Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the IT: Welcome to Derry finale.
IT: Welcome to Derry might be set in 1962, 27 years before the events of the first IT film, but there are many similarities to be found between the two. The most obvious is that Bill Skarsgård is again under the Pennywise makeup, and Andy Muschietti is involved in the creation of both adaptations of Stephen King‘s iconic novel, but the parallels don’t stop there. Even our new group of Losers has attachments to the future, with doomed Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim Fidler) related to Stanley Uris, Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) being the grandfather of Mike, and in the biggest shock of all, the finale’s reveal that Marge (Matilda Lawler) is the mother of Richie Tozier.
However, the episode’s biggest nod to the 2017 IT is not a link between generations, but a surprising cameo. In the closing moments of IT: Welcome to Derry‘s finale, with Pennywise defeated for now, the focus shifts to the Juniper Hill psychiatric hospital. It’s there that the finale, “Winter Fire,” reveals a girl with long red hair.
Ingrid Kersh Meets Beverly Marsh in the ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Season 1 Finale
Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe) is one of IT: Welcome to Derry‘s most fascinating characters. At first glance, she’s a caring housekeeper at Juniper Hill who becomes a friend to Lilly (Clara Stack). As the episodes progress, a flashback takes viewers to her life as a child, where her father, Bob Gray (also played by Skarsgård), is a carnival performer known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. When the entity sees how kids are drawn to him, it lures Bob off into the woods to devour him, and a terrifying new form of this monster is born.
Broken by her father’s disappearance, Ingrid stays in Derry, and when she hears a child at Juniper Hill talking about seeing a clown in the basement, she thinks her father has returned somehow. That’s only confirmed by Pennywise’s physical resemblance to her father, but it’s not until the clown cuts her husband’s head off, years later, and eats it like a watermelon, that Ingrid finally puts it together. As the season ends, the entity lets her live, but IT’s Deadlights have broken her, resulting in her being admitted to Juniper Hill.
The finale reveals that 27 years later, Mrs. Kersh is still a resident at Juniper Hill when she hears screams coming from the hall. Investigating the disturbance, Ingrid goes to another room, where a patient named Elfrida Marsh has hung herself. At her swinging feet, a husband weeps, and a daughter leans against him. When she turns around, it’s Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis). Mrs. Kersh tells the girl that not everyone who dies in Derry stays dead, but the way she puts it, combined with a creepy smile, provides no comfort.
The IT Films Only Hint at How Beverly Marsh’s Mother Died
Many of the main kid characters in IT: Welcome to Derry are girls, but in IT, there’s only Bev in the Losers Club. The 2017 film doesn’t dig too deeply into her backstory. Her mother has died, and she’s being raised by an abusive father, but beyond that, viewers don’t learn much more.
Andy Muschietti reveals more for the audience in 2019’s IT Chapter Two during a flashback, with Beverly’s father, Alvin (Stephen Bogaert), mourning his wife’s death while blaming his daughter for the loss. It’s never mentioned what exactly happened or when. However, in IT: Welcome to Derry, the audience is plunged into Beverly’s worst day. Months before she made new friends, she discovers her mother’s body at Juniper Hill. No wonder Elfrida Marsh’s husband and child are forever broken after this day.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’s Latest Episode Has Painful Parallels to the Best Horror Film of the Year
This all feels sadly familiar.
A Grown-Up Beverly Encounters a Version of Mrs. Kersh in ‘IT Chapter Two’
In IT Chapter Two, an adult Beverly (Jessica Chastain) goes to her childhood home, where a woman named Mrs. Kersh (Joan Gregson) now lives. She tells her, “No one who dies here ever really dies,” before speaking about her own father, who was a circus performer. This isn’t the real Mrs. Kersh, though. Instead, it’s a form of the entity, which transforms into a twisted shape and sends Beverly running.
In IT: Welcome to Derry, the immediate aftermath of Elfrida Marsh’s death is not only shown for the first time, but the audience learns that the events of IT Chapter Two aren’t the first time that Bev has met Ingrid Kirsh — or at least a version of her, anyway. In a hospital in 1988, Ingrid offered the same chilling words that the entity would repeat to her 28 years later. It’s unclear whether this flashback is still Ingrid, completely broken, or whether a more sinister force has begun to seep in. What we do know, after watching Lillis’ surprising cameo, is that something evil had its sights on Beverly Marsh a year before she became an official Loser.
