By: Kelly Kearney
Welcome back to Chamberlain, Maine, where blood, religious trauma and high school horror get a modern makeover in Mike Flanagan’s series adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel Carrie. Decades after Brian De Palma’s iconic 1976 film immortalized Sissy Spacek’s blood-soaked prom queen in horror history, Flanagan takes the helm to reimagine King’s debut story in eight 1-hour episodes, answering many questions the original left us and opening the door to even more. With his signature character-driven dread, dark family dynamics and tragic supernatural gifts, Flanagan tells the story through flashbacks and post-disaster interviews with the only survivors who escaped.
“The World Is a Dangerous Place…”
We open on news clips proving just how dangerous it is: fires, death, absolute chaos and one traumatized survivor sitting in an interview chair recounting the destruction of her home. Chamberlain, Maine is ground zero for this nightmare, and where our story begins.
In a flashback to before the destruction, we meet construction worker Ralph White (Tahmoh Penikett) at a Chamberlain dig site. Ralph is a bit of a loner with his co-workers, too busy listening to conspiracy talk radio than work banter with colleagues. Sometime during the day Ralph heads down into a trench, when suddenly, the soil around him shifts, giving way to an avalanche of dirt and cinder blocks that buries him. There’s no coming back from that burial, it kills Ralph instantly.
When police arrive to question his crew, nobody seems to know much about him. He was a quiet doomsday prepper who never grabbed a post-shift drink or shared a single detail about his personal life. Does he have a family? Anyone to claim his body? Crickets. Nobody knows.
Without any other leads, investigators roll up to Ralph’s house looking for clues. Inside, they find windows wrapped in bubble wrap, a table set for two with half-eaten sandwiches and child drawings taped to the fridge. Someone else was here, but where are they? That’s when they spot a locked closet door adorned with a crucifix and things start coming into focus. The cops call out for anyone inside and hear a faint rustle from behind the door. They yank it open to reveal a terrified Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan) and her relieved teenage daughter, Carrietta a/k/a Carrie (Summer H. Howell), huddled in the dark. Who knows how long they’ve been there and why they are still hiding now?
A Cult of Three
“What can you tell me about Carrie White?” asks the faceless interviewer, with their camera focused on the social worker, Miss Piper (Crystal Balint), who worked on Carrie and Margaret’s case. She, like many others, got an up close look at the White’s and the difficulties of adapting to their new life. It seems everyone has an opinion on who the captive girl was. Social workers, students and neighbors describe her as quiet, a troublemaker, a victim, a monster, a bully and sweet all at once, but she was also a friend to Sue Snell (Siena Agudong). One of the popular girls and the school’s star soccer player, Sue seems to get Carrie, even if they don’t start off as instant pals. Sue’s best friend and resident mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), doesn’t share in Sue’s kindness and sees Carrie’s uniqueness as a weakness to exploit for fun.
It’s hard to fathom how a child locked in a closet slipped past the prying eyes of suburban America, but this type of abuse, partnered with government-protected parental and religious rights, has a way of hiding in plain sight. Across the screen, we see a montage of Polaroid photos revealing Carrie’s hidden life and her story from birth until the day her father died. She was born in Ralph’s house– not a hospital, and never left, not for doctors, not for school, not for anything. There were no records of her existence, no birth certificate and no legal proof of who she was.
Bouncing back to the moment of her discovery, social workers and cops flood the home and they immediately notice how Margaret is nothing like her open, and gentle daughter. Carrie seems more concerned with Miss Piper’s comfort than the reality of her own captivity and her father’s death. Her innocence and total wide-eyed newness to the world trigger an instant protective instinct in Miss Piper and everyone else on the investigative team. Everyone, that is, except her mother. Driven by anti-government conspiracies and a deep fear of secular corruption and influence, Margaret views their home as a holy sanctuary. She simmers with rage over an evil society that just waltzed through her front door uninvited.
While being questioned, we also learn that homeschooled Carrie is actually sharp–testing two grades above her age thanks to a thirst for the knowledge she was never permitted to gain. When Officer Katt (Camille Atebe) asks why Margaret bypassed state education laws, Carrie’s mother sidesteps the question by shrieking at them for moving her late husband’s shoes still sitting on the mat near the door.
