Ingrid was introduced in IT: Welcome to Derry as the daughter of Bob Gray, who played the role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. In the 1900s, right after Bob and Ingrid had decided that the latter would be Pennywise’s Periwinkle, a role that was previously played by Ingrid’s mother, Bob was abducted and killed by IT. Since Ingrid didn’t learn the exact details of Bob’s death, she settled down in Derry, married Stan Kersh, and took a job at Juniper Hill Asylum. That’s where she came across Pennywise and stupidly assumed that that was her dad, who had just started eating children. Since Pennywise didn’t hang out with her, and kept going away to sleep after having a hearty meal, Ingrid was irked. When she figured out that fear and gore were something that drew Pennywise out of hiding, she essentially orchestrated the racially charged massacre at the Black Spot. This time when she met Pennywise, she came to the realization that that wasn’t Bob, but something else entirely. However, it was too late for her to back out, and Pennywise hit her with the deadlights, which supposedly caused her to lose her mind. She was admitted into Juniper Hill, and in the ending of episode 8, we saw an elderly Ingrid coming across Beverly Marsh (yes, the version played by Sophia Lillis) as she was mourning the death by suicide of her mother along with her dad. So, how did adult Beverly meet the elderly Ingrid in IT: Chapter Two? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
I know that I am about to state the obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: yes, the Ingrid that we saw during the closing moments of IT: Welcome to Derry Chapter One isn’t the same Ingrid that we saw terrorizing Beverly in IT: Chapter Two. As a kid, Beverly did come across an elderly Ingrid when she had to go to Juniper Hill Asylum to deal with the death of her mother. The real old Ingrid told the young Beverly that anybody who dies in Derry doesn’t really stay dead. When the adult Beverly came across the old Ingrid again, who was actually IT disguised as Ingrid, she heard that same phrase. But it didn’t ring a bell in Beverly’s mind, probably because she didn’t remember meeting Ingrid the first time. We can chalk that up to Beverly forgetting the details of a brief interaction with a mentally ill old woman because she was traumatized by her mother’s death, or we can say that since Beverly moved out of Derry for a while, she forgot about running into Ingrid at Juniper Hill because people tend to forget about things that happened in that town the further they get away from it. Either way, the fact of the matter is that Beverly had no recollection of meeting Ingrid, which was why she didn’t express any kind of surprise regarding why a former patient of Juniper Hill, who was in her 80s when Beverly had seen her in 1988, was waltzing around in her former apartment, still looking like she was in her 80s, now in 2016.
With all that said, why did Andy Muschietti and his team decide to end this season of the show on that interaction between Ingrid and Beverly? I have a few theories. Firstly, it was a concrete way of connecting the TV series with the two movies. Yes, I am aware of the fact that most of us know that this show is a prequel to the two Muschietti directorials. But maybe there are some people who tuned into the show without reading up on its link to those two movies. So, through that meeting between Ingrid and Beverly, any confusion about the franchise in which this show was set was cleared up. Secondly, it’s supposed to spark speculation about how Beverly could have met the old Ingrid twice, both as a kid and as an adult. The one in the ‘80s was the actual Ingrid, and the one in the 2010s was IT. When did Pennywise get the opportunity to kill Ingrid, assume her form, add the memory of Ingrid’s confrontation with a young Beverly to his collection, go to the Marsh household, and then script that second interaction with Beverly? Because if Pennywise hadn’t consumed Ingrid, he couldn’t have mimicked her old-age look, and he couldn’t have reiterated the line that Ingrid had uttered in front of a young Beverly. Did he really wake from his slumber to kill Ingrid? Maybe we’ll get to see that in one of the future seasons of Welcome to Derry. And thirdly, since that scene happened right after the speculation of IT’s time-traveling powers, it might be hinting at Pennywise’s efforts to use Derry’s time loop to avoid getting killed by the Losers Club.
Will Ingrid play a greater role in future seasons of Welcome to Derry, though? Yeah, I think so. She was there when IT took her dad, and she was also around when Pennywise partook in the Bradley Gang shootout. From what I have heard, every season will turn back the clock by 27 years, thereby focusing on the time periods where IT ran rampant across Derry. Therefore, if we get one season set in 1935, and another in 1908, I am sure that Ingrid will make an appearance in it. It’ll be interesting to see if she orchestrated any other problematic events like the Black Spot massacre to attract Pennywise’s attention. That way, by the time Pennywise comes to kill the elderly Ingrid, it’ll feel like that’s what she deserved. I know that sounds harsh, but there are many viewers who think that Ingrid is just a girl who was trying to reunite with her dad. That excuse is acceptable up to a certain point. However, if you are sacrificing human beings to a thing that neither looks nor acts like your sweet-as-hell father, then that’s messed up and unforgivable. Maybe Ingrid’s story can be turned into a commentary about why it’s important to discern between reality and delusion; otherwise, the consequences can be disastrous. That said, I am looking forward to Ingrid’s death at the hands of Pennywise after what she did to the Black Spot. What about you? What are your thoughts on the character of Ingrid? Let me know in the comments section below.
