By: Kelly Kearney
Carrie White is beginning to realize she is far more than the terrified, isolated outcast her classmates mock and misunderstand. In the wake of the locker room nightmare, she discovers her heightened emotions can move more than just the people around her. As Margaret’s suffocating grip tightens and Sue begins to question her own role in the torment, a new girl offers Carrie a dangerous revelation: she holds all the power. In “Foreign Language,” Carrie learns her biggest challenge isn’t discovering what makes her different—it’s surviving what happens when she finally stops holding back.
“Carrie Red”
The episode opens with the voice of the interviewer, narrating the familiar story of the desperate mother lifting a car to save her son. But this isn’t really about a mother’s instinct, it’s about a woman discovering a hidden power she never knew she possessed.
Cut to Carrie (Summer H. Howell), still reeling from the “plug it up” incident, when Principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard) and her teacher, Miss Desjardin (Amber Midthunder), try to get to the bottom of what happened. Carrie is too upset to make sense of it. She isn’t even sure who pushed her into the shower, there were so many people crowding around her, and all she saw was red. When Miss Desjardin reaches out to touch her, Carrie pulls back as if she’s been shocked and her teacher seems surprised. Human interactions are hard for Carrie, and now more than ever, she just wants to be left alone. Principal Grayle doesn’t seem to notice, but the gym teacher watches Carrie with a look that suggests she’s starting to understand there’s something more going on with her–beyond the life of captive abuse behind that locked closet door.
Cut to Sue (Siena Agudong) and her friends in class watching Chris’s (Alison Thornton) video of the shower incident. The nickname “Carrie Red” falls from Sue’s lips–just an off handed comment for laughs. Between her and Chris, Sue lacks that cruel streak and she clearly doesn’t have her heart in any of this. Peer pressure can make people do awful things..
At the nurse’s office, the caring gym teacher Miss Desjardin gives Carrie brochures about menstruation and safe sex. The traumatized teen begs her not to tell her mother what happened, and the fear on her face partnered with the home life everyone knows Carrie came from, convinces her to stay quiet.
Meanwhile, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) is at work, where she has apparently decided that nothing can simply be scanned and bagged without her personal commentary. She points out a customer’s child and declares that his behavior could be linked to the junk food he’s being fed. She is incapable of letting anything slide. Not condoms. Not vibrators. Not sugary cereal. She calls random shoppers “whores” and drags them straight into the political trenches of American conservatism. When her boss finally reprimands her, Margaret can only focus on the woman’s piercings, wild colored hair, and tattoos. She winds up getting moved off the sales floor and into janitorial services after the store banked numerous complaints about her aggressive opinions.
Power Trip
Later that afternoon when school lets out, an angry Carrie is beginning to understand that her power seems to be connected to her emotions. As she rants and stomps her way home, each mailbox she passes mysteriously pops open. Sue spots Carrie staring at the mailboxes and tells Tommy (Joel Oulette) she feels terrible about the nickname and what happened in the bathroom. Tommy tries to cheer her up with a make-out session, but Sue’s mother (Mapuana Makia) walks in and sends him home. She does, however, seem impressed that her daughter landed such a hottie.
At Chris’s that night, her bank card gets declined when she tries to order food for delivery. Her father (Michael Trucco) takes care of it but also blames her, assuming she lost the card and someone cleaned out the account. It sounds like he’s broke, which could be why he suggests she consider moving in with her mother. Chris is having absolutely none of that and tells her father to grovel and fix their marriage instead. We haven’t met Chris’ mom yet, but every indication says their daughter gets her attitude from her father.
Meanwhile, across town at the White’s dinner table, Carrie cries and admits she doesn’t want to go back to school. She never explains why, but her mother simply tells her, “The world is not kind to people like us.” Carrie is starting to realize she may be right, and maybe they have to stick together. That’s when Margaret asks to see Carrie’s homework; she wants to know what the school is teaching her. She offers to go get the books herself, but Carrie panics and runs upstairs, insisting she’ll get them rather than have her mother find those brochures.
The World Outside
Meanwhile, at a local bar, several teachers–Seth Peist (Rahul Kohli), Peter Morton (Tim Bagley), and Rita Desjardin, from the high school are having a drink when former student and expelled amateur criminal Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti) hits on Rita. She’s saved by Seth, who points out that Billy is underage and has no business hitting on anyone at the bar. Billy takes the hint and leaves after Seth outs his age to the bartender. With teen eyes off of them, the teachers grab a table to discuss Billy’s behavior, including the cattle prod incident that forced the school to install metal detectors. Sure, the teachers would probably love to zap some of the more unruly students, but Billy is bad news. That topic leads them to the new girl and Rita admits she sometimes wants to smack Carrie and wake her up. Carrie is “so new,” she says, and she wants to prepare her for the world before it gobbles her up. Rita was a bully growing up and she knows if this was back then, she would be bullying Carrie right along with Chris. She understands why the other kids do it, even if she knows it isn’t right.
