Carrie Ending Explained: Where is Carrie Driving? Is She Dead or Alive?

Created by Mike Flanagan, Prime Video’s ‘Carrie,’ adapted from Stephen King’s eponymous novel, charts the trajectory of the titular character’s life after the death of her conspiracy theorist father. Raised in an abusive and restrictive household, she is hardly ready for the experiences the outside world holds for her. So when the authorities mandate that Carrie’s mother send her to school, she is equal parts excited and nervous. However, she soon becomes the target of some bullies at the school, and things take a turn for the worse. Faced with constant abuse and isolation, Carrie activates her supernatural powers to fight back. Eventually, though, the extent of her powers blurs the distinction between defense and evil, leading to a chilling event that no one can ever forget. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Carrie Plot Recap

‘Carrie’ begins in Chamberlain with the death of a construction worker, which sends authorities on a long search for his house and the past buried in there. Upon opening the door, the authorities are met with a rather strange situation: mother and daughter Margaret and Carietta “Carrie” White, having isolated themselves from society, seek to continue living the same way, but are now forced to make rehabilitative efforts. While Margaret is forced to work at a retail store, Carrie is sent to a school for the first time after being homeschooled for more than a decade. Though most of her childhood was spent reading the bible and learning from her rather eccentric family, Carrie nonetheless developed a passion for reading, thanks to a neighbor providing her with books. This passion, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into liking high school.

On her first day at school, Carrie gets acquainted with three classmates in particular, Sue Snell, Chris Hargensen, and Tina Blake. While the former is nice to Carrie from the start, the latter two turn out to be the ringleaders of a bullying group. They frequently make fun of how socially inept Carrie seems to be. Things reach a turning point when Carrie gets her first period during gym class. With Margaret never teaching her about menstrual cycles, Carrie firmly believes that she is about to die, and things only get worse when Chris and the others insult her by throwing tampons and filming the entire scene. When Chris is later punished for her bullying, she doubles down by creating an anonymous social media ID using Carrie’s name, only to dig dirt on others and post it there.

Though the entire school seems to be annoyed by the account and its activities, Carrie herself chooses to remain unfazed, in no small part due to the influence of her new friend, Emaline. Together, they slowly begin to practice her psychic powers, eventually helping her command the powers at will. At the same time, she learns more about life from school and begins confronting her mother more often. This newfound hope, however, comes crashing down once Chris manipulates her into visiting the very place her father died. In response, Carrie’s mother launches a viral news campaign pushing for Chris’ suspension, and in the end, that does happen. As prom night approaches, a vendetta-driven Chris rigs the elections to let Carrie win the title of prom queen, only to drop a bucket of pig blood on her from above the stage. What neither she nor anyone else can prepare for, however, is the psychic rampage that Carrie goes on after that, burning half the town to dust overnight.

Carrie Ending: Where is Carrie Driving? Is She Dead or Alive?

‘Carrie’ ends with Carrie driving into the sunset following the Chamberlain tragedy, though we don’t know where reality ends and her own illusions begin. After bringing her house down and escaping the inferno, Carrie seemingly escapes the public eye for good, as months after the event, the police appear to be as clueless about the case as ever. Given just how many students died in the tragedy that night, it’s entirely possible that Carrie is counted amongst one of the victims, but the fact that her remains are never found is bound to raise questions. Then there is also the trail of destruction, which begins at the gymnasium and ends at Carrie’s house, and that can hardly be called a coincidence either. Based on Sue’s comments, though, it appears that the police have ditched that line of investigation for good.

The general public’s disinterest in a supernatural explanation of the tragedy is a part of what makes Carrie’s story so unique, as ironically enough, she doesn’t get recognized even when she’s at her worst. Having been thoroughly shunned by society at large, Carrie ultimately finds comfort in a world with no people in sight. It doesn’t exactly matter whether this is a fantasy world or perhaps the afterlife, as at the end it is a world where Carrie can exercise her powers and, by extension, her will to the fullest. In a way, this ending also has a more vicious touch to it, as the thing that gives Carrie a rather twisted sense of joy is the idea that this place is essentially one giant sandbox she can reshape as she sees fit. If this is indeed the real world, it is inviting a lot of trouble.

While the show retains a degree of ambiguity as to Carrie’s fate at the end, the book has a much more somber ending. The scene in the show where she deflects Billy’s car actually turns out a bit differently in the novel, as she is fatally struck by it before she manages to redirect it and ultimately destroy it. By the time Sue locates Carrie, she is already inches away from death, and using that last ounce of psychic energy, she establishes a psychological link, of sorts, with Sue, allowing for one final conversation about what it means to be human. Instead of choosing such a definitively bitter end for Carrie, the show ends things on an uncertain, but nonetheless potent note. Carrie is most likely alive and flourishing in her own little corner of the globe, and whether things spill out of control once again rests more on the people around her than on Carrie herself.

