As previously stated, I am not one to dive headfirst into the horror genre. I find it to be far too scary every single time. However, in an effort to stay relevant and due to my incessant curiosity, I decided to watch the 2026 television adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie before Fall Break. I had never seen the movie prior to my viewing and had only watched a slime tutorial of the stage production. Speaking of which, go see Carrie on November 20th, 21st, and 22nd at 8 pm and 2 pm, directed by Zara Diaz and stage managed by Arianna Roe, presented by Players: A Programming Board of the SGA. Is it a shameless plug if I write that? Perhaps. Am I going to keep it? Perhaps.
Anyhow, the newest adaptation of Carrie, in my opinion, has a very important lesson that finds itself lost in the age of scrolling and vertical dramas. Empathy is a crazy concept, especially when placed in the setting of Carrie. Carrieta White is a high school-aged girl who is homeschooled and sheltered from the outside world her entire life. It isn’t until her father’s passing that she is forced to attend public school, where she is faced with massive culture shock. In this version, the story takes place in the present day, so Carrie’s old-fashioned nature feels much more foreign than it did in the stage production. While attending American public school in 2026, she experiences things like going through a metal detector at the beginning of the school day and an active shooter drill, which are incredibly frightening for a girl who has never left her house. The infamous plot point of Carrie is that she gets her first period, and all the girls in her gym class point and laugh at her because she thinks she’s dying. In the show, the result of this bullying is an Instagram account run by the antagonist, Chris Hargensen, that acts as a submission-based gossip page that ruins faculty and student reputations. I cannot express to you how much I cried while watching this show. There are only eight episodes, and I think I spent the first five crying at least twice per episode. The acting is phenomenal, because you really believe that Alison Thornton and Josie Totah are truly evil. The acting overall in this show was incredible. Carrie’s mother, played by none other than ‘Perfect Penny’, Samantha Sloyan, was insane, in the best way possible. Almost every character had their own arc and story, which, despite what you might think, ended up enhancing the show and its overall scariness.
Now, I don’t want to spoil Carrie for anyone, but to be fair, the story has been out since 1973, so if you are unaware and intrigued, this is your warning. If you are in the know, you know that Carrie’s telekinesis is integral to the story, and in this adaptation, her powers are treated similarly to how Hannah was treated in Hannah, which is what the kids would call elite ball knowledge. The world-building creates this idea that witchcraft and the supernatural, with no relation to Sam and Dean, are under-researched phenomena across the globe. The story is narrated by Kate Siegle’s character Adaliade, who we find out at the end to be interviewing those close to Carrie White and discussing prom, another key plot point. This Adelaide woman narrates each episode, similarly to Ellen Pompeyo in Gray’s Anatomy, where her story or anecdote is seemingly unrelated to the drama happening in each episode until it’s revealed that this is a diegetic voice-over, used for the purposes of this supernatural documentary about Carrie White. The parts of the story that revolve around Carrie’s powers are quite ominous. We see what seems to be another part of the world where people with supernatural powers are all working together, in hopes of making contact with Carrie White and presumably studying her. These people ‘feel’ whenever Carrie uses her powers, but it’s never really addressed why they can do that or how they relate to Adaliade and her vague documentary.
I quite like how this version of Carrie handled the post-prom sequencing. Again, not to spoil, but when Carrie is invited to senior prom and ingenuously named prom queen, she gets a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her, initiating her massacre of everyone involved with prom, killing hundreds. How the musical sets this up is that Carrie destroys the prom, walks home to her panicked mother, and confides in her, all while covered in blood. While Carrie thinks her mother is comforting her, Margeret White pulls out a knife and kills Carrie, for the betterment of God and such. This is not the case in the TV show. You think it’s going to happen, and then it doesn’t, and then you think it’s gonna happen for real, and then it still doesn’t. I personally prefer that Carrie stays alive after the destruction. I realize that it was probably done for the possibility of a second season, but I think the story itself benefits from Carrie surviving every obstacle thrown her way, because when you think about it, none of this was really her fault. She was kind to everyone; even when there were people making fun of her and taking advantage of her, she still maintained a level of respect. It wasn’t until Chris and Billy dumped blood on her that she started to hurt people. I don’t see Carrie as a villain, but rather a fully justified teenage girl who had a very valid crashout. I do find it odd that certain characters were kept alive compared to others. Josie Totah’s character, Tina, acted as a second-hand mean girl for the whole show, and yet she was one of the three or so people to survive prom. I think this was because at the very last second she started to have a change of heart and be kind to Carrie, but I like that the stage production leaves essentially no survivors. I think this should have been an all-or-nothing scenario, sparing my perfect baby angel Carrie, of course. Again, this feels like a deliberate choice by the writers to keep their cast for a possible season two as open as possible. I super did not like how, after she got thrown around by her daughter, had a house nearly fall on her, and then actually have a house fall on her, Margaret White survived ultimate chaos, just for her to die in her interview by Adalaide’s super special telekinetic powers. I think it would have been really interesting if Margaret and Carrie survived, because the idea of hereditary powers could have been explored further in a theoretical second season, and maybe even rebuild a relationship between Carrie and her mom, allowing them to both be rid of the abuse they’ve experienced.
I think that Carrie could realistically get a second season, assuming that the takeaway from episode eight of season one was that Emaline and Carrie are running away from Adalaide and her supernatural film crew society, but I don’t think in my heart of hearts that such a thing would happen. Maybe like a bonus episode to dot some t’s and cross some i’s, but nothing crazy. But if we were to simply think whimsically, I would really love to see more from Carrie White. She is an easily lovable character, and I can’t help but root for her the entire time. I want to see her in her 30s, an award-winning novelist, happily living with Emaline, going to therapy and continuing to experience the wonders of living life.
I know that I talked about the show a lot, which was mostly my goal, but I do want to quickly circle back to something I mentioned earlier. Carrie was and still is a great example of what a lack of empathy can do to another person, especially in such a digital age. Carrie could be replaced with any one of us, and we would all feel isolated. Not a single person stopped to think about what their actions and words were doing to another human being, and in this extreme version, it cost them their lives. Sue Snell is a great example of what being a decent person looks like. She isn’t Carrie’s biggest fan, and she even laughs along with the other girls, but she realizes that her actions, even if they weren’t as bad as Chris’ or Tina’s, were still wrong. She leads with empathy and finds a way to connect with Carrie, and even starts to look out for her. I don’t think that you need to like everyone and accept everyone as they are; sometimes people are really evil, but I think that leading with empathy could at least bring a better energy to the situation. You never know what could be going on in someone else’s head, telekinetic powers or otherwise, so maybe let the new girl go to prom with your ex-boyfriend because it just might save your life.