I’m noticing that there seems to be something of a tonal pattern forming with Carrie. As we slide into the sixth episode, I’ve seen that while not all the changes Mike Flanagan has made to Stephen King’s source material have sat well with me, they do eventually result in seismic plot shifts that take the overall story into bold areas. For example, the escalating tensions between Carrie and her tormentor, Chris, seem strangely complex in comparison and the character of Margaret White has significantly moved away from the terrifying fanatic of previous versions into spiteful, crusading parent territory.
However, while some of these instances have proven to be distracting to those who cherish either the book or the 1976 movie, you can’t deny that some of the places those changes have brought us to have been increasingly fascinating. Take some of the bigger narrative and social swings of “Home Economics” for example…
Struggling to accept the news that her friend, Emaline, hasn’t been real all along, Carrie, now is terrified that this may be proof that she has some form of mental illness. However, while Emaline insists that she’s real on some level, this doesn’t stop the fact that the whole business of the Carrie Red Instagram page has gotten utterly out of control. It’s seems that while many of Chris’ posts were just mindless acts of spiteful rumour, a major one has proven to be true when faculty member Mr. Peist is revealed to have had numerous underage relationships with students in past schools and goes and takes his own life.
Bizarrely, this adds ammunition to Chris’ defence as it technically means that Carrie Red (albeit accidently) caught a child predator, and in an attempt to bring all this chaos to a close, the school try to bring together the two warring girls, and their parents, to shut the book on this once and for all. With the recorded confession provided by Sue Snell, Chris is very much on the backfoot, but after much back and forth, debating and arguing, it seems that the entire school sits on a knife edge as the rage of the pupils threaten to break out in violence.
However, after Carrie gets Chris alone and pleads with her to just end the stalemate, it seems like we have finally reached some level of understanding; but it’s soon torpedoed by Margaret, who weaponizes the words of Chris’ mother to enact her pound of flesh from the entire scenario. The result is Chris refusing to apologise and subsequently getting suspended with the main consequence being the school erupting into mob violence as those who support and oppose the online bully clash.
But even in the wake of all this, Margaret has become drunk with the power and influence that social media has given her, and outraged that her mother would willfully destroy the modicum of peace that was hanging in the balance, Carrie finally uses her powers to put the hateful matriarch on a forced time out.
Flanagan’s Carrie seems to have me bouncing all over the place. Every time it seems that the show has gone too far away from it’s roots and taken the characters into situations that threaten to defuse this world and power of the original, some plot threads manage to spring back and pay off with plots that are genuinely gripping. Take Samantha Sloyan’s Margaret White for example; turning her into one of those hypocritical moral justice warriors grates somewhat against the reclusive, hateful, borderline deranged fanatic that so many of us are familiar with. But while Sloyan’s take isn’t the source of religious fear it once was, that doesn’t mean her spreading influence doesn’t raise some chilling questions about the motives of those who would look to police our freedoms.
In fact, while it seems that her daughter – despite being in the throes of her own mental health issues – has managed to diffuse the situation by simply having an earnest and honest conversation with her tormentor that shows that this formerly reclusive child has more emotional intelligence than anyone else in the room. Of course, a simple, private apology isn’t enough for Margaret, who employs some spectacularly aimed low blows to scupper the fragile accord in order to get the results she wants. It’s wonderfully frustrating to watch both Chris’ father hurl legal spanners into the works while Matthew Lillard’s exasperated principal desperately tries to circumvent, when all that’s required is a simple act of accountability. However, as we soon see, the influence and damage of Carrie Red means that this whole mess has gone way beyond just two girls working out their differences. With literally everything that’s happened, including the suicide of a teacher revealed to be involved with one of his students, the atmosphere has been building to busting point within Ewen High and with the final suspension of Chris, things finally pop.
Again, while I have to question the narrative sense of having a school errupt into violence two episodes before Carrie White is destined to famously blow her telekinetic stack, as it could serve to remove the impact of that famously anger-fueled climax. But even though it could create issues later in the season, the sight of a student body exploding into righteous rage over everything that has occured proves to be gripping television. While some diversions from the expected have resulted in moments that don’t feel like they play quite right, watching kids on both sides of an emotionally loaded argument engage in an honest to God riot with a dumbfounded news crew baring witness to the whole twisted mess succeeds in hitting pretty hard in all the right ways. Carrie has always been a metaphor for teen rage reaching its limit and its genuinely impressive to see the message delivered on such a large, troubling scale – I just hope it doesn’t remove the fire for when Carrie herself is required to do the same.
However, despite all these newer elements, there’s a definite sense that there’s a strong pull of the original storyline to get everything more in line with expectations (all things serve the beam, I guess). Despite all this social media malarkey that Margaret has gotten wrapped up in, it still leads to an outraged Carrie using her powers to physically overpower her mother and lock her in the repentance cupboard. Some handy flashbacks reveal that Margaret has been nervously aware of her daughter’s abilities ever since the shower of rocks peppered their home when an angry Carrie was a child. But now that both mother and daughter have now been empowered by their own personal forces (social media and telekinesis respectively), that iconic reckoning may soon be at hand.
With only two episodes left to go, it’s a wonder if the Flanagan-directed final installments will have enough time to do justice to one of the famous crash-outs in horror history. However, the overall message is still thoroughly on point even if adherence to King’s tale would still greatly be appreciated.
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Where to watch Carrie – Season 1, Episode 6: Home Economics: