In the weeks since the binge-release of Mike Flanagan’s new series-long take on Carrie on Prime Video, there has been a great deal of discourse surrounding the series and the liberties taken within it. In updating the story for a new generation, Flanagan and co. set this new adaptation in the present-day, expanded upon the story as writ so that it could hit the eight-episode quota, and also made some substantial changes to some of the most iconic moments from Stephen King’s original 1974 novel of the same name.
Overall, Carrie was extremely well-received, garnering predominantly positive reviews from fans and critics alike, and becoming such a commercial success for the streamer that a second season has already been greenlit. But that fact, in and of itself, speaks to just how much was changed about Carrie in the adaptation process; the book infamously ends with Carrie White dying, but the series ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, setting up further adventures for this character. Now, though, Flanagan is revealing that a surprising person was actually integral to most of these larger changes: Stephen King himself.
As Flanagan explained to Polygon, “There’s no world where I’m doing anything like that without talking to Steve about it first. He got to see all of that before I agreed to do the show, and was very intimately involved in deciding how we wanted to expand that universe… Some people seem animated by trying to protect Stephen King in this, and what I want to say to them is ‘Guys, this is Steve’s idea.”
The showrunner went on to detail that some of the biggest changes were directly from King himself, including Carrie’s ultimate survival. “We all, including Steve, agreed that this version of Carrie deserved to survive the story, and we were always servicing that… As a King purist, I’m deeply sympathetic to those reactions but I’m also really more grateful for the larger volume of conversation I’m seeing of people who really enjoyed that and are intrigued to see where it could go.”
Another huge change to the story came in the form of the introduction of the character of Emaline West. Emaline is a wholly new character who becomes a primary player early on and is gradually revealed to be someone else with, as the show puts it, “shining” abilities. She befriends Carrie White and even goes on to essentially possess her during the events of prom night, controlling Carrie’s powers to help bring about the mass-scale destruction. This has generated a polarizing response among fans and critics alike, far more so than the majority of the series. And yet, Flanagan insists that these were also ideas that King’s fingerprints are all over.
“I see so much discourse about Emaline,” he said, “which was the character King had the most input into and the one he was most excited to shape. So it’s very interesting to me to watch people defend Steve from Steve. But these were the things we always knew were going to be the controversial elements.”
The first season of Carrie is streaming now on Prime Video. No production timeline has been announced yet for season 2, but we'll remain on the lookout for updates.
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