Carrie's Powers Explained: How Mike Flanagan's Character Compares To Past Versions

Published Oct 8, 2026, 3:00 AM EDT Adrienne Tyler is a movies & TV features writer, with a focus on horror. She has written for Netflix, FanSided, & more. She was a regular guest on the Netfreaks podcast and was a YouTuber at some point. Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Warning: spoilers for Prime Video’s Carrie TV show. Stephen King’s Carrie is back, now as a TV show on Prime Video, and it approaches Carrie White’s (Summer H. Howell) powers differently from past versions. One of Stephen King’s most famous works is Carrie, his first published novel, which has been adapted to four movies (including a sequel and a TV movie), and even a stage adaptation. Now, for the first time, Carrie is coming to TV with an adaptation developed by Mike Flanagan and streaming on Prime Video. The 2026 Carrie TV show is a reimagining and modernization of Stephen King’s novel, but even though it has many changes and additions, it stays true to the core elements of the novel. Carrie, then, tells the story of Carrie White, who, after being homeschooled and isolated her whole life, is sent to high school and the outside world following the sudden death of her father. Meanwhile, her overprotective and abusive mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan), is forced to get a job if she wants to keep Carrie’s custody. While Carrie, excited and intrigued by the world, does her best to adapt, Margaret struggles to do so, but when a bullying scandal targets Carrie, it unleashes not only social chaos but also her dormant telekinetic powers. Carrie’s powers are a key element in her story, but they are different in the novel, the movies, and the new TV show, with the latter expanding on them in clever and unexpected ways. Carrie White's Powers Explained In all versions of Carrie, her powers are fully unleashed after the horrifying prank against her at prom, but it’s clear in all versions that her powers had been there since she was born. In the novel, the first major display of Carrie’s powers happens when she's three years old and sees her young neighbor sunbathing topless. Carrie asks her about her “dirtypillows”, a word Margaret uses to refer to breasts, and when Margaret sees Carrie talking to their neighbor, she violently drags her back home. While Margaret severely punishes Carrie at home, a rain of stones is unleashed over the Whites' house, a phenomenon that no one can explain. This scene wasn’t included in Brian de Palma’s 1976 movie nor in the 2013 adaptation, but a version of it was included in the show. In it, Carrie meets her neighbor, Stella (Naika Toussaint), but instead of pointing out her breasts, Carrie is intrigued by the book she’s reading. After Margaret finds her and drags her back into the house, a rain of stones is unleashed. Now, Carrie has psionic powers, with abilities like telekinesis (moving and manipulating objects and people with the mind), levitation, telepathy (reading minds, projecting and manipulating thoughts), geokinesis (which is why the rain of stones happens), and electrokinesis, all of them present in the TV show. The 2013 movie added the powers of pyrokinesis and fragokinesis, the latter being the ability to set off explosions. However, the book never explains the source of Carrie’s powers, making way for various theories, the most popular one being that Carrie’s father was Randall Flagg in disguise and that her powers were a form of “the shine” that her mother might have also had. Flanagan’s Carrie changes this and reveals that Margaret also had powers, as she admits in the final part of the season finale, but she actively suppressed them. Mike Flanagan's Carrie Connects Telekinetic Powers To The Larger Stephen King Universe It’s no secret that there’s a Stephen King universe, as different novels and short stories have referenced each other, creating a connected universe with its own mythology. These connections are usually left aside in adaptations of King’s works to avoid confusion or due to rights issues that limit certain mentions, but Flanagan subtly made Carrie part of the larger Stephen King universe with one mention in the final episode. The Carrie season 1 finale shows that the interviews are being conducted by Adelaide (Kate Siegel), who knows all about people with special powers like those of Carrie – in fact, Adelaide herself has powers. When Margaret confesses to her that she also has powers, Adelaide mentions that “some people have a bit of shine”, a reference to the power of the same name at the front and center of King’s The Shining. The ability of “the shine” is portrayed and described differently in the Shining novel and in Stanley Kubrick’s movie adaptation, which is known to be very different from the novel. In the source material, “the shine” is a psychic ability that mostly manifests as telepathy, but it includes other powers such as astral projection, telekinesis, and more, depending on the person. With this in mind, it makes sense that Carrie’s powers are referred to as “shine”, and it perfectly integrates the show into the Stephen King universe. Carrie Uses Her Powers A Lot Better In The TV Show Credit: Liane Hentscher/Prime Carrie famously uses her powers to unleash her revenge against her classmates and bullies after the pig blood incident at prom, but the show gives her more time to learn about her powers, control them, and use them. In the novel, there’s a moment when Margaret tries to slap Carrie, but the latter stops her mother’s hand in midair with her powers, a moment that was included in the Prime Video show. Before leaving for prom, Margaret tries to convince Carrie to stay and begins to hurt herself, with Carrie using her powers to slide Margaret out of her room and shut the door. While this doesn’t happen in the show, Carrie does push her mother into the closet to “repent” with the help of her powers. After that, Margaret is noticeably scared of Carrie, who begins to use her powers freely around the house, flipping the dynamic and giving Carrie control. In addition to that, Carrie, as encouraged by Emaline (Thalia Dudek), uses her powers against her bullies before prom. It starts as harmless displays and escalates to breaking Chris’ (Alison Thornton) nose after she verbally attacks her. Emaline later helps Carrie get more acquainted with her powers and better control them, a mentorship and support that previous versions of the character never had. 2026's Carrie Leaves More Questions About Her Powers Mike Flanagan’s Carrie TV show adds a lot more to Carrie’s powers and their origins than the novel and previous adaptations, and while this is beneficial to the lore of Carrie White, it also leaves more questions about them. The show gives Carrie an ally in Emaline, a character that doesn’t come from the novel nor any other previous adaptation. As confirmed in the final episode of Carrie, Emaline is a powerful and apparently dangerous astral projector, and it isn’t until the finale that she’s finally physically interacting with Carrie, but her motivations are unclear. At the end of the first episode, a girl is shown saying she can feel Carrie and her powers, and she notifies a woman about it, who is much later confirmed to be Adelaide. Carrie, then, right away confirms that there are other people with psionic abilities aside from Margaret and Carrie, but the presence of some of them at the prom in the final episodes raises many questions that aren’t answered. It’s unclear what Adelaide and her people want with Carrie – we don’t really know if they want to help her or get rid of her, and Emaline telling Carrie that she’s taking her to safety, far away from those looking for them, only makes it all more confusing and intriguing. All these questions and more could be answered in a second season, but, at the time of writing, Carrie is a miniseries, with no confirmation of a second season. Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00 Network Prime Video Showrunner Mike Flanagan Directors Mike Flanagan, Axelle Carolyn, Hiromi Kamata, Kate Siegel, Kyra Sedgwick Writers Mike Flanagan, Alexandra Magistro, Justina Ireland, Jamie Flanagan, Elan Gale, Rebecca Klingel, Elizabeth Padden, Dani Parker Cast Summer H. Howell Carrie White Samantha Sloyan Margaret White