When I first heard that Mike Flanagan was leaving Netflix, I knew it was a blow to Netflix, not to Mike Flanagan. His creative strengths were going to take him somewhere, and I just hoped his next home would give him the latitude to continue doing the amazing work he became known for through series like The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Then came the news that his new deal at Amazon would begin with an adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, and my heart sank. Haven’t we been here before? We got another film adaptation in 2013, and the results were so-so. But Flanagan was turning Carrie into a television series, and, rather audaciously, envisioning a three-season arc. With King’s blessing, and with the author serving as an executive producer, Flanagan set out to update Carrie for a new generation. These are the best kinds of remakes, the ones that aren’t simply putting a new coat of paint on something iconic. Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, starring Sissy Spacek, is one of the finest adaptations of King’s work, and you aren’t going to top it by simply doing the same thing again. And, of course, how could Flanagan ever top Carrie: The Musical? But seriously, the question becomes: If Stephen King wrote Carrie today, what would that look like? Flanagan has found an answer, and it’s a remarkable one.

There are going to be detractors, especially purists who don’t want anyone messing with the original. But King himself has embraced this interpretation, which ought to offer at least some encouragement. Flanagan has taken the bones of King’s story and transplanted them into the high school hallways of today. In the fifty years since De Palma’s film, kids have had to contend with school shootings, active-shooter drills, metal detectors, and a social media ecosystem that has transformed bullying into something that follows them everywhere. Teachers and administrators often struggle to intervene when so much of the harassment takes place online and outside school property. Flanagan has talked about listening to contemporary teenagers and incorporating their concerns into this adaptation, and you can feel that effort in the way he reshapes these characters. This isn’t simply Carrie with smartphones. It’s an attempt to understand what being Carrie White might mean in 2026.

The series introduces us to Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), whose father dies and leaves her alone with her mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). Carrie has spent essentially her entire life sheltered inside their home, raised by parents whose religious zealotry and conspiracy theories have shaped everything she knows about the world. Margaret is deeply resistant to outside interference, but circumstances force her to let Carrie attend school and to find work herself. This is a household with a prayer closet, regularly used as a place of repentance and sometimes punishment. And yet Carrie enters high school with an almost startling warmth and optimism. She’s curious, kind, and excited to see what the world has to offer. In some ways, she’s a clean slate. She has only the information her parents have allowed her to possess, leaving enormous gaps in her understanding of ordinary life, even as she sometimes seems wise beyond her years. Two girls immediately take notice: Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) and Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton). Sue sees a kind soul who deserves a chance. Chris sees a threat to the social order, which, as far as she’s concerned, revolves around Chris. She’s willing to share the spotlight with Sue, her longtime best friend, but not with this strange new girl whose unfamiliarity with everything makes her such an easy target.

The most horrifying early incident comes when Carrie gets her first period at school. Because nobody has explained menstruation to her, she believes she’s dying. Chris and the other girls ridicule her while Sue watches in horror. The resulting punishments only make Chris dig herself into a deeper hole, and she launches an anonymous social media account called Carrie Red, essentially the Burn Book from Mean Girls turned into a constantly updated public feed. It becomes a source of chaos for the school and the community. Some of Chris’s accusations are outrageous, but others, including a disturbing allegation involving a teacher, turn out to have substance. Meanwhile, Margaret finds her own platform as an outraged parent. Whether she’s protesting active-shooter drills, safe-sex pamphlets, books Carrie might read, or the corrosive effects of social media, she becomes the loudest voice in the room, convinced that the modern world is corrupting children. There’s a fascinating irony in watching someone who has so thoroughly isolated and harmed her own daughter position herself as the parent who cares most about protecting kids.

Of course, we know this is all building toward the infamous prom, and the series makes no secret of that. It uses flash-forwards and survivor interviews to show us glimpses of the devastation, which extends beyond the school and into the surrounding town. Flanagan is taking an even bigger swing than De Palma did, while making us wait to understand exactly how the catastrophe unfolds. Carrie also discovers her telekinetic abilities relatively early and begins learning to control them. She’s no longer content to remain the meek girl everyone can push around. She has the power to defend herself, at school and at home, and sometimes uses it in surprisingly creative ways. But that creates an uncomfortable question about what happens when a girl who has suffered so much suddenly has the ability to make everyone else suffer, too. The series is at its most compelling when it refuses to make that question easy.

