Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry, Episode 6Pennywise is the most unique villain in the Stephen King universe. The master of horror has created every kind of monster imaginable, from ghosts inhabiting a hotel, a woman who loves her favorite author just a little too much, and monsters from another dimension, but none of them have the hold on our collective psyche like that shapeshifting alien who often takes the form of a clown.
In the 1986 novel IT, and to a lesser degree, in the 1990 miniseries and two Andy Muschietti-directed feature films, we learn more about Pennywise’s origin story. But in the latest episode of <em>IT: Welcome to Derry</em>, “In the Name of the Father,” a twist takes his story in a new direction thanks to Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe). And just what does it have to do with a man named Bob Gray?
‘Welcome to Derry’ Reveals That Ingrid Has Been Bringing Kids to Pennywise
There are five kids at the center of IT: Welcome to Derry, but the one who gets the most attention is Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack). This tragic girl’s life was an absolute hell even before the entity from the underground showed up. A year before, her father was killed in an accident at the pickle factory he worked at, and she still blames herself for it. Lilly ended up breaking down and spending time in the Juniper Hill psychiatric hospital, but life didn’t get better when she got out. Kids at school either make fun of her or talk about her back, and her best friend, Marge (Matilda Lawler) has pulled away to hang out with the popular girls.
When the entity surfaces, Lilly’s first new group of friends is killed right in front of her. Then, after the monster appears to her in the form of her mangled, dead daddy, she breaks down again and is once again admitted to Juniper Hill. It’s there that she’s reunited with one of the few adults who genuinely cares about her, a housekeeper named Ingrid. Rather than dismissing her, Ingrid believes Lilly when she talks about impossible monsters. So, after a fight with Ronnie (Amanda Christine), following the horror that happens in the sewers in Episode 5, Lilly rides her bike to Ingrid’s house, looking for comfort. Instead, she finds someone who isn’t quite so trustworthy.
It’s not much of a twist to discover that Ingrid isn’t who she said she is. After all, she was much too nice, and this is a horror series after all. In Ingrid’s attic, Lilly discovers a photograph of the housekeeper as a little girl standing next to her father, a bald man in a suit who looks a little too much like Pennywise, and like the iconic clown, is portrayed by Bill Skarsgård. When Lilly then sees a photo of the clown from the sewer, she’s understandably scared, but Ingrid is excited. She found him! Her father was a carnival performer in the early 1900s who played a clown named Pennywise. However, something happened, and he disappeared, so Ingrid stayed behind in Derry.
When she started working at Juniper Hill and a girl started talking about a clown, Ingrid took her to the basement. There was Pennywise — in the form of her father’s clown. After he killed the little girl, he then appeared as her dad without makeup, asking to be let in. Rather than being a simple villain, Ingrid believed that this version of Pennywise is connected to her father. If she took enough kids to the entity then, and if she can get Pennywise to appear in the now, she can somehow free her father. And despite Lilly cutting her and running away, we last see Ingrid putting her clown costume on, so certain that she can bring her father back.
Stephen King’s Novel ‘IT’ Mentions the Mysterious Bob Gray
If you’re a big fan of IT, the novel, then seeing the photo of Skarsgård sans makeup as Ingrid Kersh’s father will immediately make you think of Bob Gray, even though she never says the name. Bob Gray is the mysterious human form of Pennywise, whom King mentions in his book but never fully explains. Welcome to Derry is now looking to flesh out the name behind the character. Series co-creator Jason Fuchs told TV Guide:
“We’re excited to understand why the shapeshifter has chosen to return time and again to the form of Pennywise. And what was that first encounter with Bob Gray? What did that look like? Who is Bob Gray? We have a lot of whys we want answers to, and the story of Bob Gray and the story of Pennywise are certainly in that bucket.”
In the novel IT, Pennywise at one point calls itself Robert Gray, but it’s never thoroughly explained what this means. Was there a man named Bob Gray that the entity possessed so it could live among humans, like it was one of them? Was Bob Gray an original form that Pennywise took for the same nefarious reason? Seeing Pennywise as a clown is already scary enough, but it’s perhaps even more terrifying to know that it could be out there among us and unseen like any other person manipulating humans towards their demise.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Just Dropped a Series-Altering Reference to This Stephen King Sequel
Pennywise isn’t the only thing to fear moving forward.
Bob Gray is briefly mentioned in <em>IT: Chapter Two</em> as well during the scene when a grown-up Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) visits an old woman named Mrs. Kersh, who shows her a picture of a man and a girl standing in front of a circus wagon that reads “The Great Pennywise, the Dancing Clown.” Mrs. Kersh tells Beverly that the man is her father. However, minutes later she’s revealed to be the entity in human form and not an old woman at all.
In Welcome to Derry, Muschietti and his writers seem to have finally given Bob Gray’s form an origin story. He was a real man—a carnival worker who dressed up as a clown called Pennywise. Somehow, the entity got to him and killed Bob Gray but intrigued by his clown form—perhaps even seeing how much clowns scare kids so easily—it decided to use Pennywise as its favorite shapeshifting form. And with Ingrid so torn apart by losing her father, how easy would it be for it to manipulate her by appearing as her dad’s non-made-up form as a way of getting her to bring more victims?
Will Ingrid Help Pennywise Against the New Group of Losers?
Until this reveal moment in IT: Welcome to Derry, Ingrid was an adult we trusted and rooted for. Not only was she so kind and caring towards Lilly but had an awful home life with her alcoholic husband. We saw how much she secretly loved Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) while fighting to protect him from the Derry mob who decided that he must be a kid killer.
Ingrid is not written as one-dimensional antagonist. She truly loves Hank and maybe really does care about Lilly. It’s certainly understandable why she believes Lilly about seeing monsters now! Yes, it appears she fed more Juniper Hill kids to Pennywise but in her destroyed mind, it’s all about saving her father whom she still believes is alive and can be brought back. When she asks Lilly if she would do the same thing to bring back her dad it’s easy to see how similar these two people are—they both went through similar tragedies and are forever broken by them. The huge difference is that Lilly is stronger—she accepts her father’s death and fights back with everything within her while Ingrid was too weak;her grief resulted in being easily manipulated into serving Pennywise for wrong reasons.
Ingrid has been waiting 27 years for this entity’s return and once 1962 comes around she’s out there dressed up as a clown doing whatever it takes to bring fear back into these new kids’ lives. Now that Pennywise has returned will she serve him doing whatever necessary to deliver Lilly and others into his grasp? Will she become another victim reunited with her father in death or can someone save her?
Lilly’s life gets more tragic with each episode as she’s now lost trust in all adults. Still surely she will not end up like Ingrid—Juniper Hill’s housekeeper has succumbed under Bob Gray’s spell but our heroine won’t let herself be destroyed by grief over her father’s accidental death either—she possesses a dagger made from fallen star ensuring this won’t happen.
IT: Welcome to Derry streams Fridays on HBO Max and airs every Sunday night on HBO.
