Carrie's Mike Flanagan and Cast Dissect the Season 1 Ending and Discuss a Potential Season 2

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Carrie. Read at your own risk!]

If you've seen all eight episodes of Prime Video's Carrie, then you know that the finale played out as one would expect a Carrie adaptation to, at least in the broad sense. Yes, pig's blood was dumped on the title character at prom, and yes, a massacre followed, thanks to Carrie White's immense telekinetic powers.

…Except there were some rather huge changes too, as Mike Flanagan's version of Carrie was a major reinterpretation and modernizing of Stephen King's novel. Not only did Flanagan expand the story across an entire school semester and offer bold new spins on Carrie (Summer H. Howell) and Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan), he also included several other women with telekinetic powers — something King did say existed in his novel, but without bringing them into his story. And oh yeah, there was one other big change… Carrie lived at the end!

Rather than dying in the wake of all the carnage she'd left, as she did in King's book and the 1976 film adaptation, Carrie ends the season driving off to parts unknown with Emaline (Thalia Dudek), a more seasoned woman with powers. Earlier, Emaline had "taken the wheel" from Carrie at the prom, taking control of her body, with Carrie's permission, arguably becoming the one who actually is to blame for most of the deaths that followed — though there are some notable exceptions.

We talked to Carrie's creator and cast about the full season, the show's future, and more.

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Carrie's Future

So at what point in developing Carrie did Flanagan and his collaborators decide that Carrie would survive? As Flanagan explained to TV Guide, "We knew it from the get-go," noting that once he decided he wanted to bring in other women with telekinetic powers — something King would delve into himself in subsequent work — that helped guide a lot of what followed.

King, an executive producer on Carrie, has made it known that he's a fan of Flanagan's previous adaptations of his work. Flanagan recalled speaking to King about his ideas for the project and let him know that "One of the things that I was really excited about is that the novel talks about Carrie's place in this long legacy of gifted women. But in every other version, she's never lived long enough to realize that she wasn't alone, and that was an opportunity for real change. And that was something that Stephen King was excited about too."

Flanagan recalled telling King, "Look, you point explicitly at this larger universe in the book, and we never see it. It never comes to bear on her story. Can we fold that in? Can we see the tip of this iceberg?" He added that with those changes in place, "This is a story about her coming into her own and stepping out of this house she's lived her whole life into the bigger world."

Of course, whether or not we actually see where Carrie goes next depends on if the series is renewed or not. But as for what Howell hopes to see happen next for Carrie, should she get to continue on with the character, the actress said, "I want her to find herself, because I think we end the series where she's very confused and traumatized and ridden with guilt, and just not in a good place like she was at the start. It's ironic that she starts out more confident and happy being home, and then the outside world tears that all away. So it'd be nice to see her come back to that more and to find her light again."

Flanagan sure seemed to be hinting at a brighter future, stating that with the ending, "I wanted to see her heading out, going away from all of this and having to decide who she's going to be now that she knows what she's capable of." Flanagan has previously said he envisions Carrie as a three-season series, if he's able to continue it, and remarked, "The story just felt, in so many ways, like a first act. It was like, yeah, I want to see her alive at the end of this! And Stephen King was very, very supportive of that."

As to whether Flanagan has specific plans in mind already for where he'd like to take a second season, the showrunner said, "Yeah, there are ideas, but honestly I was focused entirely on making sure we survived this season, and just got to a place where if we cut to black at the end of Episode 8, and that's all we ever see of this version, that we've honored that story and we've completed Carrie's [season] arc. That was my priority. There are absolutely possibilities, and I certainly would be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about them, but our priority was kind of to get through this, see how it's received, and then go from there."

Margaret's Shine

Though Carrie lives, Margaret White does not, although her death plays out differently than in the book or other adaptations. When the White house collapses on Carrie and Margaret, Margaret is revealed to have telekinetic abilities of her own — albeit ones she's barely ever tapped into. Though Margaret survives this event, soon after, she is coldly killed by the mysterious Adelaide (Kate Siegel), the leader of the group of telekinetic women who were tracking Carrie all season, after Margaret admits she likely would not be able to access those abilities again. As Adelaide says, "A lot of people have a little bit of Shine and they don't even know it," with Flanagan getting in a mention of The Shining, used as an overarching term in King's universe for those with mental powers.