Back at home, Carrie keeps seeing her father (Tahmoh Penikett) in the shadows of the house. The image eventually morphs into her mother sitting silently on the edge of her bed, furious that Carrie kept her period a secret. Margaret ignores Carrie’s cries and apologies and locks her in the prayer closet with no time limit. “God will let you know when you’ve done enough,” she tells her before shutting the door.
Inside the dark and cramped space, Carrie kneels on the hardwood floor while her mother spends the rest of the night reading the brochures from school. The next morning, Margaret plans to confront the principal about the “provocative” material, which she assumes will lead to premarital sex and addiction. Carrie reminds her that they need to fit in if they’re going to make this court-ordered life in the outside world work. If they don’t, Margaret could lose custody. It’s a reminder wrapped in a threat that Carrie hopes keeps her mother away from the school.
Of course, Margaret ignores her pleas and marches directly into the principal’s office, demanding to know who gave her daughter the “pornography.” Mr. Grayle can’t help himself, and almost laughs out “That’s not pornography. It’s state-issued health care information approved for students Carrie’s age.” He assumed Margaret had already approved it after the locker room incident. When she hears this it is clear she doesn’t know what he was talking about. Her eyes widen in anger and he is forced to explain how Carrie had no idea what was happening to her or that menstruation was a natural biological event she should have been prepared for. That falls on Margaret for not explaining things to her daughter, even as she insists Carrie is a child. Carrie is her daughter, and it’s her job to decide what she learns about her own body. This information, and let’s be clear here, the period itself, would not have been her choice. Mr. Grayle argues that information is empowering, and Margaret’s job is to empower her daughter, too. Otherwise, the other kids are going to step in and pick Carrie apart. At the mention of other kids, Margaret leans in and demands to know what they did to her daughter. Then she goes one step further and asks what Principal Grayle did to them in response.
The Escape
In gym class, Miss Desjardin sends Carrie to Mr. Morton’s office while she doles out some consequences for the “Carrie Red” incident. Carrie is excused from the day’s activity, but the rest of them will be running sprints for what they did. Anyone who refuses will be joining her in detention for two weeks.
Down in Morton’s office, Carrie immediately notices the rainbow flag and the photo of him with his partner. He clocks it but stays calm and kind saying he had a break in his schedule and wanted to check in to see how she was adjusting to school. The two begin talking about books, which have always been an escape for Carrie from the world outside, and Mr. Morton shares her love. While she was locked inside her mother’s home, books gave her a way out, and the soft-spoken counselor understands that. He found his own escape from Chamberlain in books, like Anne of Green Gables–one of Carrie’s favorites. The two trade quotes, including one from Great Expectations: “We need never be ashamed of our tears.” It’s one of Morton’s favorites and feels like exactly the kind of thing Carrie needs to hear after what happened in the locker room. Carrie responds with a quote from A Wrinkle in Time: “You don’t have to understand something for it to be.” The two bond and begin trading recommendations, making Morton the first adult at school who has really seen Carrie as a person. Everyone else sees her as that weird girl rescued from captivity.
After Carrie touches him with a quote from All the Things You Will Be, she asks if he’s the person who gives answers and helps when students are struggling. He is, so Carrie opens up about seeing her father. She knows he’s gone, and misses him terribly, but she keeps seeing him everywhere and wants to know if that’s normal. She knows she’s not normal in a lot of ways but this, she fears might be mental illness, and she isn’t sure who she can turn to about it. Mr. Morton quickly assures her that she is incredibly normal. She just lost her father, and grief can manifest in any number of ways, all of which s normal.
Then he takes her to the library, and Carrie’s eyes practically feast on the endless rows of stories and knowledge she can now access for free. Most of her reading outside of the Bible has been done in secret, and now, at school, she can read whatever she wants. She starts devouring books, choosing whatever catches her interest. She’s had a rough start, Mr. Morton says, “but school can be more than the way the other kids treat you.” It can be anything she wants it to be. She just has to find her path.
Her path leads her to a stack of books; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Handmaid’s Tale, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Last Night at the Telegraph Club and a few more she dives right nto. Then she spots her mother leaving the principal’s office after Margaret promised she wouldn’t interfere and Carrie’s anger spikes. The library table beneath her begins to shake, the books rattle, and the walls rumble, just as Carrie realizes her emotions are causing the disturbance. Frightened, confused and angry, she runs to the bathroom and tries to hold back her tears, but bottling everything up creates something even worse. In the mirror, Carrie sees a vision of her face covered in blood, and panics and steps back, cracking the mirror.