Is Emaline Real or Imaginary? Is She a Witch?

Though the story goes back and forth as to whether Emaline is an imaginary construct of Carrie’s or a real classmate of hers, the final moments reveal a third, altogether different answer. While Emaline was indeed not physically present for most of the duration of the show, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she is a hallucination. On the contrary, it is implied by one of the witches that Emaline, whose full name is Emaline West, is actually a skilled astral projector. In fantasy fiction, astral projections typically refer to out-of-body manifestations of the consciousness designed to travel through unusual realms. It is popularized in projects such as ‘Doctor Strange‘ and ‘Insidious,’ and in ‘Carrie,’ we see a flipped take on it. Instead of stepping into an unfamiliar plane, she makes herself visible only to a single person in the physical world, warping their reality instead.

Emaline’s atypical use of astral projection means that there are no easy explanations for her decisions, specifically, why she chooses only to be visible to Carrie. For Emaline, traveling around as an invisible astral figure might be a way of turning her alienation into a strength rather than a weakness. That changes, however, when she realizes that Carrie can perceive her, and from there, the two form a dynamic built on shared feelings of not being respected or understood by others. During prom, when Emaline proposes to take over for Carrie, she isn’t actually possessing her mind, as that appears to be beyond her abilities. Instead, she gives Carrie the illusion of giving up control, allowing her to bring the full burst of her powers out into the open, and in turn, allowing Emaline to revel in it as well.

Is Margaret Dead? Did She Have Powers Too?

In what is most certainly one of the more peculiar twists in this adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Carrie,’ Margaret seems to unlock psychic powers as well, right at the moment when her house almost lands on her. Upon instinctively flexing her muscles, she is seemingly able to hold the debris back for several seconds, and it’s that little window that saves her life. As she walks out of the event with relatively minor injuries, her goal of locating and rehabilitating Carrie doesn’t seem to have changed at all. However, the interviewers, secretly a coven of psychics themselves, already know that Margaret’s desire to protect Carrie is rooted in a greater desire to control her for selfish purposes. It is perhaps this very flaw that leads to her slow, painful death at the hands of the lead interviewer, by quite literally having her heart stopped by telekinesis.

Once it becomes apparent that the interviewers are themselves involved in the supernatural, a lot of questions surrounding Carrie’s abilities begin to make sense. It is implied, for starters, that these powers are genetic in origin, and just like any other trait, a person either has it in a dominant capacity or a recessive one. While Carrie seems to be a prodigy in the larger scheme of things, her mother draws from the same pool of powers in extremely high-intensity situations. This is in line with how the show references the notion of “hysterical strength,” which is reimagined as a supernatural awakening in this case. The interviewers’ questions about whether Margaret can still tap into psychic abilities likely also play a role in their decision to kill her, as, upon learning that she is back to being a regular human, they have no reason to leave behind a witness.

Who Are the Psychics? What Happens to Sue and Tina?

A major creative liberty that ‘Carrie’ takes in its adaptation of the novel is the creation of a secret league of psychics, reminiscent of witch covens. At least one of them seems to have the ability to sense other psychics, which is how their story connects to Carrie’s. Emaline likely isn’t a part of the group either, as they distinctly refer to her as a threat, suggesting that she is someone on their radar, though not as a friend. There also doesn’t appear to be a clear purpose to the coven, either, other than bringing psychics and the supernaturally gifted together. This makes sense considering how the show repeatedly draws attention to the supposed psychics of the past, who were declared fraudulent and slowly wiped out of public and cultural memory.

The idea behind the psychics might as well be based on the final pages of Stephen King’s novel, which depict an epistolary exchange taking place years after the Chamberlain tragedy. In the letters, a woman describes her fears about her daughter’s psychic awakening, noting that previous generations in her family boasted similar abilities, but this might be an even bigger deal than before. This exchange subtly indicates that psychic abilities not only exist beyond Carrie but are also getting more potent with every generation, and thus, it makes sense for a league to form around them.

Though we get scenes of both Sue and Tina giving interviews after the tragedy, we don’t know what happens to them beyond that point. This is especially important considering that the one person whose perspective we do follow beyond the interview, Margaret, winds up dead. Much like Margaret, both Sue and Tina play their own role in tormenting Carrie, whether directly or indirectly. However, given that the interviewers are expected to ask questions to not just one or two people, but a whole lot of them, it’s unlikely that Sue and Tina in particular are targets for murder. Instead, the lead interviewer uses her powers to manipulate both their memories, making them less certain about what they saw, and thus, keeping the truth about Carrie a secret from the wider world.