Ralph White

Emaline was Carrie's version of Billy Nolan, where she encouraged and implemented and was like, "Just go with all of your worst impulses." And that makes complete sense for this version of Carrie, who, unlike the book...

The book, Ralph White dies before Carrie is born.

Her, her mother may not even know she's pregnant until she gives birth to Carrie, and then it's just her and her mom until, uh, Carrie kills her at the end of the prom.

Uh, the thing is, Carrie's been in school her entire life in the book and in the other adaptations, so she has had, like, 10 years of trauma build-up from these other kids bullying her, tormenting her, and just building, building, building, building, building for, like, a decade plus.

And while they're not all the same world, they're, they may be dif- different levels of the tower.

What Flanagan is doing so smartly is giving us little Easter eggs that tie his properties together.

And so we get references to Limerick Industries in the background of signage when Ralph White is going to the construction site.

We also get a sign for Sombra, which t- those two are big, like, evil corporations in The Dark Tower series that work for, like, the big bad, who is called the Crimson King.

Nobody should be shy about this.

But on the first day of your period- As a young woman the mom or any kind of female caregiver is an essential part of that transition this is of course speaking in relatively healthy family dynamics so I'm talking specifically about the scene at the table where Carrie and Margaret are having dinner and Margaret is somewhat gaslighting poor Carrie about several things and Carrie doesn't utter one word about what happened to her that day what happened to her that day was the bathroom menstruation massacre and if it were me and I feel if it were most girls I would have been screaming for my mom down the street I would have called her at work the second it happened I would have called my mom I would call my aunt I would have called a neighbor oh my God like the need to cry and scream and vent over the humiliation I think any girl in Carrie's shoes would have immediately reached out to another female but before I go into this further I have to talk about how much I love the way Mike films this scene he slowly continues to zoom in on Margaret as she's spouting this tirade of aggression and if you're listening closely you can feel the tense energy and you can also sense Carrie's discomfort but ultimately what we take away from this scene everybody is that Carrie avoids telling Margaret anything because she is afraid of her they can't be close as mother or daughter because Margaret has put a wedge between them due to her close-mindedness her temper her inability to listen and when Carrie does reveal things or things are found out she's punished for them oh my God guys Margaret gets her up in the middle of the night and forces her to kneel on a yardstick in the prayer closet kneeling on an uneven surface like that is quite painful and so this is a small little pie piece of a much bigger issue psychologically Carrie hides from the parent she fears and I don't think she feared her father number five our educator bar patrons here to support and not judge we love a local Watering Hole listeners I love this I loved this scene so much we have a couple scenes in a sports-ish bar with our instructors from you in high school and these scenes made me so incredibly happy super true to life I love the umbrella margaritas with what looks like tahin on the rim this bar looks as I said like a sports bar but they've got tiki drinks this is a really fun hodgepodge establishment where Mr. Starden is Mr. Piest I hope I'm saying that right this is the instructor portrayed by Rahul Kohli and then we have guidance counselor Mr. Morton played by Tim Bagley who is a delight they all gather to throw one back and suss out what's been going on but buddies as they're all seated at the table server excuse me please take away those dead soldiers please remove the empty glasses I don't want to be reminded of my previous decisions that bothered me but of course the multiple drinks it's indicative that they're having a night and sometimes what that means everybody is when the teachers gather at said imbibing establishments there may be more than two consumed as we vent about our lives our poverty and recharge our batteries by uniting on why we do it but if you are an instructor please be careful at those bars eventually you learn that not everybody's on the same side and the student side that's a whole other story for a whole other day I loved the scene because it's loaded with great stuff there are so many layers in this scene you get to see their beautiful camaraderie as fellow colleagues but Mr. Starden says something really really Illuminating and interesting about being angry with Carrie and it surprises the two gentlemen but I think it makes sense to any hyper independent women out there basically Mr. Starden says that she was a high school bully for the most part in school and that she got away with a lot of stuff but that she was angry at Carrie because it's like watching a lamb walk into a wolf den and I interpreted this as somebody who again we talked about parentified children in the previous episode or a person who has to grow up really fast for one reason or another when that happens you're kind of not allowed to make mistakes you are either quickly and swiftly punished for small things or no one had time to teach you and I think with Mr. Starden she's expressing how uncomfortable Carrie makes her because she most likely didn't have the chance to be incompetent to make mistakes in a safe environment this is most women actually this is probably most people by the way especially if you're Millennial or Gen X because we were raised by Boomers and you guys already know what's in that book and so Mr. Starden observes this really needy young woman and she's frightened and frustrated to see someone so helpless and vulnerable because A the world is a horrifying place for women full stop I thought that sounded a little bit dramatic when I wrote it and then I thought no there's plenty of evidence for that letter B women have to be smart and we have to survive because no one is coming for us at least other women might come for us and that's when they finally realized that we are all each other has because the world hates us full stop not redacting Therefore, Miss Desjardin is really any person who is overwhelmed with concern because she doesn't want to see someone eaten by the wolves because perhaps she was at another time that we don't know about.

And then there's this inner frustration because nobody most likely gave her the patience she had to give Carrie, right? We get mad because we never got the chance to be dumb or make mistakes because we got burned by the stove quickly.

I don't know.

Carrie looks in the mirror, and she sees a drop of blood on her face, and she looks up, and then suddenly she looks at her reflection in the mirror, and she's covered in blood.

So again, I'm very, very curious about these time jumps, this foreshadowing.

We also have a visits, plural, and visions, plural, of Ralph White, her father, in her bedroom when she's asleep, as well as outside the prayer closet standing next to Margaret.

So Carrie is seeing stuff.

I did wanna mention the body count, 'cause it's a little hard to say.

Like, we saw one definitive death at the very beginning, and that was Ralph White.

How do you feel about that death?

Um...

Mm-hmm.

Um, earlier I mentioned the body count.

I just wanted to say that, like, I was hesitant because Ralph White is the only confirmed death, but then, like, everybody's talking about 200 deaths, so I'm not, I, I'm not sure to be like, I guess 200 people did die, but it's in the future.

It's in the flash forward.