It: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 makes shock reveal about one of Pennywise’s scariest monsters

It: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 finally delivered a Pennywise platter for horror fans, but it also made a shocking reveal about one of his scariest monsters in the movies. Spoilers ahead!

So far, the horror TV show has used Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise like the shark in Jaws, he’s lurking beneath Derry’s surface while waiting for the right time to strike. And strike he did at the end of Episode 5, when Lily (Clara Stack) and the other kids went looking for him in the sewers.

The kids (and the audience) learned that there is a weapon that can stop Pennywise dead in his tracks: shards of the meteorite that he arrived on Earth in. As Lily picked it up from the water at the last second before he could attack her.

But while Pennywise (obviously) stole the spotlight, It: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 also made another startling reveal about one of the villain’s most terrifying forms from Andy Muschietti‘s IT movies.

Lily is friends with Mrs Kersh from It: Chapter Two

HBO

Yes, Lily is friends with Mrs Ingrid Kersh (Madeline Stowe), who becomes the creepy old woman that attacks Bev Marsh (Jessica Chastain) in It: Chapter Two. Quick refresher: she’s the one with a rotting chest and elongated limbs who runs at Bev inside the old apartment that her father used to live in.

The show already teased the old woman in the second episode at the butcher’s shop owned by her husband, Stan Kersh, and Episode 5 confirmed that Ingrid is Stan’s wife. It looks like the relationship has sneakily become a key plot point in Welcome to Derry.

Episode 5 revealed that Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) has secretly been having an affair with Mrs Kersh, which is unsurprising since Stan appears to treat his wife as a servant, rather than a partner.

But Hank was with Mrs Kersh during the first episode’s stomach-churning theater massacre, which is why he couldn’t reveal his alibi. It’s clear that racism is rife within Derry in the 1960s, and he would’ve probably been murdered for admitting the truth.

It could’ve been easy for Warner Bros. and HBO to just do a simple Pennywise origin story, so it’s quite impressive how many layers Muschietti and the writer’s room have packed into the show to ensure that even Pennywise’s monstrous hallucinations get a well-rounded backstory.

Only time will tell how Mrs. Kersh transforms from Lily’s close friend, to the rotting corpse who hunts Bev…

While you’re waiting for more episodes of It: Welcome to Derry, check out the scene which scared Stephen King the most, discover how the show might connect to another classic King movie, and take a look at the best horror movies of 2025.