Miss Piper doesn’t take it personally, she views Margaret as a victim of her own mind and goes easier on her than she would if Ralph were sitting across from her. Both Carrie and her mother were victims of their captivity and the conspiracies Ralph feared were very real. But beneath Margaret’s demure composure is a pressure cooker of anger just waiting to explode. She’s unemployed, a bit of an agoraphobe and entirely unequipped for the real world– of which she has little choice but to become a part of now that Ralph is gone. Her husband had no life insurance, and the workers’ comp payout will take six agonizing months to arrive. After going to court to prove she is competent, a judge grants Margaret custody of Carrie on two conditions: she gets a job, and Carrie goes to public school. Welcome to capitalism and cliques, Margaret and Carrie. Enjoy the ride.
First Day of School
As we watch the custodian unlock the high school doors, Sue is at home nervously refreshing her inbox for Duke’s early admissions decision. The status flashes on her screen: Pending, so she heads downstairs to serve her younger sister breakfast while her realtor mom (Mapuana Makia) rushes out for a house showing. As she grabs her purse, her mother casually tosses out, “The prayer closet girl starts school today. Be nice to her.” Apparently no matter how good they hide you, you can’t defeat a suburban town’s rumor mill, even from inside the closet.
We soon find out Sue isn’t the only one waiting on the green light from Duke. Her best friend Chris Hargensen sits down for her traditional first-day-back breakfast, only to find crepes off the menu and her father, James’ (Michael Trucco) toxic attitude on full display. Barely acknowledging her college anxieties, her lawyer dad tosses her a cereal box alongside a bitter tirade about her unfaithful mother. It’s painfully clear he cares more about his billable hours and the looming divorce than he does his daughter’s first-day jitters.
As for Carrie, it’s her first day of school ever, and before the kids can sully her soul with rebellion, we see she has already developed a sneaky workaround for her mother’s hyper-vigilant and all-knowing eye. Heading outside under the guise of feeding the birds, Carrie swaps a hidden book in the birdhouse for a new one: The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a classic teenage rite of passage and a title undoubtedly blacklisted by Margaret. Carrie harbors a burning curiosity about the world her mother tries at every turn to erase.
While Carrie dreams of the freedoms of Holden Caulfield on his boarding school adventures, Margaret gets ready for her first day on the job and she is anything but excited about it. It’s a forty-hour work week with alternating day and night shifts at a local store. The manager is barely older than Carrie and the work is mind-numbing, even for a woman who rejects most forms of education. What keeps her going is her hope to save enough money to hire a lawyer and reverse the custody agreement so “things can go back to normal.” And by normal, she means locking the world back out.
When Miss Piper drops by for a welfare check, Carrie beams, but Margaret instantly stifles her joy by reminding her that the social worker is on the clock, not a friend. Margaret glares at Piper like an invading force before whisking Carrie off to school in her beat-up truck.
On the drive in, the stark wealth gap between Carrie and her peers comes into sharper focus. The parking lot alone clues us in. As Margaret pulls up her face winces as we see the school lot is filled with exotic rides, trendy outfits, kissing students and clouds of vapes. It’s enough to know Carrie can’t compete, not that she understands privilege or teen culture anyway. She’s just thrilled with her simple pink dress and all the things she’s about to experience about teenage life she’s read about in books. She stares out the truck’s window while Margaret chokes out warnings about corrupt teachers and “boys,” a word she practically gags on, Carrie gazes out at Ewan High School in pure wonder, and then hops out of her mothers car and directly into crowds of vaping, gossiping teens.
Once through the doors, Carrie navigates her first hurdle: the metal detector. She is a bit terrified by the security wand, no doubt thanks to all the conspiracies her father ranted on about. As the guard waves their wand across her chest, she sets it off and innocently begins unbuttoning her shirt when asked what she’s hiding. From behind her in line, Chris snickers and jokes, “Nobody wants to see your tits,” but Carrie genuinely doesn’t grasp the concept of school dress codes, sarcasm or boundaries. Pulling out a cheap metal cross, Chris laughs at her and brags about her expensive, non-sensor-triggering jewelry. Welcome to public school: Carrie’s first taste of teenage classism from the haves to the have-nots.
Cliques and Classism
After the metal detectors, anxiety sets in as Carrie wanders the packed hallways trying to avoid the stares coming from the students. Surprisingly, it is Carrie who is left spellbound when she catches two girls engaged in some heavy PDA by the lockers. Intrigued, she stares intensely, suggesting Margaret’s frantic anti-boy warnings might be slightly misplaced.