The New Girl
In the corner of the bathroom, Carrie spots someone spying on her. It’s another new student, (Thalia Dudek) who thanks Carrie for drawing the attention away from her now that she’s the new kid on the block. Carrie lashes out in panic, then immediately apologizes, thinking she overreacted. That’s when the chummy girl introduces herself as Emaline. She seems friendly and slightly enamored with Carrie, but it’s hard to tell if she saw what Carrie saw in the mirror. There’s definitely something beneath that smile that seems intrigued.
Quickly, we learn that Emaline is a military brat who has been around and knows the social dynamics of a high school. She tells Carrie that the kids at this school are mean because kids always target things they don’t understand, but they are no different than any other kids, or any other school she’s been to. Of course, lashing out at people, like Carrie just did, doesn’t help.
Then, Emaline offers Carrie a secret and whispers to the new girl how she holds all the power. The other kids can only hurt her if she lets them.
Picking Sides
Back in the gym, the girls are struggling through their sprints, practically vomiting in their shoes as they are forced to run back and forth. When one of their friends falls, Sue begs Miss Desjardin to let them stop. By now, they understand what they did was wrong and it won’t happen again.
The teacher makes the entire class promise and then she releases them to clean up in the locker room. Before they leave, she asks Sue to keep an eye on Carrie White. The students follow her lead, so if Sue is kind to Carrie, maybe they’ll be kind to her, too. Sue agrees just as Principal Grayle walks into the gym and asks to see Miss Desjardin in his office.
After school, we head to dinner with Chris, her mother, Madison (Heather Graham), her boyfriend, Kent (Gil Bellows), and her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooklyn (Rowan Danielle). It’s a forced extended-family dinner, and the entire meal is awkward. Chris refuses to be nice to the new man in her mother’s life or his daughter, and insults them even when they try to welcome her into their home. She tells her mother she doesn’t want to be welcomed and Madison has had enough. She demands her daughter be kind to Brooklyn and calls any bullying of her “off limits.”
Teacher Problems
After her meeting with the principal, Miss Desjardin heads to the bar and meets up with her fellow teacher, Seth Peist. She tells him what happened and how the principal threatened to fire her if she ever crosses the line with Carrie again. He told her to call Margaret before giving Carrie any information about her period, but she admits she never called because Carrie looked terrified and begged her to keep it a secret. Now Rita feels dejected and confused–not even sure why she became a teacher in the first place. She admits she only went to college so she could run–her sport of choice and just fell into teaching. Now she’s arguing with high school kids and catching strays from zealous mothers who locked their own kids in closets and still somehow have more power over the school staff. After a few drinks and a story about being stood up, the two teachers head to the car and start making out.
Carrie Red Strikes Again
Across town, Chris is talking to Sue on the phone about the locker room incident when blames Carrie for freaking out. Sue mentions the video but Chris sidesteps the accusation that she wasn’t the only one who recorded it. Sue feels guilty, especially now that she’s been tasked with befriending Carrie, while her bestie has no interest in sharing that guilt. She’s too concerned with her own situation of being stuck with her mother and the Brady Bunch instead of spending the night at home with her father. Sue tries to convince her to get rid of the video, but when Chris watches it again, she remembers what her mother said about Brooklyn. Now both girls are off-limits, and Chris is furious. She lumps all of her anger and pain over her parents’ divorce onto her two targets.
When she hovers her finger over the delete button, she makes a different and far more destructive choice. Rather than erasing the crime, she creates a new social media account under the name Carrie Redd and posts the video hoping nobody will be able to trace it back to her.
Carrie Finds Her Power
Back at the White’s house, Margaret is doing the dishes while Carrie asks if her mother’s boss was angry with her for being late. She knows Margaret was at the high school talking to the principal, exactly what Carrie begged her not to do. Margaret brushes it off as changing her mind, but Carrie is angry. She raises her voice, and Margaret does not appreciate it. She refuses to apologize for looking out for her daughter and reminds her that she’s the parent and Carrie is not the boss of her, even if she could be, considering how young her current boss is.
Even angrier, Carrie leaves the rest of the dishes for her mother and runs upstairs to do her homework. Margaret screams after her to come back downstairs but a crying and overwhelmed Carrie just keeps going.
As her mother storms upstairs after her, Carrie’s emotions reach a boiling point. The books on her desk begin to shake, her lamp rattles, and just as Margaret reaches the doorway, from across the room, Carrie slams the door shut with her mind and locks it.
Her mother tries the door again, but she can’t get in and inside the room, Carrie stares at what she just did, caught somewhere between shock, wonder and happiness. She’s finally starting to understand she’s not losing her mind, and these abilities seem to be fueled by everything she’s been taught to suppress. Now everything is about to come out, and Carrie has very little control in stopping it.