This text accommodates spoilers for the season 1 finale of “It: Welcome to Derry.”
The ultimate scene in “It: Welcome to Derry” season 1 featured “It: Chapter Two” actress Joan Gregson reprising the function of an aged Ingrid Kersh. Gregson gave a quick however deeply unsettling efficiency to wrap up the present’s debut season in what was, sadly, her last function. The actor handed away in June of 2025 on the age of 92.
The “It: Welcome to Derry” finale was the show at its best and its worst, presenting an exciting conclusion to season 1 that additionally felt rather less grounded and subsequently much less efficient than the gut-punch of an installment that was episode 7. The entire pillar facet and the tree on the riverbank felt half-baked, and the sunny conclusion to a show that has been relentlessly gruesome and scary from the outset did not fairly work. Fortunately, creators Jason Fuchs and Andy and Barbara Muschietti added a extra suitably dreary addendum to the finale that has been met positively by followers.
This prologue takes the type of a flash-forward sequence set in 1988, 26 years after the occasions of “Welcome to Derry” season 1 and only a yr earlier than 2017’s “It” film. It depicts an aged Ingrid Kersh leaving her room at Juniper Hill Asylum after listening to screams. In room 115, Kersh discovers a distraught Beverly Marsh and her father, who’re inconsolable after having found Bev’s mom hanging in her room. Not solely is that this scene notable for that includes the return of Sophia Lillis, who performed Bev within the two “It” motion pictures, nevertheless it additionally represents Gregson’s final ever function earlier than her passing.
The It: Welcome to Derry last was an unwitting tribute to Joan Gregson
The eerie cameo in the “It: Welcome to Derry” finale was a way more becoming conclusion to the story than the extra upbeat scenes of Jovan Adepo’s Leroy Hanlon deciding to maintain his household in Derry and Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann embarking on a brand new journey. It was additionally a pleasant approach to pay tribute to Joan Gregson by bringing the actress again to the world of “It” for one final time earlier than her passing — although no person may have recognized that is how it could play out.
Chatting with Entertainment Weekly, present co-creator Barbara Muschietti revealed that Gregson handed away on the age of 92 in June of 2025, having shot the scene simply two months prior in April of 2025. “She was 91 after we shot,” mentioned Muschietti. “She was hilarious and so gifted and simply so sport for it.”
In response to the co-creator, it was truly a digicam operator who thought to convey again Gregson. Angelo Colavecchia, who’d labored with director Andy Muschietti on each “It” and 2019’s “It: Chapter Two,” talked about how he’d just lately labored with the actor on a separate mission. As Andy advised EW, “I used to be pleasantly stunned since you assume that particular person is retired or one thing, however I used to be very glad to listen to that she was nonetheless round and dealing.” After this, Gregson was introduced in to reprise the function of Kersh on “Welcome to Derry,” having beforehand performed her within the final movie. “She had probably the most unimaginable life,” Barbara added. “She was a theater actor for many of her life. It was such an honor to have the ability to get her again. She was very joyful to be there.”
Joan Gregson’s return made sense for the world of It
All through “Welcome to Derry” season 1, Ingrid Kersh was performed by Madeleine Stowe, who was obsessive about Pennywise (Invoice Skarsgård) as a result of the truth that he’d stolen her father, Bob Grey’s, likeness. After the crazed clown uncovered Kersh to the deadlights, nonetheless, she went insane and was taken to Juniper Hill Asylum. Because the present revealed, she remained for the remainder of her life. Kersh was basically a secret “Welcome to Derry” character who raised all kinds of questions about whether or not this was the identical lady we would beforehand seen in a brief scene from “It: Chapter Two.” Seems, it was.
Within the 2019 film, which is ready in 2016, Jessica Chastain’s older Beverly Marsh visits Mrs. Kersh at her dwelling, just for the aged lady to remodel into an enormous monster who chases Bev via the halls of the Neibolt Avenue home. On this scene, Kersh was portrayed by Joan Gregson, and with “Welcome to Derry” offering a again story for the character, the entire imaginative and prescient takes on a brand new significance.
We now know that the aged Mrs. Kersh was truly an actual Derry resident at one level. What’s extra, we all know why It selected to make use of the older Mrs. Kersh to frighten Bev. She was a face that Chastain’s character would have remembered from the second she found her mom’s useless physique at Juniper Hill, and It was preying on that reminiscence to terrify her. Say what you’ll about “Welcome to Derry” and its shortcomings, nevertheless it’s fairly spectacular how the present creators managed to weave all this lore collectively to create a cohesive complete. The truth that “Welcome to Derry” was Gregson’s last function simply makes it much more particular.
