms a child in front of her, she appears unbothered. “It was him,” she says. “Different, perhaps, changed by whatever he’d been through or wherever he’d been. Oh, but it was him all the same. A daughter knows.” But what is the true nature of her connection to Pennywise?

Is Mrs. Kersh really Pennywise’s daughter? The short answer is no; almost certainly not. Pennywise is an ancient entity, adept at delving into human fears and traumas to assume different forms. While he may have drawn inspiration from Mrs. Kersh’s father for his clown persona, her perception of him as “papa”—which evokes confusion followed by laughter from Pennywise—reveals that this connection exists mainly in her imagination. “Every time that he returned, this shadow would steal my father away,” Mrs. Kersh tells Lilly. “I had to find a way to free him. So I did what I had to in order to see him again.”

It appears far more likely that the creature utilized Mrs. Kersh as a means to find more children to sustain itself. Throughout the book and movies, IT often treats vulnerable adults as pawns, suggesting Ingrid may simply be another character caught in its web.

New episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.