One of the greatest benefits of having eight episodes is the space to turn Chris into a genuinely complex villain. Thornton is terrific, and Flanagan gives her far more to work with than the standard mean-girl archetype. Her parents are divorcing, her father is struggling financially, and her plans for the college she wants to attend are threatened by the discovery that he can no longer afford it. She resents her mother for leaving, despises her mother’s new boyfriend, and treats his daughter Brooklyn with a cruelty that sometimes exceeds even what she directs at Carrie. At least Chris occasionally pretends to be Carrie’s friend. She doesn’t even bother pretending with Brooklyn, despite her mother’s pleas. None of this excuses her behavior, but it makes her a far richer character. Sue has her own complicated journey, trying to build a friendship with Carrie without entirely abandoning Chris, while also considering her future with her boyfriend Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette), college, and life beyond high school. Tommy is an especially welcome presence, genuinely kind and patient, with no suggestion that his decision to take Carrie to prom comes from a place of malice. Chris’s boyfriend Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), a mean-spirited dropout and drug dealer, is comparatively one-note. We also spend time with Tina Blake (Josie Totah), a sort of rival mean girl operating just outside Chris’s orbit. Her trajectory, particularly her interactions with Carrie late in the season, offers some of the show’s more interesting surprises.

The adult performances are equally impressive. Matthew Lillard plays Principal Henry Grayle in what I would consider one of the best performances of his career. It isn’t a flashy role, but he navigates an extraordinary number of difficult situations with an authority and maturity that demonstrate just how far Lillard has come from the cocky teenage characters and goofy Shaggy-type roles that once defined his career. Now he’s Mr. Responsible, and that apparent 180 is a brilliant piece of casting. Amber Midthunder is also excellent as gym teacher Rita Desjardin, whose compassion for Carrie is sincere, even if compassion and empathy aren’t superpowers capable of stopping telekinesis. Samantha Sloyan gives Margaret a frightening conviction that makes her more than a stock religious fanatic. Another major departure is the introduction of a larger mythology involving women with extraordinary abilities and groups that either seek to protect or destroy them. Emaline (Thalia Dudek) is part of that expansion, and I won’t spoil exactly how she fits into the story. I will say that I watch far too much film and television, because I had a pretty good idea of what Flanagan was doing with her almost from the moment she appeared.

One of the moments that hit me hardest comes when Sue is interviewed about what happened. Asked what she wants the world to remember, she acknowledges the casualties but reminds her interviewer that they were just kids. That’s what all of this ultimately comes down to: a bunch of kids trying to get through high school. If you’ve seen Flanagan’s previous work, you know he doesn’t shy away from gore, but Carrie is surprisingly restrained for much of its run. There are episodes that simply allow the characters to exist, without feeling obligated to frighten or disgust the audience every few minutes. When the violence arrives, it absolutely delivers, and Adrienne Barbeau’s audio description narration does some lovely work throughout, particularly when the material becomes more intense. But the horror lands because Flanagan has spent so much time making these people feel real. That’s always been one of his greatest strengths. He doesn’t just create horror and then populate it with characters. He creates characters, gives them lives and relationships, and builds the horror around them. By the end, you feel as though you’ve lived with these people long enough to understand them, for better or worse.

I have surprisingly few complaints, although there are a couple of choices that give me pause. In the final episodes, the confirmation that other people possess abilities beyond Carrie’s starts to feel more like groundwork for a second season than something necessary to finish the first. Part of what makes De Palma’s film so powerful is that Carrie feels unique, and expanding the mythology risks diminishing that quality. I also struggled with some of the deaths during the climactic destruction. We know prom is going to end in mass casualties, but some genuinely decent people, including individuals who tried to help Carrie and never mistreated her, end up paying the price. For a show that wants us to understand Carrie as a complicated protagonist, those deaths push her uncomfortably close to becoming an antagonist. There are casualties in the finale that are difficult to justify, even allowing for the fact that she’s overwhelmed and out of control. On a lighter note, there are some fun Easter eggs, including a movie theater advertising a Brian De Palma retrospective. That’s a lovely little nod to the filmmaker who brought the original Carrie to the screen.

I’m also curious whether Emmy voters will remember this series when nominations roll around. Flanagan’s previous television work hasn’t exactly been showered with Emmy recognition, and even with Carrie becoming a success for Amazon, I worry it will be forgotten by next summer. Summer H. Howell certainly deserves consideration for carrying the series, but if I had a ballot, I’d be taking a very hard look at Matthew Lillard for supporting actor and trying to find room for Samantha Sloyan, Alison Thornton, and Siena Agudong in supporting actress. This is an ensemble worth celebrating, not simply a horror series with a memorable title.

The ending leaves the door open for the already-announced second season, and although relatively few characters survive, there are enough possibilities for Flanagan to take this story somewhere unexpected. Am I a little scared of the prospect of three seasons of Carrie? Absolutely. Am I intrigued? Also absolutely. I’ve learned not to count Mike Flanagan out, no matter what he says he wants to adapt. During the promotional tour, he even talked about properties ranging from Jaws to Jurassic Park, and I can only imagine the horror-inflected versions rattling around in his head. He’s not looking to abandon his comfort zone and make a cheerful family film. He knows his lane, we know his lane, and we’re all better for it. If he and Stephen King have conceived a three-season story, I’m willing to see what they’ve cooked up. Carrie shouldn’t have worked. Somehow, amazingly, it does, and it’s one of the best surprises of 2026.

Fresh: 8.9/10