In Mike Flanagan’s Prime Video series, Carrie is solely responsible for the deaths of Tommy Ross, Chris Hargensen, and Billy Nolan during the prom-night finale. Flanagan says Emaline is behind much of the killing at the school, after she appears to take over Carrie. The question is how much control Carrie still has while Emaline is directing her.
Thalia Dudek plays Emaline, a high school loner who befriends Carrie, played by Summer Howell, and helps her build her psychic abilities. The show later reveals that Carrie is the only person who can see Emaline because Emaline is using her powers to astral project from a distance. Although she isn’t physically at the prom, she still plays a major role in the events there.
Once Carrie is named prom queen, the students pour pig’s blood over her, laughing and recording the humiliation on their phones. Carrie unleashes her powers on the students, first sending out a psychic blast that destroys their phones in response to the sea of cameras pointed at her. When the students behind the prank run from the catwalk above, Carrie tries to attack them and accidentally kills her date, Tommy Ross, played by Joel Oulette.
Carrie appears to pause after Tommy dies, seemingly unsure whether she has done enough or should go further. Emaline then appears behind her onstage and offers to take over. She seemingly gains control of Carrie’s body and unleashes bloody mayhem throughout the school, affecting students and faculty alike.
Flanagan told Polygon that Carrie alone is responsible for certain deaths. “No one but Carrie White can be blamed for killing Tommy Ross. No one but Carrie White can be blamed for killing Billy Nolan and Chris Hargensen.” Arthur Conti plays Billy, Chris’s boyfriend, while Alison Thornton plays Chris, who torments Carrie.
Flanagan says the scene makes Carrie’s role in Chris’s death clear: “We were very careful to make sure Emaline was way off to the side while Carrie looked Chris in the eye and made the decision to crush her alive.” Carrie later pursues and kills Chris and Billy, and Emaline is absent.
Flanagan says none of the writers believed their version of Carrie would consciously choose to kill Principal Grayle, played by Matthew Lillard, or Ms. D, played by Amber Midthunder, or to ignite innocent people around her.
Flanagan says the show’s approach treated Carrie as a tragedy more than a horror story, with events as unintended consequences of cruelty. “Tragedies have many authors,” he said. “We were trying to tell the story of the kaleidoscopic collection of people whose small decisions led to this moment.”
Although school shootings come up early in the series, Flanagan says Carrie wasn’t meant as a metaphor for them. “The thing about this being a tragedy in our approach, way more than a horror story, was that these are the unintended consequences of cruelty,” he said. “We didn’t want Carrie to be a school shooter. We wanted her to be someone pushed to the brink who explodes in a way that isn’t necessarily controllable, but who isn’t callous to the lives of the people around her, because that isn’t the character Summer created.”
He added that this isn’t the person Carrie has been throughout the seven episodes before the prom. Flanagan says the complexity of her culpability and a prismatic look at the tragedy gave the writers an opportunity to create a prom scene unlike those seen before. Carrie is streaming now on Prime Video.
