2026 - Amazon
Every year, at least one TV show appears near-to or during the season. This year, we get at least three, which are automatically on the slate: Yaga which starts at the end of the month, the Newfoundland shot and based monster-in-the-water series Below that starts tomorrow on Netflix, and this one, the latest from favourite Mike Flanagan.
Insert Fanfare Emoji
There have been a lot of Carrie adaptations, the debut novel from Stephen King, going all the way back to the 1976 De Palma / Sissy Spacek movie. Then there is its "sequel", the terrible The Rage: Carrie 2 in the 90s, and the 2013 version with Chloë Grace Moretz, and there was also a 2002 made-for-TV movie written by Bryan Fuller; it was meant to be a backdoor pilot, but that never happened. I will also mention there were two stage productions, but I refuse to even dig into them.
This is Flanagan, whom we love love love, but I have to admit... I had no great anticipation for this one. I might have to admit no great fondness for the King story, despite it being his first. It was likely my fifth or six of his books. I might have soured on it due my own high school drama; nothing involving buckets of pig blood, but I do not look fondly back on those years. But I will watch it, and I will enjoy it despite getting in my own way.
It begins with the death of Carrie's father (Tahmoh Penikett, Dollhouse), a construction worker, but more importantly, a prep'er and anti-government whacko who kept to himself. Nobody at work knew him at all. It continues with the authorities finding Carrie(ta) and her mother (Samantha Sloyan, Midnight Mass) in the closet. Nobody knew they existed. But, I should say it begins with the simul-cast preamble, interviews with people regarding the incident that started in the high school gymnasium during prom, and ended with the entire school burned down, and most of the town. The same interviews explain that, pending funds being setup for the now widow and her daughter, Carrie (Summer H Howell, Night of the Reaper) has to go to school and mom has to work.
Smart move from Flanagan, as most people watching already know the story behind Carrie in that a young girl with powers gets a bucket of pigs blood poured over her and she ... explodes, taking everyone with her. Not literally, but powerful telepathic response. So, we know the ending, but do we know the story.
The setup is familiar enough. Carrie is new to this world, pretty much all of it. She's weird but resilient, open to every new experience. High school girls are demons, cliques within cliques. New people are fodder, new & weird even more juicy. Her first few days of homemade clothing, sexual awakening, popularity machinations and her first school shooting drill do not go well. We also see that there is an emerging conflict between Carrie and her mother, as Carrie begins to understand how much she has been kept from.
The episode ends as the torture begins. Carrie gets her first period, something her mother neglected to prepare her for ("my daughter is a child...") and the other gym class girls go wild on her, throwing feminine protection at her, while filming her confusion and panic. The episode truly ends with the introduction of something new, an Xavier style school of other girls with psychic powers, one who is sensitive to Carrie's awakenings.
Like all Flanagan, we begin with characters, good and bad, slow burning our way into a story. He's brought only a few of the usual suspects along so far, but I suspect more will come along. Its a sold opener.
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