Abhiroop Das
Created by Mike Flanagan, Prime Video’s ‘Carrie’ follows the titular character’s initiation into the world outside the four walls of her abusive home. As she hesitantly tries to make friends at her new school, a humiliating incident makes her a target of the bullies. Struggling to cope with the stress, Carrie becomes increasingly vulnerable and discovers her telekinetic powers. It is here that we meet Emaline, who becomes her new friend and helps her hone her supernatural abilities. However, by the end, Emaline’s very existence becomes a question, reframing their entire relationship and its role in Carrie’s eventual arc. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Emaline is a Rogue Psychic Whose Intentions are Hard to Decipher
Towards the end of ‘Carrie,’ we learn that Emaline is not just a hallucination of Carrie’s, but rather a real person with psychic abilities. That’s not all, either, as it appears that Emaline has gone rogue and decided to take Carrie on an adventure, away from the prying eyes of both the general populace and the coven of psychics and witches looking after her. In a way, she simultaneously retains her original narrative function of projecting Carrie’s internal voice and instincts, while also being her own fleshed-out character, with motivations that are implicit in nature, but can be understood by tracing her footsteps back. From her very first appearance, Emaline makes constant and overt references to how she cannot be seen by others, which suggests that her meetings with Carrie were planned ahead of time, with foreknowledge of their differing abilities.
While all the sequences of Emaline motivating Carrie to assert herself better still feel like words emanating from her own subconscious, here they gain a more layered meaning. All this time, Emaline had been projecting how she had felt over the years, as an all-powerful, but lonely being. Wandering around in an astral form means that a person’s mind-body distinction disappears to an extent, and they are no longer worthy of note. However, Carrie brings Emaline’s individuality back into question, constantly sharing her own human experiences with Emaline, despite it later being revealed that astral entities typically don’t even touch another ghost, and that she still has a lot to learn.
In most fantasy stories, astral projection refers to a consciousness’s ability to exit the soul and traverse through the world, either in this plane or an alternate one. Given that this deals firmly in the supernatural, one’s soul projections are often invisible to the naked eye. However, the fact that Emaline is visible to Carrie breaks that rule from the very start, which suggests that Emaline’s astral projection may more so be connected to walking into a person’s consciousness rather than an actual space. There is a lot of room to theorize and experiment when it comes to these abilities, but with Emaline escaping with Carrie, much remains ambiguous as ever.
Emaline’s Astral Projections May be a Subconscious Desire For Connection Being Manifested
The reveal that Emaline might be a real person soon recontextualizes her brief but intense dynamic with Carrie. Where we are initially led to believe that the two met inside a washroom, it might be the case that Carrie simply spotted her while she was being a voyeur. From there, the two begin a relationship forged in their years of fear, alienation, and a desire to make something more out of what cards life has dealt them. On a deeper level, however, Emaline can also be interpreted to be jealous of Carrie and the power she possesses, as at numerous points Emaline likens her to a God, and that directly leads into the events of the Black Prom, where Carrie’s abilities are allowed to breathe freely at last.
Curiously, Emaline’s role in the prom massacre is completely recontextualized once we realize that she might have been alive. While initially it feels as if Emaline is taking over to let Carrie’s subconscious distance itself from the guilt of causing a tragedy, in reality, Emaline doesn’t seem to have the power to take over minds. This is supported by Sue’s noticing a malicious shadow behind Carrie rather than inside her, which further suggests that Emaline is her own supernaturally gifted person, with an agenda firmly in the gray. Though she latches onto Carrie for comfort at first, her real goal is seemingly to create a world where psychics can live with their heads held high.
Read More: Where is Prime Video’s Carrie Filmed? All Shooting Locations
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