Spoiler alert! We're diving into details about the shocking finale of "Carrie" (now streaming on Prime Video), so turn away now if you haven't watched the whole season.
It wasn't just Carrie.
The first episode of Mike Flanagan's "Carrie" (now streaming on Prime Video) ended with that statement, and it turns out to be more accurate than expected in a stunning finale that dramatically changes Stephen King's
story.In the show's version of the famed prom sequence, Carrie (Summer H. Howell) does not act alone. After a bucket of pig's blood is poured on her head in a cruel prank, Carrie initially gets the chaos going by lashing out with her telekinetic powers. But she then allows her friend Emaline (Thalia Dudek), another girl with supernatural abilities
who was tempting her to the dark side all season, to take over her body via astral projection to do some of the dirty work for her.
Speaking with USA TODAY, Flanagan admits he was "terrified" about pitching King on this "huge" change to the book, but he says the author "quite liked" the idea and the "moral questions" it raised.
Why 'Carrie' TV show changes the ending of Stephen King's book
The decision to rewrite the events of prom night stemmed, in part, from another radical book change: Letting Carrie survive. Carrie dies on prom night in the book and in the 1976 movie adaptation.
"It felt clear early on that this version of Carrie, there was so much more intense empathy for her situation that comes from spending that much more time with her," Flanagan says. "You get about 90 minutes in all the other iterations. This, you spent eight hours with this girl, and you've been with her through these ups and downs. It really felt like we owed it to her to let her get out into the world."
Constructing the events of the prom, Flanagan says, was then informed by the question, "What would she be able to live with?"
"We also thought about this as a tragedy instead of a horror story," he explains. "In a horror story, there are monsters. In a tragedy, in our version, there weren't monsters. There were people who made choices. And tragedies tend to have many authors. So looking at the prom event, such a huge scale tragedy, and saying, 'Yes, Carrie is absolutely responsible for some of it. But other people are as well.' And that just opened up this wonderful opportunity to create the moral complexity."
When Emaline projects into Carrie's body, it's as if Carrie becomes a "passenger," Flanagan explains, although that's not to say there aren't moments when she's in control. When Carrie kills Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), Emaline "is standing off to the side and not driving a thing," Flanagan points out. And when Carrie first lashes out and injures her classmates by causing their phones to explode, that's all her doing.
"I never wanted to take away her rage," Flanagan says, adding that "it was critical to me that that first explosion of retaliatory rage, she earned that. That's hers."
Another big change comes soon after, when Carrie arrives home and has a final confrontation with her mother. In the book, Carrie kills Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) by stopping her heart. But in the show, Margaret survives that showdown, only to die at the hands of Kate Siegel's Adelaide.
This alteration made sense for the new version of Carrie and Margaret, who have a much more loving relationship in the show than in the book, according to Flanagan.
"We all felt that, while Carrie and Margaret come to these incredible blows against each other, that Carrie could never look her mother in the eye and kill her," he says. "The love between them was too strong for both of them."
Will there be a Season 2 of 'Carrie'? Mike Flanagan teases series' future
The finale ends with Carrie being driven to safety by Emaline and smirking as she prepares to get out into the world. Emaline continues to be a terrible influence on her, setting up a question that no other adaptation has had to deal with to date: Can Carrie can be redeemed after the events of the prom, or is she too far gone?
"She's happy to see the world and a beautiful sunset, and to maybe be on a new adventure," Howell says. "But I think she's also full of guilt, and all the emotions that she's had no time to process. She's got a lot of work ahead of her to bring back that sweet, kind Carrie from the start, who wants to do good in the world and figure out how she can use her powers for good."
The ending clearly sets the stage for another season, with the mystery of who Emaline is left unanswered. This will surely come as a surprise to viewers who assumed the show would be a miniseries, given it's based on a short book with no follow-ups.
But Flanagan's goal is to continue the series for two more seasons, and he already has a three-season arc planned.
"That's in my dream of dreams now," he says. "…I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I can see a clear picture of that. Whether that's going to be a thing, time will tell."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Carrie' TV show creator unpacks shocking finale, changes from Stephen King book
