Need to get caught up? Check out my review of episode one, First Period.
We’ve now reached episode four of Carrie. Which means we’re halfway through the series.
Is something actually scary going to happen soon? I sure hope so. Let’s talk about it.
After an exciting opening scene in which a woman accidentally levitates herself twenty feet in the air, we return to Carrie’s high school. Which is in the process of ripping itself apart. Chris has been using the Carrie Red Instagram feed as a virtual Burn Book. She’s posting pictures with horrible comments about everyone in school. Friends are fighting. Kids are going after each other in the hallways. Even the teachers aren’t safe. And though the teachers are worried, there’s not much they can do.
Personal note: God, I’m glad social media wasn’t around when I was in high school.
While everyone else is worrying over the social media harassment hellstorm, Sue’s worried about a different app. Her period tracker app is telling her that she’s five days late.
Meanwhile, Chris’s dad is in ever-worsening money trouble. And somehow, it keeps affecting Chris more than him. Her credit card is declined. Her car is repo’d. So she’s struggling. When she reaches out to Sue, Sue’s too busy to come help her.
That’s because Carrie was wandering around in the road barefoot, after finding out that her mom has refused to pick up her dad’s cremains.
Everyone’s having a rough time. So, Chris decides to take everyone out to do some drugs and hang out at a work site. Carrie takes way too many edibles, thinking they’re regular candy. So when Chris introduces her to the actual spot where her father died, it doesn’t go well.
There were good things about this episode. To start with, I am honestly scared of Billy. He clearly has some mental health issues. But not like my mental health issues that make me check the burner three times or get really excited over a planner. More like the mental health that causes someone to blow up buildings. He’s selling drugs to kids. He’s throwing bricks off bridges. He makes my skin crawl.
I also hate and love how Chris is responding to everything. Not because it’s a good way to respond. I hate it because she’s a child and I feel terrible for her. I love it because she continues to be a complex, honest, and sympathetic character. I both want to hug her, make her a cup of good tea, and punch her in the throat.
Or maybe just punch her dad in the throat. I could go with that.
Chris is painful to watch, because she feels real. She makes me feel bad for my high school bullies retroactively.
All that being said, this series is starting to wear a little thin. I mean, this is supposed to be a horror series. Instead, I feel like I’m watching Mean Girls or Popular.
(Does anyone else remember Popular? Do you remember how Sara Rue was the fat girl in that series? My God. Everyone, do me a favor and go have an ice cream and love your body, please?)
And yes, I know that the point of this story is that teenage bullying pushes a girl to kill her whole class. But at this point, I am kind of over the teenage drama. Though Carrie is also over it.
So, maybe the show is doing exactly what it means to be doing. I’m just saying, from a viewer’s perspective, I would like more blood and less high school drama.
We’re halfway through the series at this point. Hopefully, we’ll see more horror and less high school in the next episode.
My book, Station 86 Volume One, is available now on Amazon! It’s got two dark sci-fi stories about murder and mayhem on the station of First Contact.
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