Need to get caught up? Check out my review of episode one, First Period.
We’ve reached the penultimate episode of Carrie. Normally, in these reviews, I go over the storyline, then talk about what I liked about the episode. Then, we talk about what I don’t like. We won’t be doing that this time. Because there wasn’t a thing I didn’t like. This episode was perfect. There isn’t a thing I would change about it. So let’s talk about it.
We start this episode a few weeks after the riot around Chris’s expulsion. And for Carrie, it couldn’t get any better. With her biggest school bully gone, she can enjoy school again. She and Sue can hang out in peace. She’s even got her mom on a leash.
Then, Tommy asks her if she wants to go to the prom with him. If there even is a prom. At first she’s unsure. Her mom even warns her it’s a bad idea.
They even use the line from the book. “They’re all gonna laugh at you.” It sent shivers up my spine.
Honestly, I might have to give the book another try.
But Carrie just wants to have a good night. She gives a passionate speech at a community discussion, defending the prom. Saying that the school deserves to remember good things about each other, not the terrible events of the riot. Her passionate speech wins out, and the school decides to have the prom.
While Carrie’s life gets better and better, Chris is drowning. Her dad’s in jail. She’s not welcome in her mom’s house. She’s been expelled and has no future to speak of. She’s living with Billy and all of his scaly friends.
No judgement on the lizards, actually. As far as I’m concerned, his love of reptiles is his only redeeming feature.
Chris has a lot of people she should blame for this. Like her own damn self, for instance. Her dad’s another candidate. Instead, she blames her mom and Carrie. When her mom gives her one last chance, a path to healing, she refuses it. And instead sets about planning to humiliate Carrie at the prom.
We all know that part of the story, though. We knew before we even saw the first episode that this was going to end with Carrie, covered in pig’s blood on the stage, followed by her classmates screaming. And we are not disappointed.
It’s hard to know where to start with this episode. But I think the best place to start is with Carrie’s relationship with her mom.
Carrie is bullying Margaret. She bought a radio. Margaret is terrified of her child.
Good.
At the same time, though, it’s clear that Carrie wants to make peace with her mother. The passionate speech she gives for the prom? She’s talking to everyone, but she’s also talking to her mother about putting all of this ugliness behind them. Of course, Margaret doesn’t see it that way. Well, at least Carrie tried.
Then, of course, there’s Chris. Chris had so many chances to fix things. So many people jumped in to warn her, threaten her, talk sense into her. She was given chance after chance to stop what she was doing, make things right, and save herself a lot of heartache.
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I want to say that she acted like a wounded animal, hurting, and just lashing out at anything that got close enough to her to scratch. But she is not an animal. She keeps reminding everyone that she’s eighteen, and she’s right. She’s an adult. More than that, she was treated with far more patience and compassion than most people would have been in her situation. And so when the time comes, which we know it must, it’s hard to feel sympathy for her.
She just had to say she was sorry. She didn’t even have to mean it.
This episode really was incredible. But I warn you, don’t watch it if you don’t have time to watch the final episode right after. Because there’s just no way you’re turning the TV off after the end of this one.
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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