Guidance counselor Mr. Morton (Tim Bagley) spots the confused newcomer and escorts her to homeroom. Both he and her teacher, Miss Desjardin (Amber Midthunder) are kind, offering her the choice between her full name, Carrietta, or the casual “Carrie.” She chooses the latter and sits in front of Sue, who offers a warm smile while Chris and the rest of the room stare as if Carrie has a contagious disease. Oblivious to their bullying, Carrie happily chats with Sue, who compliments her on her unique handmade dress. When Chris overhears that the “prayer closet girl” sews her own clothes, Sue steps in to take the heat off of the new girl by explaining class schedules and homeroom basics. Throughout the class, the rest of the students view her naivety as target practice. When Carrie admits she’s excited for fifth-period computer lab because she’s never used a computer, her classmates peer over their smartphones in laughing disbelief. Moments later, the varsity football team strolls in, with one player, Tommy (Joel Oulette), leaning down to kiss Sue good morning. Carrie can’t tear her eyes away. Everything is shiny, fascinating and completely foreign to her, but especially teenage romance. As the day ticks on, she tackles each class with infectious enthusiasm, missing the eye rolls from kids who think she’s weird. By study hall, she’s overwhelmed but thrilled, as she vents to Sue, who continues to play the compassionate saint.
Meanwhile, another student, Brooklyn (Rowan Danielle), strolls over to Chris to announce that Chris’s mom wants her to call home. Yes, the same mom who skipped out on her marriage is now living with a new guy and apparently just made Brooklyn the first-day crepes that were rightfully Chris’s. F-bombs fly, confusing Carrie, who assumes the two girls must be sisters. The misstep lands like a lead balloon, with Sue offering an awkward smirk while Chris delivers her trademark lethal glare.
Trying to pivot to safer ground, the girls talk about hot guys, but all Carrie can offer is a deep dive into her favorite contraband novels. Reading doesn’t seem to be her classmate’s top priority and the entire interaction throws Carrie off. She assumed school and books go hand-in hand, but kids today have other distractions. Like the preventative school shooter drill they do every year. Unaware that the masked, armed man bursting through the door is part of a training exercise, Carrie throws her body over Sue to protect her from the gunshots. Instead of gratitude, she catches strays – ridicule from her laughing classmates who think she overreacted. To make matters stranger, the “gunman” suffers a bizarre equipment malfunction that directly coincides with Carrie’s rising panic.
Afterward, the teacher and Principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard) hold her back to explain the drill. Misunderstanding their tone, a mortified Carrie assumes her “bad” emotional reaction caused the accident and nervously promises to “be better tomorrow.”
On her moody walk home, we hear the voice of the interviewer bleeding through as we meet the only other person Carrie knew before she was found in that closet. It’s Carrie’s next-door neighbor, Stella (Naïka Toussaint), a young woman slightly older than Carrie, who says she always knew someone lived in that house, even if she rarely saw her. The female interviewer reflects on the terrifying scale of Chamberlain’s destruction: fires, crushing debris and a massive crater tearing through the intersection of Main and Ewan Avenue. A fault line traveled from the epicenter at the school and through the streets and all the way to the Whites’ doorstep. Surely the girl next door saw something that could explain the tragedy?
Rock Storms and The Soul of America
A flashback shows a young Carrie slipping through the hedge into the neighbor’s yard while their teenage Stella, sunbathes with a book. The curious little girl notices the book looks nothing like the Bible, the only text she knows exists. But before Stella can gift her a new read, Margaret bursts through the bushes, yanking Carrie home while screaming that the neighbor is a “whore.”
Outraged by the insults and weird and abusive behavior, Stella runs inside to tell her parents what just happened when a localized freak storm opens up over the White residence. It’s raining heavy rocks onto their roof while leaving every neighboring house completely untouched–including Stella’s. After that, Carrie is kept indoors, surviving solely on secret book swaps at the bird feeder and the occasional wave hello to the neighbor from their window.
