The town of Derry has a new terrifying figure haunting its streets, but it is not the ancient evil Pennywise. Episode 6 of IT: Welcome to Derry has revealed the massive twist that the second clown stalking the town is not a supernatural entity, but a person driven by a twisted family obsession. The villain is Ingrid Kersh, the housekeeper at the Juniper Hill Asylum, who has been operating as her clown alter ego, Periwinkle.
The revelation completely changes the understanding of the threats facing the children of Derry in 1962. It connects directly to the origin of Pennywise himself and redefines the character of Mrs. Kersh from a background figure in IT Chapter Two into a central, tragic antagonist in this story.
Who is Periwinkle the Clown?
Periwinkle is the deranged secret identity of Madeleine Stowe’s character, Ingrid Kersh. She is not a random monster or an agent of the cosmic entity known as It. She is a human being with a direct and personal connection to the source of the town’s nightmares.
Episode 6, titled “In the Name of the Father,” reveals through a series of flashbacks that Ingrid is the daughter of Bob Gray. Bob Gray was a real carnival performer in the early 1900s who called himself “Pennywise the Dancing Clown”. Ingrid performed alongside him as a child, with her own act named Periwinkle. In 1908, her father disappeared, consumed by the ancient, shape-shifting evil that took on his clown form permanently. Ingrid has spent the decades since, including cycles of violence in 1935 and now 1962, believing that her father’s soul is still trapped inside the monster.
Her entire life’s mission is to free him. As she explains to Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack), she dresses as Periwinkle to try and reach the man she believes is hidden within the beast.
“I had to find a way to free him. So I did what I had to to see him again. If he could just see me once more as his Periwinkle, remind him of the love that we shared, I know that he’ll be able to break free.”
This desperate, misguided love makes her one of the most dangerous people in Derry, as she is willing to sacrifice anyone to achieve her goal.
How Periwinkle Connects to Earlier Episodes
The show cleverly planted clues about Periwinkle’s presence several episodes before the full reveal. Many scenes audiences assumed featured Pennywise were actually Ingrid Kersh in disguise.
The clown that young Francis Shaw (Diesel La Torraca) saw watching him during a circus flashback in Episode 3 was Periwinkle, not Pennywise. The unsettling clown figure that Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) photographed in the graveyard and later spotted through his telescope was also Periwinkle. Ingrid has been stalking the group of children, not under Pennywise’s command, but in hopes that their fear would lure the creature out so she could try to communicate with it as her father.
This recontextualizes Ingrid’s entire relationship with the children, especially Lilly, to whom she presented herself as a trusted confidant. The discovery of old photographs in Ingrid’s attic in Episode 6 forces Lilly to realize the woman she trusted has been her stalker all along.
The Tragic and Dangerous Motives of Ingrid Kersh
Ingrid Kersh’s actions are not driven by a desire to serve Pennywise, but by a heartbreaking delusion. She is convinced Pennywise and her father, Bob Gray, are the same being. A flashback in Episode 6 shows her first adult encounter with the creature, where she confronts it believing it is her dad.
“It was him. Different, perhaps changed by whatever he’d been through, or wherever he’d been. But it was him all the same. A daughter knows.”
This belief has warped her morality. While working at Juniper Hill Asylum across different decades, she has deliberately led vulnerable children toward Pennywise, using them as bait in her attempts to draw out the creature. Her conversation with Lilly confirms she sees the children as expendable tools for her personal mission. When Lilly begs her not to hurt her friends, Ingrid responds with a chilling justification, asking Lilly if she wouldn’t do anything to see her own deceased father again.
This twist also deepens the lore for fans of the films. In IT: Chapter Two, the monster takes the form of an elderly Mrs. Kersh to torment Beverly Marsh. The series now gives profound and tragic context to that illusion, revealing it was based on a real person whose life was destroyed by the very entity that copies her.
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The Cliffhanger Ending and What’s Next for Derry
Episode 6 ends on two major cliffhangers that set the stage for the final two episodes of the season.
First, Ingrid Kersh dons her full Periwinkle costume, seemingly ready to directly confront Pennywise in a final, doomed attempt at a reunion. Her storyline is now directly colliding with the main plot, adding a volatile human element to the supernatural threat.
Second, the episode cuts to the Black Spot, the social club for Black airmen. Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) is hiding there with the help of Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige). The racist sentiment stirred up by Pennywise’s influence over the town has reached a boiling point. Clint Bowers (Peter Outerbridge) incites a mob of armed, masked men who descend on the club, intent on violence.
This directly teases a horrific event from Stephen King’s novel. In the book’s history of Derry, the Black Spot was burned to the ground by a racist mob, killing most inside. The series has already introduced Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann, who in the novel was present at the fire and used his “shining” ability to save a young boy. This boy, named Will Hanlon, grows up to father Mike Hanlon, a member of the future Losers’ Club. The fates of Dick, Will, and all those at the Black Spot will be central to Episode 7, titled “The Black Spot,” which premieres Sunday, December 7 on Max.
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