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(Deep Cuts) Mike Flanagan's CARRIE Tv Show Demonstrates the Power in Harnessing Self-Worth

By. Bee Delores

 

NOTE: SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW BELOW

 

“You have all the power,” CARRIE White’s (Summer H. Howell) new friend Emaline (Thalia Dudek) tells her after another bullying incident. Those five words carry CARRIE forward into a cathartic character arc, from victim to Xena-like warrior. Mike Flanagan completely understands the source material–Stephen King’s 1974 novel, as well as the iconic 1976 film adaption, starring Sissy Spacek as the eponymous lead. 

 

The acclaimed filmmaker, whose gripping, character-drive work includes MIDNIGHT MASS and THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, lifts many of the expected story beats and rearranges them for a modern audience while also adding in exciting new ideas (e.g., the infamous CARRIERed_ Instagram account). In doing so, CARRIE emerges as vital television through its exploration of rampant online bullying, discovering one’s innate power, and necessary retribution.

 

When CARRIE was little, she ventured through the shrubbery to meet her neighbor Stella (Naika Toussaint), who was reading BOY PROOF at the time. CARRIE mistook the book as a “ridiculous” Bible; she was only ever allowed to read the Bible by her religious fanatic mother Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Stella takes CARRIE under her wing and leaves countless books inside a bird house in CARRIE’s backyard. It’s like a secret book club, opening CARRIE’s world, if only a crack. When Margaret finds her daughter, she drags CARRIE into the house and makes her kneel in the prayer closet as punishment. Her anger boils over, causing rocks to rain down on their house. It’s an ironic Biblical event that suggests that CARRIE’s supernatural gifts are actually a gift from God. CARRIE’s power then hibernates for years until she’s finally pushed beyond the limits of her sanity.

 

 

Particularly in Christianity, male-dominated institutions demand total subservience from women. The scripture frequently discusses a man’s ownership over his wife. For example, Ephesians 5:22 reads: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” In the original film adaptation, Margaret scolds CARRIE after her daughter experiences her first period in gym class. “Eve was weak!” she proclaims, smacking her daughter with a Bible. In Flanagan’s version, the reprimand is more insidious, which makes it more dangerous. CARRIE doesn’t realize she’s being brainwashed, but when she does, her rage becomes a tool she can then use against her mother and every other bully in her life.

 

After her father Ralph (Tahmoh Penikett) dies in a freak accident, the state discovers Margaret and CARRIE huddled in the prayer closet. The two conditions of Margaret keeping custody are that she has to get a job, and CARRIE must go to school. From her very first day, Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) walks around with a chip on her shoulder. She’s disgusted by CARRIE’s homemade outfit and looks at her in shock, as though CARRIE slaughtered a cat or something, when CARRIE shares her excitement about using a computer for the first time. Like Margaret, Chris is a far more nuanced character, with Flanagan contextualizing her targeting CARRIE White. Hurt people hurt people, as the saying goes.

 

The prayer closet may be Margaret White's preferred method of punishment, but the parents in COBWEB have their own horrifying ideas about keeping children in line. Bee Delores revisits Samuel Bodin's twisted family nightmare in her How Do YOU Halloween? essay, arguing that the film deserves a much better reputation.

 

There are two specific events that trigger CARRIE’s powers in a big way. The first comes on that very first day, when the school initiates a drill mimicking an active shooter storming the hallways. Not a single person explains to CARRIE that it’s all fake and simply preparation for if something were to happen. Her fear rattles the desks and rips a wall-mounted flat-screen TV off the wall like an earthquake.

 

 

The second monumental incident happens later when CARRIE experiences her first period, and she believes she’s dying. Chris Hargensen leads the wolf pack in tormenting CARRIE, now huddled on the shower floor in her clothes, and throwing pads and tampons at her. CARRIE can only scream in terror. When P.E. teacher Ms. Rita Desjardin (Amber Midthunder) finally returns, CARRIE reaches a fevered pitch and causes the fluorescent lights overhead to pop and throw sparks.