While the book mentions Margaret's grandmother had telekinesis, Flanagan is the first to have Margaret herself display this ability, which we learn she once used as a child, only to suppress it afterwards. This puts her relationship with Carrie, and her reaction to what she's seeing her daughter do — which began when an upset Carrie makes rocks fall onto their house when she's a child — in a new light, given she'd be seeing something she at least partially recognized.

Observed Sloyan, of this revelation, "I think it allows us to understand, if you go back to the beginning, why she's so convinced that her daughter's in danger. It's because she believes this is real, and I think from the moment that we see the rocks hitting the house, she makes the decision 'Carrie's never leaving this home, because I don't know what she's capable of.'"

She added, "Margaret's such a control freak, and to have something that she felt was so uncontrolled within herself, it's like she's trying to squash it."

Chris' Apology

Carrie's tormentor, Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), meanwhile has a similar ending as in the book, as she and her boyfriend, Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), are killed inside Billy's car by Carrie's abilities, after the two were the ones who poured pig's blood on Carrie at the prom. In this moment, it's made clear Carrie herself is the one responsible for this much more personal death, as she flips their  car off the road and then crushes the car in with her abilities to flatten Billy first, and then Chris.

Said Thornton, "That was one of my favorite moments to film. It was like 3:00 a.m. It was one of the last things we shot that day, and I remember walking up to the car, and Mike came up to me, and he said, 'You know, I think Chris knows that it's the end.'"

Thornton recalled telling Flanagan that she agreed, and that Flanagan replied, "'Take all the time you need, and I will see you on the other side.' And it was just the most beautiful piece of direction that he could have given me."

Thornton's Chris is more nuanced than previous incarnations, as we meet her in a better, friendlier place, only to see her turn into the worst version of herself as her own life begins to fall apart. She goes on to make terrible, harmful decisions, one of which is dating the dangerous Billy, who encourages all of her worst impulses. Her final words to Carrie, seconds before she's killed, are "I'm sorry," and Thornton remarked, "I think I said 'I'm sorry' three times, and to me, it was like, in that moment for Chris, she's genuinely so remorseful. And it's so sad to me that she dies with the wrong person — with Billy there. It's so sad and I love that moment."

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Farewell to Miss D and Principal G

Two characters who survived King's book but are not so lucky in Flanagan's version are faculty members Rita "Miss D" Desjardin (Amber Midthunder) and Principal Henry Grayle (Matthew Lillard), both of whom are killed at the prom. Asked if they gave Flanagan any guff for changing their fates, and keeping them out of a potential Season 2, Lillard jokingly replied, "Yeah, I always want to be in the sequel. I know that that's when the good stuff happens!"

Truthfully, he stressed, "I never really asked. I think that when you're working with Mike Flanagan, you understand that whatever question you have, he's already answered five times. In Mike Flanagan, we trust — I feel like that is like a hashtag that lives in the universe. But as actors, there's something really reassuring knowing that you're in the hands of one of the great storytellers of our time."

As for the death of Miss D, who's swatted away by a telekinetic push that sends her across the school gym and into the fire-engulfed stage, even as she's actually trying to help Carrie, Midthunder remarked, "This is a story of many tragedies, and I think that that is one. Whether it's like the micro moment of 'Oh, Miss D got yeeted into a fire trying to help her!' or all of the bigger things that happen and all the miscommunications… All of the relationships in this show are built upon, and they travel upon, both the places where they relate and the places where they fall apart and they disconnect. And I think that is a micro example of that."

As Midthunder began going on a tangent about Chris and Carrie's relationship in the series, realizing she'd left the original topic, she then added, with a laugh, "I love this show! I'm a big fan of the show, and I just like talking about it!"

Lillard couldn't resist joking that Flanagan would regret killing off Grayle and Miss D and, given we just see Miss D flung into the fire, and don't know where she landed, Midthunder added, "My pitch was there's a mattress factory next door. She got flung through the building into the mattresses and lived!"

Carrie Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.