A haunting opening, complex characters and a heartbreaking portrait of Carrie White make this Stephen King adaptation an intriguing start.
Carrie (2026) Episode 1 review exploring Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation, its chilling opening, bullying and Carrie’s tragic origins.
What kind of Stephen King reader would I be if I hadn’t read Carrie yet, even though I’ve already read his other books, including Misery, The Long Walk and Bag of Bones? I definitely plan to read the book, but for now, I’m thoroughly enjoying how the story unfolds in this new adaptation. It feels like reading a book that slowly reveals its characters, their histories and the circumstances that shape them. Everyone feels grounded and lived-in, with so many layers to explore, especially the main characters.
I was initially suspicious of the idea of remaking Carrie, especially after watching the 2013 adaptation, which I remember only vaguely now. But I do remember that I didn’t like that movie one bit. For someone who hasn’t read the book, that adaptation could easily make you question the source material itself.
Thankfully, things look much more convincing with this new adaptation. So far, the storytelling feels suspenseful and frightening in both supernatural and realistic ways. What I particularly like is the idea that the trauma and bullying Carrie experiences will eventually turn her into a bully herself, except that she possesses the power to become a monstrous supernatural force, fuelled by anger and the constant betrayal of people she gave every opportunity to treat her kindly.
That’s what makes Carrie’s story so heartbreaking. She doesn’t begin by hating the world. She begins by wanting to understand it, explore it and believe that people can be good. But the people around her are going to teach her a very different lesson.
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Carrie (2026) A Horrifying Opening That Immediately Hooks You
The show begins with the Great Fire of Chamberlain, an inferno that engulfs around two hundred people, most of them students from Ewen High School, where Carrie studies.
What makes this opening so effective is how the show presents the tragedy. We see footage of the fire while victims and witnesses report the incident to emergency services, still struggling to process what is happening around them. The shock, helplessness and fear in their voices feel incredibly tangible. Combined with the visuals of the raging fire, the entire sequence becomes genuinely horrifying.
It immediately hooks you into the story.
I went into the episode thinking I would give the show a chance, but that opening made me want to watch the entire thing. And unlike so many movies and shows that begin brilliantly before losing their momentum, Carrie doesn’t immediately lose its grip after the opening.
Instead, it takes us to the present, where Sue, played by Siena Agudong, is being interviewed by a mysterious woman named Adelaide. We hear Adelaide’s voice through the questions she asks about Carrie, while Sue gradually becomes the centre of our attention.
This is another fantastic sequence because of how convincingly it resembles a true-crime documentary. The way Sue is prepared for the interview, her appearance without makeup, and the overall framing make it feel as though we’re watching a real survivor recount a horrifying event.
Sue survived the fire, but it seems unlikely that she will ever escape the trauma it left behind.
Then comes this dialogue:
There’s something no one understands about what happened here in Chamberlain.
The Police don’t get it.
The Press doesn’t get it.
The scientists don’t get it.
And you won’t get either.
What I love about this scene is that Sue hasn’t even been asked a question yet. The camera is still being adjusted, and the interview hasn’t properly begun, but she already seems to be reliving that dreadful night in her mind.
She knows why she is there. Even before the interviewer begins questioning her, the memories are already taking over. You can see the anxiety and fear on her face, and that makes the moment incredibly effective.
The show doesn’t need to explain everything that happened to Sue. Her face tells us that whatever she experienced was so horrifying that she has never truly recovered from it.
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Carrie (2026): Sue, The Survivor Who May Have Been Able to Prevent the Tragedy
In the flashbacks, Sue appears to have a relatively sorted life. She’s doing well at school, has a promising future ahead of her and is preparing to go to college. She’s kind, hardworking and independent, having grown up with a single working mother and two younger sisters.
In many ways, she’s the opposite of her best friend, Chris.
But the Sue we see in the present is almost unrecognisable emotionally. She looks broken, anxious and consumed by guilt. It doesn’t feel like ordinary survivor’s guilt. There’s something more personal about the way she talks about Carrie, whom she considers her friend.
I suspect Sue’s guilt comes from believing that she failed Carrie when she needed someone the most.
Even though Chris initially appears to be the main villain of the story, I think Sue could become a much more complicated character. She might be the person who had the opportunity to prevent things from becoming so terrible but failed to act when it mattered.
That doesn’t necessarily make her a worse person than Chris, but it could make her role in the tragedy far more complicated. Sometimes, the people who hurt us directly aren’t the only ones who contribute to our suffering. The people who could have helped us but didn’t can leave us with an entirely different kind of pain.
And that’s one of the things I’m interested in exploring as the show progresses.
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Carrrie (2026): Why the Characters Are the Show’s Greatest Strength?
What I appreciate most about Carrie so far is the depth it gives its characters right from the beginning.
Whether they’re good, bad or somewhere in between, the important characters have histories that help us understand where they come from and what might eventually push them towards the people they become.
The show moves between interviews, flashbacks and glimpses of the future. Through the interviews, we hear different people share their versions of Carrie. Some describe her as a monster, a bully or a troublemaker, while others remember her as kind, shy and friendly.
So who is Carrie, really?
To understand her, we have to go back to a time before the fire, before the interviews and before anyone was recounting the horrors of that night. We return to a time when the White family was living in isolation, almost like a cult of three.
And this is where the show begins building the foundations of its characters.
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Carrie (2026): Ralph and Margaret White, Parents Who Fear the World
Carrie’s father, Ralph White, played by Tahmoh Penikett, is an ex-Marine who works as a construction worker. He’s extremely secretive about his personal life, and his coworkers and neighbours know very little about him.
At the same time, he believes he understands how the world works. He’s obsessed with government conspiracies and the idea that an apocalypse is coming. He believes the outside world is corrupt and dangerous, and he has taken steps to protect his family from it.
