What happens to Mrs. Kersh? It: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 twist explained

It: Welcome to Derry Episode 7 just delivered a major twist for Mrs. Kersh (Madeleine Stowe) after the devastating Black Spot fire, and it’s going to have huge ramifications on Pennywise and the IT movies. Spoilers ahead!

While the series has explored Pennywise’s previous hunting cycle in 1965, 27 years before he crossed paths with the Loser’s Club in Andy Muschietti’s 2017 IT movie, it also widens the backstory behind the iconic killer clown and who he was before monster took over.

The answer is that the entity known as It adopted the Pennywise persona from a circus performer called Bob Gray, and the series reveals that Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) unknowingly befriended his daughter: Ingrid Kersh. The show revealed that she stoked the racial tensions in the town to try and lure Pennywise out into the open so she could see her father again…

But this came back to bite her (almost quite literally) as she finally got the chance to speak to Pennywise again. Here’s what happened to Mrs. Kersh at the end of It: Welcome to Derry Episode 7, and what it means for the movies.

What happens to Mrs. Kersh?

HBO

At the end of Episode 7, Pennywise uses the Deadlights to put Mrs. Kersh into a coma-like state which allows him to use her as one of his monsters. After the Black Spot burns down, Pennywise confronts Ingrid’s husband, Stan Kersh (Larry Day), and chops his head off with a butcher’s knife in front of Mrs. Kersh who is dressed in her Periwinkle clown costume.

After admitting to the clown that she wanted to feed him with the town’s violence, she realizes that Pennywise isn’t her father, and the creature opens his mouth to reveal the Deadlights inside — which instantly put Mrs. Kersh into a trance.

At first it seems like he’s killed her, but when the firefighters are clearing the area the next day, the kids see Mrs. Kersh being wheeled away on a stretcher staring blankly into the sky… Before her eyes dart towards them and she maintains a creepy stare.

Essentially what this means is that Pennywise has control of Mrs. Kersh, and he can turn her into one of his monstrous forms.

We know this because in IT: Chapter Two, Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) visits Mrs. Kersh when she’s living in the Marsh’s old apartment. The creepy old woman transforms into a spindly, elongated version of herself with an extra mouth in her neck, and attacks Bev.

What are the Deadlights?

HBO

For any one wondering what the Deadlights actually are, they’re actually It’s real form. While the creature presents itself as other beings to feast on its victims’ fear, its actual body is the swirling orange lights that reside inside Pennywise’s body.

So when Mrs. Kersh is put into a coma, it’s because she’s paralyzed by the creature’s real form.

It only uses its real form as a weapon when it’s trying to unleash pure cosmic terror on its victims, otherwise it just eats them, like we see Pennywise do on numerous occasions.

The seventh episode ends with Pennywise emerging from a bloody nest made up of body parts and intestines because the military incincerates one of the meteor pillars that have trapped the creature in Derry. So it seems highly likely that we haven’t seen the last of the Deadlights ahead of the final episode.

Until you wait for the finale of It: Welcome to Derry, check out the fear plot hole that could’ve saved the military’s plan to catch Pennywise, why the show’s ending changed, and why the show is going back in time.