Carries twisty ending, explained

Well, that was a bit different from the book, wasn't it?

Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Carrie veers away from Stephen King's novel in a number of ways — the 21st century setting, for one — but nowhere is this more noticeable than in the series' closing moments.

So what happens, and what does it all mean? We've broken it down.

What happens at the end of Carrie?

Carrie is bookended by interviews with the survivors of Ewen High School's infamous prom night. In the show's opening episode we learn that Carrie wasn't the only one with powers at the doomed event, and in the final episode we find out exactly what happened. A woman that Carrie's mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) had met with earlier, who had killed her own power-wielding child, turns up to prom to assassinate Carrie. Meanwhile, three people (one played by Flanaverse go-to Ruth Codd) from a secret organisation of people with similar powers arrive to try and recruit/protect her. Presumably none of them realise quite how powerful Carrie is, though, meaning the party ends in bloodshed, fire, and the widespread destruction of the town of Chamberlain, Maine.

After hunting and killing her tormentors Chris (Alison Thornton) and Billy (Arthur Conti) by crushing them in their car post-blood bucket, Carrie returns home and confronts her mother a final time. Margaret tries to kill her daughter but Carrie stops her, destroying their house and trapping her in the wreckage before leaving with Emaline (Thalia Dudek), another teenager with powers who's been astral projecting into the school to befriend Carrie throughout the series.

The interviews we saw being carried out in the first episode? In one of the show's final twists, this turns out not to be a documentary or a police interrogation. The interviewer (Kate Siegel) is actually another person with powers, using her abilities to stop prom survivor Sue (Siena Agudong) from remembering what happened, before finally stopping a now-freed Margaret White's heart mid-interview.

Who is Emaline?

Emaline befriended Carrie earlier on in the show. It seemed at first they were just another high school student, an outsider who celebrated Carrie's weirdness (unlike most of Ewen High) and the one person Carrie could really open up to — most importantly, about her burgeoning powers. But then a twist at the end of episode 5 revealed Emaline to be invisible to everyone but Carrie. A figment of the troubled girl's traumatised mind? No! The finale reveals Emaline is, in fact, real. However, the version of Carrie was seeing at school was just an astral projection.

At this stage, we still don't know much about Emaline (when Carrie asks, their response is simply "I am your friend."). Given that they have a power, though, and are mentioned by Siegel's character, we can assume that they're part of the same group of people with powers.

Who is Kate Siegel's character?

Again, we don't know much about the mysterious interviewer (and Flanaverse favourite). But we do know that she's capable of willing a person to do her bidding via a voice they hear in their own mind, and that this voice is powerful enough to stop a person's heart. During her interview, when Margaret asks her if she has children, her response is "in a way". Our best bet is that she's a leader in the group of people with powers, which includes Emaline and the trio who come to Carrie's prom.

Her intention in carrying out the interviews appears to be to cover the group's tracks — she erases Sue's memory before murdering Margaret and making her death look like an accident.

Where is Carrie being taken?

The episode ends with Carrie being driven along an unnamed road by Emaline, who has apparently travelled a long way to fetch Carrie in person.

"I am escorting you to safety from the monsters on our heals," Emaline says, presumably referring to people like the woman that brought a gun to Carrie's prom. We don't know where exactly they're headed, but we can assume it's the base of operations where the people with powers operate.

Will there be a Carrie Season 2?

The setup is certainly there, and it sounds like something Flanagan has thought about too.

“In my dream scenario, I think it’s three seasons," Flanagan told Collider a while back. "In my dream scenario, I think Carrie has a wonderful three-step arc. It’s a trilogy, really.”

Based on the way the show ends, we can see how a Season 2 could focus on Carrie getting to grips with her powers at a kind of telekinetic training academy. But at the time of writing, nothing has been confirmed.

Carrie is streaming now on Prime Video.