But his carefully maintained secrecy comes to an abrupt end when concrete blocks fall on him at work, exposing the existence of the family he has kept hidden from everyone. The two remaining members of the White family are discovered alive, hiding in the prayer closet of their house.
That brings us to Margaret White, played by Samantha Sloyan, who is every bit as fanatical as her late husband.
Margaret doesn’t trust the outside world, the authorities or the established systems of law and order. She believes everything around her is corrupt and that doomsday is approaching.
What makes her frightening isn’t simply the violence she might inflict. It’s the way she controls her anger. Throughout the episode, there’s a constant feeling that she could snap at any moment.
Samantha Sloyan’s performance is incredible. Her body language, facial expressions and the smallest changes in her demeanour communicate the discomfort and resentment she feels towards the new arrangement imposed on her and Carrie by the court.
She is constantly irritated by the fact that their lives are now being governed by the state’s rules and authorities. Yet she is very good at bottling up her anger until someone challenges her beliefs or attempts to exercise authority over her.
That’s when she becomes razor-sharp, using her intelligence and fanatical convictions to challenge anyone who stands in her way. The combination makes her a deeply unsettling presence.
But what makes Margaret particularly interesting is that she genuinely loves Carrie, at least in her own twisted way.
She cares for her daughter, but her love is possessive and toxic. She doesn’t want to share Carrie with the world because she believes the world will corrupt her.
However, I suspect her fear goes deeper than religious fanaticism. Margaret and Ralph have spent years keeping Carrie isolated from the outside world. Now that Carrie has an opportunity to experience it for herself, Margaret might be terrified that her daughter will eventually leave her or hate her for keeping her hidden.
Perhaps Margaret’s desire to protect Carrie is also a way of protecting herself from the possibility of losing the only person she has left.
And that makes their relationship much more complicated than a simple story about an abusive mother and her daughter.
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Carrie (2026): What Did Her Parents Know About Her Powers?
One of the things I’m particularly curious about is whether Margaret and Ralph knew what Carrie was capable of from a very young age.
When Carrie meets the neighbour’s daughter, she is eventually punished by being locked in the closet. Soon afterwards, rocks begin falling from the sky onto the White family’s house. The rocks don’t fall everywhere. They fall on their house.
That raises an important question: did her parents recognise that Carrie possessed supernatural abilities, and if they did, what did they make of them?
Were they frightened of her? Did they consider her powers a sign of something evil? Or did they interpret them through their own religious beliefs?
I really want the show to explore this aspect of Margaret’s character in greater depth. Her relationship with Carrie could become even more fascinating if we understand how she reconciles her love for her daughter with her fear of the world and her fanatical beliefs.
There’s so much potential here, and I hope the show doesn’t treat Margaret merely as an obstacle in Carrie’s life.
Because Carrie has always been an interesting story to me for the same reason that Frankenstein is such a fascinating story. Both explore the idea that monsters aren’t necessarily born as monsters. Sometimes, the people around them, through their cruelty, rejection and mistreatment, help create them.
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Carrie White: A Girl Who Still Believes People Can Be Good
Despite being raised by fanatical parents who distrust the world, Carrie somehow grows into a giddy, optimistic girl who can brighten a room with her curiosity and adorable smile.
She doesn’t seem to have inherited the same bitterness and anger that her parents direct towards the world. Instead, she is excited by the prospect of going outside, meeting people and discovering what life has to offer.
I find that incredibly touching.
It feels as though the books she secretly receives from her neighbour’s daughter, hidden in a bird-feeding box, have played an important role in shaping how she sees the world.
Because Carrie has been so disconnected from other people, she hasn’t yet learned how cruel they can be. The age-appropriate books she reads have taught her to believe that people can change, that even those who behave badly might have reasons for doing so, and that things can eventually turn out well.
Her parents might have restricted her freedom, but she still seems to believe in the possibility of goodness.
She hasn’t yet experienced the kind of hatred that can make a person question everything they believe about humanity.
That changes when she enters school.
As someone who already knows the broad outline of Carrie’s story, I feel terrible for her. Summer H. Howell is perfectly cast. She makes Carrie look so adorable, fragile and pure, and her performance captures the character’s love, curiosity and kindness.
Knowing the atrocities Carrie is going to experience in the name of bullying and jealousy makes watching her so much more painful.
She is going to face betrayal, backstabbing and all kinds of cruelty from people who have no idea how much damage they are inflicting. She has spent her life sheltered from the worst parts of human behaviour, and now she is going to discover just how vicious people can become over the most petty reasons.
It’s going to destroy her, and it will probably destroy our hearts along with her.
Sometimes, I genuinely wish her story didn’t have to unfold the way we know it inevitably will.
Because Carrie doesn’t deserve any of it.
Carrie (2026) Episode 1 Review: Final Thoughts
What makes this first episode work for me is how it builds a world around Carrie before asking us to confront what she might eventually become.
The documentary-style opening creates immediate suspense, Sue’s guilt raises questions about what happened, and the White family’s history gives us a glimpse into the environment that shaped Carrie. Most importantly, Carrie herself is presented as a girl full of love and curiosity who still believes people can be good.
Knowing what lies ahead makes it difficult not to feel protective of her.
I’m genuinely enjoying this new adaptation of Carrie. The modern take on Stephen King’s classic, the worldbuilding, the character development and Mike Flanagan’s involvement make it feel like a distinctive piece of storytelling that genuinely invests you in its characters.
I have more thoughts about the episode, especially about Chris and the psychology behind bullying, but those deserve a separate discussion.
If you’ve read the book or watched previous adaptations, I’d love to know what you think of this new version. Are you enjoying its modern take on the classic? What do you think of the characters and the way the show is developing their backstories?
Thank you for reading!
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