How Mike Flanagan's Carrie TV Series Sets Up A New Stephen King Universe

Spoilers ahead for “Carrie” Season 1.

Shared universes are all the rage in film and TV, whether they’re superhero universes, a failed classic monsters universe, or a MonsterVerse full of kaiju. So, it makes sense that certain studios would want to try and adapt one of the biggest shared universes in literary fiction: the Stephen King multiverse.

Of course, Sony previously tried to do just that with its “Dark Tower” movie in 2017, and it was a huge catastrophe. But now we have celebrated horror storyteller Mike Flanagan in charge of bringing King’s world to the screen again, with Flanagan developing a “Dark Tower” TV series that King himself thinks will be “perfect.” Yet, ahead of that, it seems Flanagan has just soft-launched a second Stephen King universe on TV with Prime Video’s “Carrie.”

Flanagan’s “Carrie” TV show is an imperfect but interesting adaptation that changes a lot from its source material. That includes moving King’s original story to the present day and exploring the effect of social media and the internet on bullying. The show also makes the bullies that infamously torment its namesake more than just cartoonish villains, and that extends to her traditionally abusive mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan).

Then there’s the framing device of Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) awakening her powers in the context of a larger history of women with psychic abilities, with “Carrie” Season 1 ending on a note that remains faithful to King’s book while steering into completely uncharted territory at the same time. Flanagan has said his “dream scenario” is for this show to run three seasons, so it’s possible he might just get to explore the greater world of psychics that he’s set up here — one that could bring other Stephen King characters into the mix as well.

Throughout “Carrie” Season 1, we learn there have been countless women with extraordinary abilities, and virtually every single time, it ends in tragedy. This leads to the introduction of Thalia Dudek’s Emaline West, another girl with psychic powers, and what appears to be a whole group of individuals who track down new psychics and keep them safe from a different group that wants to eliminate them. By the end of the season, Carrie and Emaline are heading off into the sunset, free and ready to make the world what they want, while the group of psychics searches for Carrie.

While it’s a rather big departure from Stephen King’s original book, this is also the best change that Mike Flanagan makes. In the short-term, it allows him complete freedom to explore an alternate ending to this story and possibly give one of Stephen King’s saddest protagonists a happy ever after. But in the long-term, this could allow “Carrie” to pave the way to Flanagan’s “The Dark Tower” by opening up King’s multiverse and bringing in other characters with powers. 

After all, there are dozens of characters across King’s books who have either “The Shine” or some other type of telepathic ability, from Danny Torrance and Dick Hallorann in “The Shining” to Jessie Burlingame from “Gerald’s Game” and John Smith from “The Dead Zone.” Flanagan could even turn future seasons of “Carrie” into something akin to “Castle Rock,” a show that pulled from several of King’s novels while telling an original story. And let’s not forget: King’s “Dark Tower” books feature a storyline where the villainous Randall Flagg rounds up psychics. Just saying.

Season 1 of “Carrie” is now streaming on Prime Video.