Mike Flanagan’s Carrie is now available on Prime Video, and it takes a bold path of its own. Some spoiler-heavy thoughts on the ending – and speculation on its connection to The Dark Tower: NB: The following contains spoilers for Carrie, streaming now on Prime Video. After wrangling Stephen King’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep ... Carrie on Prime Video | Spoiler-y thoughts on that ending
Mike Flanagan’s Carrie is now available on Prime Video, and it takes a bold path of its own. Some spoiler-heavy thoughts on the ending – and speculation on its connection to The Dark Tower:
NB: The following contains spoilers for Carrie, streaming now on Prime Video.
After wrangling Stephen King’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep into a coherent movie, and adapting The Life Of Chuck and Gerald’s Game – the latter long thought to be “unfilmable” – Mike Flanagan has earned himself a reputation as something of an expert in handling the author’s novels.
So the decision to take on King’s debut novel Carrie and make it into a TV series, a medium Flanagan is also well known for, doesn’t come as a surprise. His take on King’s 1974 novel takes a bold, perhaps controversial path through its plot, and there are plenty of questions at the end.
This will be your final warning for spoilers because we’re going to be looking at that rather shocking ending in detail. If you haven’t seen this new take on Carrie yet, be warned: you’re about to be spoiled on it.
Read more: Carrie review | Mike Flanagan’s bold interpretation of Stephen King’s debut isn’t always on fire
Now then… what was up with that ending? Or, come to think of it, those last couple of episodes?
Before the series premiered, Mike Flanagan revealed that he sees Carrie as a three season arc. Those last few episodes of this first season certainly set up a lot of things – maybe a few things too many. One of the biggest changes to King’s novel is that, as the end credits start rolling, Carrie is still alive and more or less well.
Interestingly, the 2002 TV movie Carrie, which was also supposed to act as a TV show pilot, also ended with Carrie alive: it concluded with Sue Snell helping Carrie to frame her death and the two driving off for further adventures. Writer Bryan Fuller explained that the two were supposed to end up in Miami, where the show would have taken place, but the series never moved forward.
Flanagan hasn’t revealed where his show might go next either. Carrie (Summer H Howell) and Emaline (Thalia Dudek), the spirit girl – if that’s what she is – who took over Carrie’s body during the prom night massacre, were left driving off into the night without a clear destination. Roll credits.
Here, Carrie isn’t the only one with telekinetic abilities. Throughout the season, we’ve been getting glimpses of women throughout history – hello, Joan Of Arc – who had similar powers. Even Samantha Sloyan’s Margaret (Carrie’s mother) had paranormal abilities, which she assumed was given to her by God.
The series also leaves Kate Siegel’s character a mystery. She also has abilities, enough to slowly and painfully kill Margaret in the same manner as she dies in the book, her heart being stopped inside her chest. Siegel’s mystery woman has been trying to find out more about Carrie throughout this whole season, hinting that what Carrie has is in fact “the Shining”, which of course ties the teenager into Stephen King’s The Shining and Doctor Sleep.
Carrie's first eight episodes leave us with more questions than answers. With no clear future, it’s a frustrating place to be left at. The storytelling strengthened as the season progressed, but in the end, it wasn’t even the title character who wreaked havoc. The most fascinating thing about Carrie has always been how she loses control, how her rage boils over at the school prom; knowing something else took over only serves to water the story down.
Flanagan has already hinted that Carrie could lead to the long-gestating The Dark Tower adaptation. Could Doctor Sleep be the link between the two series?
In Doctor Sleep, the vampire cult True Knot were fed on children who possessed the same Shining ability. There’s also a The Dark Tower spin-off novel about vampires, The Sisters Of Eluria. Could Flanagan be planning to bring vampires into Carrie, eventually leading to an adaptation of The Dark Towers novels?
To be clear, there’s no official connection between Doctor Sleep, Carrie and The Dark Tower novels, but Flanagan clearly isn’t scared to make changes to King’s stories. It’s all wild speculation at the moment, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past the showrunner. Perhaps he’s trying to create a bigger universe that’s all connected, even if the narratives don’t form a Marvel-like plot that requires you to watch films like homework to keep up with everything.
Stephen King seems to approve of the changes in Carrie, though. The writer posted his thoughts on Threads, calling the series “brilliant” and its depiction of social media “shocking and true”.
There’s admirable boldness in Flanagan’s decision to save Carrie at the end, and to expand the story far beyond King’s main plot. I wasn’t personally too keen on the many of the changes made here, but I do have to tip my hat to Flanagan and his refusal to play things safe.
At the time of writing, Prime Video hasn’t renewed Carrie for further seasons, but reviews have been largely positive and there’s a lot of interest in the series. If Prime Video does renew the show, it might be a while until we see it. Flanagan is currently working on The Exorcist: Martyrs, which is set for release in March 2027, so his schedule is pretty busy. Realistically, we probably wouldn’t see Carrie season two until 2028 at the earliest.
Carrie season two, if it happens, has a lot of loose ends to tie up. Who is Kate Siegel? Who’s Emaline? What happens to Katee Sackhoff’s Amanda? Where will Carrie end up? Is Amber Midthunder’s Ms Dejardin dead after being flung through a burning curtain? For now, the answers to those questions remain tantalisingly out of reach.
Carrie is streaming now on Prime Video.
