When creator Mike Flanagan brought his plans for a new adaptation of Carrie to Stephen King, he had more in mind than another retelling of the author's 1974 horror novel.
His eight-part Prime Video series follows Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), a bullied teenager discovering her telekinetic powers, but also expands on something King had only hinted at: the existence of others like her.
Flanagan, who previously adapted King's Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep, was uncertain how the author would receive his proposed changes.
“I was very nervous to bring it to him because the pitch was loaded with changes, and my feeling was that if he didn't like them, I wasn't going to do the show,” he tells The National.
But Stephen King embraced the approach, even contributing ideas to one of the new characters. His involvement could prove important to the series' future, with Flanagan having previously discussed the possibility of telling the story over three seasons.
Prime Video has yet to announce a second, although the first season leaves several storylines unresolved.
Warning: spoilers for all eight episodes of Carrie follow.
Why Flanagan changed Carrie's ending
The most significant departure from King's novel comes in the finale. The original story ends with Carrie dying after the destruction of her school and much of her hometown. Flanagan instead allows her to survive, escaping Chamberlain alongside Emaline (Thalia Dudek), another young woman with psychic abilities.
“We decided very early that we really believed this version of Carrie deserved to survive the story, regardless of whether we were talking about future seasons or anything else,” Flanagan says.
Her survival raises a question the novel never had to address: how Carrie might come to terms with the violence she has committed.
Flanagan has also changed the circumstances of the prom massacre. The series preserves the humiliation that sets it in motion, when a bucket of blood is dumped on Carrie after she is crowned prom queen, but distributes responsibility for the deaths among several characters.
Emaline, who has been secretly observing Carrie, takes control of her body during the disaster, with her permission. Other women with supernatural abilities are involved in the violence that follows.
“I think the tragedy hasn't changed whatsoever. The scope of the tragedy is exactly the same,” Flanagan says. “But I do think tragedies have many authors.”
There are three deaths, however, that he was determined to leave in Carrie's hands.
The first is Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette), her prom date, whom she accidentally kills before Emaline takes control. Later, she confronts Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) and Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), the teenagers responsible for humiliating her. Chris attempts to stop Billy from running Carrie over, causing their car to crash. Both survive, only for Carrie to kill them herself.
Flanagan describes Carrie confronting Chris and Billy “eye to eye, and not in a moment of reactivity, but in a moment of clear and conscious sober decision”.
“I do think it was important to me if she was going to live that she also be able to live with what happened,” he says.
Chris's final attempt to stop Billy adds another complication. Having spent much of the series tormenting Carrie, she ultimately tries to save her life, only to be killed by the girl she has bullied.
Flanagan is conscious of how audiences might respond to that moment, describing the satisfaction of “wanting that wish fulfilment of seeing people get their comeuppance”, alongside the discomfort of “realising we're kind of celebrating the death of teenagers and kids”.
For Carrie, those conflicting feelings could become a central part of her story. She has escaped Chamberlain and the people who made her life miserable, but must now reckon with having killed two of them deliberately.
“There's plenty for her to have to wrestle with what she did and why, and for her to deal with the complex feelings that she'll have,” Flanagan says.
How Stephen King's ideas could shape season two
Carrie's escape also leaves her with an uncertain ally in Emaline, whose actions have put them both at odds with Adelaide (Kate Siegel), the powerful woman who sent her to observe Carrie.
Throughout the series, Adelaide interviews survivors of the prom disaster, manipulating their memories to conceal her group's involvement. Emaline eventually defies her and helps Carrie leave Chamberlain, although Adelaide's interest in the teenager remains unresolved.
Their escape provides another possible direction for a second season, with Carrie now connected to a group of women whose abilities resemble her own. Adelaide's intentions, Emaline's relationship with her former allies and the extent of their powers all remain to be explored.
The foundation for this storyline comes from King's novel, which suggests Carrie is not the only person capable of telekinesis. The new characters, however, allowed Flanagan to develop that idea far beyond the original story.
King himself played an active role in that process. “Most of his direct ideas and suggestions came to bear with the character of Emaline,” Flanagan says.
That involvement is especially significant given Emaline's influence over the finale. Her intervention changes Carrie's responsibility for the massacre, and her decision to help her escape creates the opportunity for their story to continue.
Flanagan expects some resistance to the character from readers familiar with King's novel, making the author's contribution all the more interesting.
“That's a character I think that people who love the books have an initial resistance to, and that's the character that Stephen King had the most input into,” he says.
Emaline also holds knowledge of Adelaide's group that Carrie has only begun to discover. Having turned against the woman who sent her to Chamberlain, she could become Carrie's guide to this unfamiliar world, although the full extent of her loyalties and motivations has yet to be established.
Flanagan says King was particularly engaged by the direction these characters could take the story, and their potential influence on Carrie's life beyond the events of the first season.
“He had a lot to say about that other world of powerful women and how it could impact Carrie's story and where it could go moving forward,” Flanagan says. “And he was very excited about the possibilities there.”
All eight episodes of Carrie are streaming on Prime Video
