Abhiroop Das
Developed by Mike Flanagan, Prime Video’s ‘Carrie’ reimagines Stephen King’s classic novel in a 21st-century context, where the eponymous protagonist not only has to deal with bullying and harassment in school, but also in the digital realm. What makes all of this a lot more complicated, however, are the bursts of supernatural phenomena that manifest every time Carrie feels a heightened emotion. These abilities, she soon realizes, are psychic in nature and can be enhanced and controlled, both for creative and destructive purposes. The question that goes unanswered for the most part, however, is why Carrie in particular is capable of flickering lights and lifting objects with her mind, and what it means to truly be in control of such power. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Carrie’s Powers Are Implied to be Hereditary
While the show never explicitly explains how Carrie got her powers, there are hints suggesting that she is not as anomalous as we are initially led to believe. Instead, she seems to be one among hundreds and thousands of young girls and women who developed psychic powers, and were either dismissed or shunned from society. By invoking several real-life stories and rumors about people believed to be witches or psychics, the show creates a fictional history of the supernatural, and within it, Carrie emerges as the crown bearer because of just how powerful she is compared to all the other psychics or witches in the show. That is merely the broader perspective on her abilities, though, and it isn’t until the final episode that we realize that Carrie’s powers come from her mother’s side.
Right after Carrie crashes her entire house over her mother’s head, there is a brief moment where Margaret awakens psychic powers and holds the debris in the air. This only lasts for a few seconds, but ultimately cushions the fall and saves her life. In her later conversations with the interviewers, Margaret confirms that she hasn’t felt a burst of supernatural strength since, which means that she likely has a suppressed trait that was temporarily triggered under difficult circumstances. In Stephen King’s book, Margaret reveals that her own mother had similar powers, which is further confirmation of there being a genetic force behind all the mysterious happenings in Carrie’s world. The particular question of how she grows so exceptionally powerful, though, has a different answer.
Carrie’s Telekinesis Manifests as a Defense Mechanism in High-Stress Situations
Under the broader label of psychic abilities, Carrie primarily exhibits telekinesis and heightened sensory awareness, but all of it actually has an emotional core. Just like how Emaline’s astral projection ability can be interpreted as her way of battling isolation by turning it into a weapon of invisibility, Carrie’s powers mostly manifest as defensive mechanisms and evolve according to her situational contexts. The very first time she uses her powers in-universe actually happens to be an outlier compared to the rest of the occurrences, as Carrie, as a little girl, seemingly manifests stones out of thin air and rains them down on her house. It is very likely that her subconscious develops this ability specifically as a response to her mother’s religious belief, as from that lens Carrie’s actions look no less than a divine miracle.
As a teenager, Carrie’s first major telekinetic move at high school is when she simulates a near-earthquake in her class, once again to protect herself from a high-stress situation. Her psychic abilities also respond to an influx of positive emotions, such as the ones she feels while riding a car, causing it to briefly levitate. At no point in the story do we see her abilities have a physical strain, either, as they appear to directly correlate to how strongly she is feeling something. Fittingly, by the end of the show, her existing profile of defensive telekinesis is flipped upside down, and it is only then that we see the amount of destruction that she is truly capable of, and why Emaline specifically likens her to a god.
Read More: Where is Prime Video’s Carrie Filmed? All Shooting Locations
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