 

In a mix of her fear, anger, and sadness, CARRIE cracks the bottle open on her powers. Through the urging of Emaline, she heads out to a secluded lot where she practices breaking glass bottles, rotating heavy objects in the air, and setting a car on fire from the inside out. Now that she’s experiencing what self-worth means, she grows increasingly confident and better equipped to manipulate her telekinetic abilities. The coming weeks and months bring out numerous opportunities to use her power against Chris and the plastics, including messing up Tina’s (Josie Totah) eyeliner and breaking Chris’ nose. “Plug it up!” she spits at Chris as her nose gushes blood. That refrain, once lobbied her way in her most vulnerable, frightened state, becomes a war cry that turns pain into a heroic call.

 

Back home, CARRIE sheds the shackles her mother so carefully bound around her wrists. While her mother films an Instagram video, rallying the community against Chris Hargensen, CARRIE demands that she actually listen to her once. “I wish you would have died, instead!” she yells. Margaret goes to slap CARRIE, but CARRIE’s anger keeps it from connecting to her cheek. She completely incapacitates Margaret and quickly forces her back toward the prayer closet. “You need to repent,” CARRIE hisses, turning her mother’s words against her. “Get right with God!” CARRIE breaks the cycles of abuse her mother impressed upon her, and finally takes charge of her own life. Sometimes, all bullies really need is a “come to Jesus” moment.

 

Of course, the story’s all leading to the senior prom. Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette) asks CARRIE to be his date, and Ms. Desjardin opts to chaperone after a bit of encouragement. If you didn’t know the story, you’d never guess something bad was about to happen. Chris Hargensen tells her bad-boy boyfriend Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), “I want blood,” leading to him hatching a plan of slaughtering a pig from the farm where he works. They fill up a bucket of blood and prepare for a night CARRIE will never forget.

 

Things go as they hoped they would. Rigged voting leads to Tommy and CARRIE being crowned Prom King and Queen. When CARRIE basks in the glow of the spotlight, they dump the red, sticky goo down onto her head. Time freezes and seems endless. Once she locks in, however, CARRIE unleashes all the pain that’s festered for far too long behind her smile. Her powers reach a complete super-charge, and she lets all the bullies and those complicit in the shame and destruction have it. In her blinding rage, she accidentally kills Tommy and leaves countless other bodies stacked on bodies in her wake. But there are worse things she could have done.

 

 

CARRIE finally has the courage and the strength to give ‘em hell. For marginalized communities, particularly queer, there’s a great emotional release that can be experienced through Mike Flanagan’s CARRIE–things that can’t be done in real life without severe and swift consequences. You know, ACAB. But the symbolism can certainly be applied to how we carry ourselves, how we treat others, and what it means when karma strikes like hot viper venom.

 

Summer H. Howell’s performance perfectly captures the misery and the internal war of feeling like you’re “not normal,” as she barely sputters in a conversation with Mr. Morton (Tim Bagley). In that scene, she gets raw and honest about what it’s been like losing her father and navigating high school from the outsider’s perspective. Morton makes sure to tap into her love of books and quotes, and the pair trade off various passages that speak to the present period of trouble and deep reflection. 

 

 

Where in the 1976 film CARRIE confides in the gym teacher, here she’s given a much deeper and stronger bond with Mr. Morton, a gay man and also an outsider. During a conversation with two other teachers, he makes a joke about the anti-bullying campaign that starts out the school year being “based on me, baby!” Morton extends a kind, gentle hand to CARRIE, encouraging her to give the school a chance and that there’s more to it than the other students. You just have to do a little digging to find the joy in life that energizes you and keeps you going.

 

Mike Flanagan’s CARRIE goes places the original source material and previous film adaptations do not. In the cold light of 2026, there’s no room to play it safe without addressing the elephants in the room. At a time of increasing anti-trans and anti-Muslim rhetoric, a show like CARRIE that makes the viewer uncomfortable and angry with its grounded portrayal of bullying and accountability could not have dropped at a more appropriate time. Even more evident with this show, CARRIE did what she had to do to make it stop. 

 

Sometimes, you have to burn it all down.

 

Carrie's struggle to find a place in a world determined to reject her brings to mind the isolation at the heart of CARNIVAL OF SOULS. In her queer reading of the 1962 classic, Bee Delores explores the horror of being treated as an outsider and the expectations that make belonging feel impossible.