Carrie Season 1, Episode 8 “AP Physics” puts Sue at the forefront as she recalls events of prom night. As one of the remaining witnesses, she’s tasked with giving her account. And it shifts from the past to the present. This places us right back where Carrie Season 1, Episode 1 began.
It’s So Easy to Forget We Were Kids.
In “AP Physics” Sue is undergoing a strange line of questioning by a mystery woman. As the interview progresses, the woman is pressing her hard for information. Admittedly, it’s a bit odd. She has questions like: How did Sue feel? Did the temperature in the room change, and what did she see? It’s unclear who this individual is or what she is trying to accomplish.
One of the first things Sue does is remind people of who Carrie was before that night. She recalls the first time she saw Carrie in homeroom. One of the lines that hit me was when Sue says, “She was f—-d. I could tell right away because she was kind. Not performative kind. Not bull—- kind. No agenda to it. She was just kind. Why was that so alien?” Sadly, kindness has become a foreign concept these days. Carrie came to Ewen to be a normal kid who just wanted to go to school.
Instead of acceptance, she was met with bullying and tricks. Most of the people she met were disingenuous, including Sue. I can probably count on one hand who was truly nice and welcoming to Carrie. Like Sue said, Carrie was kind. But even the kindest person can be pushed too far.
I Exist
When the bucket of blood landed on Carrie and her classmates pulled out their phones, it sent her right back to the moment in the shower. That was traumatic for her. And… so were the events that followed. A cellphone has been Carrie’s biggest enemy. That device has captured some of her most vulnerable moments. Seeing it placed in front of her face again was too much to bear.
PTSD is real, and I think Mike Flanagan did a fantastic job laying the foundation that got us to this pivotal moment. Carrie kept everything bottled inside. And even though we saw a few moments of her expressing her feelings and her powers through all seven episodes, it only scratched the surface of what she was capable of.
In that moment of chaos, Carrie was lost to the world. Nothing could stop her. Her rage and wrath were all-consuming. And anyone and anything in her path was fair game. But even then, I’m not sure what was in Carrie’s mind as she was using her powers. Because I don’t even think she was in there. To me she had a blackout.
Carrie Was A Victim Of Her Circumstances
I believe Carrie had a blackout because she is gutted when she comes back to herself. She’s stunned by what she’s done. She’s not celebrating the destruction. She feels remorse. Carrie was never evil. She was a victim of her circumstances.
Even after everything that’s happened, Carrie still goes back to the one place where she has always felt safe: home. When she goes home, she even asks her mother if God will forgive her. She’s sorry for what she’s done. Margaret knows she is, but she’s already made up her mind about how she will save Carrie.
Margaret’s choice to take Amanda’s advice was hard to watch. As I have said, I’ve seen so many iterations of Carrie. But I still had a visceral reaction to her stabbing Carrie in the ear! For some reason, the scene felt sadder than Brian De Palma’s 1976 version of this story. That’s because I got to know Carrie over eight episodes. I sat with her. And I saw her. She could have been any young girl struggling to fit in at school.
Now, here’s where the last part of the episode lost me. Unlike the book, Margaret survives only to be killed later by the mystery woman questioning Sue. I’m not sure how I felt about this change. I think it was meant to show us that even though Carrie almost killed her, Margaret still loves her daughter and wanted to protect her.
Then There’s Emaline & the Rest of Them…
As it turns out, Emaline was not a figment of Carrie’s imagination. She is very real but has the power of astral projection. I will say, I have a theory that she’s Amanda’s daughter. Go back to the beginning of Carrie Season 1, Episode 7 “Romantic Literature” and watch the scene with the little girl and her mom. While I liked Emaline as a friend for Carrie, I wondered why they had her using her powers of astral projection on her. She made Carrie look like she was insane, and that wasn’t right.
If we get a season two, I need more explanations about Emaline because she wasn’t around enough for me to get to know her as a character.
Speaking of not getting to know characters. I liked Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, but I didn’t feel like we got much of her either. Or her relationship with Tommy. Even when she had the pregnancy scare. I wasn’t invested enough, and when Chris put her picture on CarrieRed_, the reaction was so muted.
I also could have done without some of the scenes with the teachers. I didn’t need to see what life is like for them outside of school. It felt like filler when Carrie was right there. I certainly didn’t need those scenes with that student/teacher scandal. It did nothing to move the story along. We didn’t have anything like that in the original Carrie so I’m not sure why Flanagan felt the need to add that.
Final Thoughts
Despite the things I wasn’t a fan of, I can honestly say this is one of the best adaptations I’ve seen of the story in a while. It kept my attention the entire time. And Summer H. Howell is a force as Carrie. The transitions from who Carrie was at the start of the season to Episode 8 were impressive. And she knew how to showcase her character’s delicate vulnerabilities, especially when it was time to let Carrie’s power out. She delivered.
Samantha Sloyan’s portrayal of Margaret provided a new take. I understood her more than the mother in the 1976 film. That doesn’t mean I agreed with everything she did. But I did like that there were moments where we saw her genuinely caring for her daughter.
Alison Thornton’s Chris, Whew! She did the job, I know that much. She made me despise the character like I did watching the film. I never connected with her, though. And that’s because she was just so mean. Sorry, Mike, she’s still an irredeemable monster to me. It was so easy for her to be kind. She wasted so much time and energy hating Carrie when they could have been friends.
I do wonder where we go from here. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. Like who the mystery people are, what Emaline is doing to help Carrie, and what will Carrie do when she learns the truth about her mother? Flanagan left the door open for a Season @ with a lot of the choices he made, so I hope we get it. I think Carrie fans will really enjoy his take on the story.
Carrie Season 1 is now available on Prime Video.