Back in the present, Margaret arrives home exhausted from a shift working under an “idiotic thirty-year-old.” Noticing dinner isn’t ready, she finds Carrie sitting quietly at the table–upset and over why her mother never warned her about active-shooter drills. The complaint only fuels Margaret’s Christofascist paranoia. To Margaret, the drills are proof of some deep-state agenda to break their faith, disarm citizens, and foster chaos. For a woman living off the grid, she sure sounds like an avid Fox News viewer. The debate over the shooter drill is immediately shut down, and Margaret drags Carrie into the closet to pray for the country’s wayward souls.
Later that night, we catch up with Sue and her boyfriend Tommy making out in the back of his car. Sue is distracted, weighed down by guilt for shoving Carrie off her during the drill. She realizes that if the shooter had been real, Carrie would have taken a bullet for her. She decides to make it up to her the following day at school–whihc will come quickly since Carrie has been sitting at her sewing machine, updating her wardrobe. She promises her worried mother the new look will still be modest, brushing off Margaret’s request to put it aside and make her a custom blouse instead. Margaret’s maternal warmth vanishes instantly, replaced by a deadly glare, when Carrie promises to make one later.
After finishing her outfit, Carrie tries to squeeze in some sleep but winds up waking in screaming panic from a nightmare of her late father standing over her bed. The jump-scare panic triggers a shockwave that cracks her bedroom window and shakes the heavy glass chandelier over the kitchen island below. Her emotions are powerful.
Across town, Sue wakes up to official news of her Duke acceptance. She calls Chris, who was also accepted, but there’s one massive catch. The Hargensen separation has wrecked her father’s finances, and he coldly informs her that he won’t pay for an Ivy League tuition. She’ll have to go to a state school. Unaware that her parents’ marriage was crumbling to the point of divorce, she never filed for financial aid and the date is long past due. Devastated, she gets zero sympathy from her dad, who turns her disappointment into a rant about his own problems.
When Sue jumps in Chris’ luxury car, she tries to tone down her college excitement during the drive to school. They pull up just as Margaret drops Carrie off for a tense meeting with Principal Grayle and guidance counselor Mr. Morton regarding the drill. When they gently suggest Margaret should have prepared Carrie, she snaps, threatening them with an “army of angry Christian mothers” if they ever put her daughter through that again.
Outside in the hallway, Sue makes good on her promise and compliments Carrie’s newly tailored outfit. She looks great, and Chris, already boiling over with jealousy and fear of losing her best friend to Duke, clocks the moment between the two with pure venom. Later, During gym class, Chris channels her rage directly into a volleyball, spiking it straight into the back of Carrie’s head.
Plug It Up!
After being the target of Chris’ misplaced rage, class finishes, and that’s when Carrie has her first up close and personal look at teen bullying. Chris zeroes in on her target, and after failing to trick Carrie into taking a collective shower, she spots something worse. Carrie got her very first period, bleeding right through her white shorts and onto the locker room bench. Having zero concept of human anatomy, Carrie panics, convinced she’s bleeding to death and hysterically begs for help. Her hand is bloody as she reaches out but all the girls around her back away in disgust.
Seeing this as the perfect opportunity to exploit her panic, Chris shoves Carrie into the communal shower stall while the rest of the locker room pelts her with tampons and pads, chanting “Plug it up!” Chris, along with fellow mean girl, and desperate to be noticed Tina (Josie Totah) films the entire ordeal. Sue never joins in but she also doesn’t stop the humiliating attack. She simply watches in horrified silence, as a tortured and terrified Carrie screams in distress.Her blood-soaked curdling screams echoes through the room and the hallways as her sheer terror and humiliation trigger a catastrophic telekinetic blast. The overhead light fixtures explode in a shower of sparks and shattered glass raining down on everyone in the locker room.
Miles away, another teenage girl (Delainey Hayles) jolts upright, feeling the psychic shockwave ripple through her mind. She dashes into the office of an unseen woman, breathless she says, “There’s another one. Her powers are so strong… we need to find her as soon as possible.” Who is this woman, and what powers are they talking about?
When we cut back to Sue in the present-day interview room, she pushes back on their line of questioning. Sure, they want to know about Chris’s cruelty or Tommy’s death, but they’re missing the bigger picture here. Sue was at that disastrous dance, and she saw not only what Carrie did but a handful of strange people in the crowd– people who didn’t belong in Chamberlain. This isn’t just a story about Carrie White, it’s about something much bigger. Who are these other gifted kids, and how are they connected to the little girl locked in the prayer closet?