CARRIE s1e1: FIRST PERIOD

 

CARRIE s1e1: FIRST PERIOD

It’s hard to pinpoint this show so far. They see to be heading toward this being Carrie THE SUPER HEROINE’s back story and origin story. No, no, and no. Carrie is and was a monster created by her mother.

 

BUT since this is 2026 and female empowerment is the thing and bashing white (and sometimes other) males is the thing, Carrie’s father becomes the villain of the piece. Carrie’s mom is denoted as abusive, unbalanced, cold hearted and villainous but it’s NOT her fault: she is as much a victim of the man as Carrie is. No female can be evil in the 2026 version of things.

 

Thus, the principal is sort of nice to Carrie but fights the mom on “if Carrie had been prepared at home.” He can be seen as overbearing toward Carrie’s mom and villainous, too.

 

Thus, the girl bully, the evil Chris, has a reason she’s a mean girl, too and guess who’s the dick behind her meanness: her dad, another white male. He can’t afford to pay for her college, thus the man is written as someone who thinks it is “nice” she got into a great college but who continually curses at and in front of his daughter. He puts her down constantly and vents his anger out on her, too. It’s HIS fault Chris is a monstrous bully and she takes no blame. By the script and the writers.

 

The only male written as kind is Tommy Ross, Sue’s boyfriend. Sue is the girl who sort of befriends Carrie but is mean to her briefly when Carrie accidently bumps her during a lockdown drill that Carrie had no information about and which panicked Carrie into a stressful body slam to Sue. I’m waiting for Tommy to turn evil and/or abandon Sue or tempt her into being mean to Carrie and/or die.

 

So, none of the females are written as responsible for anything evil. It’s all some male’s fault.

 

Don’t get me wrong. The dialog, the script, and the execution and acting are all good, which makes this message even more disturbing and false. False premises abound in today’s media. Males and females can both be the problem, not just males.

 

The most upsetting scene so far in the first episode is Carrie telling the principal and some other man, probably the assistant principal, “…you are so lucky my husband is not here.” 

 

Ultimately, this first episode fails in recreating the movie’s horrid scene of Carrie’s first period as Sue just watches and does nothing to stop the bullying. And then there’s the entirely unnecessary subplot about other people who are telepaths. “It wasn’t just Carrie,” Sue tells the investigators.

 

At first, I thought the entire set up, given that we all know the Carrie story (there’s been three versions of the first story and also at least one sequel), is told through interviews after the destructive prom climax. Never mind that the new TV show had to go bigger in that nauseating modern idea (probably from Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, two of the worst show runners but also others including the makers of that awful AMERICAN HORROR STORY), “go bigger, go better” expanding the violence ideal. It’s another false premise: we don’t need world wide destruction. Here, instead of just the prom deaths, they have to expand the deaths to 200 and have the entire town destroyed including the Main Street: fires, rocks and boulders falling, and a crack in the ground and eventually a BUFFY finale ending crater where the town used to be. This ruins the entire story.

 

And now we find out it was not just Carrie that did the damage? No, no, and no. I find my interest went high at the start and the acting strong, with Carrie far more sympathetic a character than in ANY version before this but by episode’s middle with every male but Tommy (who does die at the prom we’re told by episode’s end---not much of a shocker and again, it seems only two FEMALES survived and from what preliminary articles told, Carrie herself will survive--sigh) seemingly cold hearted nasties, AND the overkill by Carrie and her telepathic as yet undefined, unexplored fellow telepaths, this seems a stuffed---and needlessly overstuffed--- narrative.

 

Sadly, it feels as if the show in its first episode has already blown it.