Animation
Super Why’s Comic Adventures (2026)
This reboot of ‘Super Why’ proves to provide the same preschool-friendly, preposterous predicaments of its predecessor.
Everyone has a different high school experience. Some teens focus on academics or athletics. Others get involved in various clubs or student council. A few kids might just be trying to survive until graduation.
Carrietta White falls into that last group. Well, not exactly. Carrie’s mom, Margaret, has promised her that she’ll only have to go to school for one semester. Two, at most.
See, up until now, Carrie has never left the property where her house sits. She was born in the upstairs bedroom. She was taught to pray in the downstairs closet. Her dad worked construction jobs to pay the rent and buy food and other necessities for living.
But Carrie and Margaret? Hardly anyone even knew they existed. Margaret dropped off the grid when Carrie was born. And Carrie herself was never even registered as being born.
So when Carrie’s dad dies during a construction accident, it’s a bit of a culture shock for the two women. Fifteen years in isolation will do that.
Without Mr. White around to pay rent, Margaret has to reenter the workforce. And since social services now knows about Carrie, they’re requiring her to attend school while her mom is at work.
Margaret insists that it’s only temporary, that everything will return to normal soon.
But nothing about Carrie’s life is normal.
Carrie’s first day at school is … rough.
She’s eager enough to learn and make friends. She’s especially excited to use a computer for the first time. But Carrie doesn’t dress like the other kids. She doesn’t talk like them. And when the school performs an active-shooter drill, Carrie doesn’t act like the other kids, either.
There was no need to tell Carrie about school shooters growing up because Carrie wasn’t attending school. Why frighten her with the knowledge?
As a result of her ignorance, Carrie believes there actually is someone on campus with a gun. So when a disguised police officer barges into the classroom, Carrie absolutely panics. She believes she’s going to die, and she responds accordingly.
Her classmates, far from understanding, are quick to label her as a freak. Her teachers are dumbfounded that Carrie could be so uninformed. And her mom? Well, Margaret is furious. The school shouldn’t be traumatizing students with these drills, she says. And she demands that Carrie won’t be forced to participate in another one.
Bad as that incident is, though, Carrie’s second day is somehow worse.
Margaret never told Carrie about menstruation, either. She didn’t explain what would happen or how to handle it. So when Carrie starts bleeding after gym class, the teen panics. She believes she’s going to die, and she responds accordingly.
Freak,her classmates say as they film her and pelt her with tampons.
Seriously? ask her teachers, handing Carrie pamphlets about menstruation.
Unacceptable, Margaret answers, defending her position to opt Carrie out of the school’s health education program and accusing the pamphlets of containing pornography.
To top it all off, Carrie realizes that she has psychic powers. The emotional turmoil of her first two days in a public school triggers telekinetic and telepathic abilities.
Like I said: Nothing about Carrie’s life is normal.
Nothing spurs TV networks to spooky releases like Halloween. So it’s only fitting that Prime Video would release this adaptation of Stephen King’s famous novel in October.
If you’ve read Carrie, seen one of the R-rated film adaptations or even just read summaries of the plot, then you probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. Carrie is bullied relentlessly by her peers. Because of the incident with her first period, they nickname her “Carrie Red.” And it all culminates when her classmates dump a bucket of pig’s blood on her at prom.
Carrie then goes on a psychic rampage that starts a fire. By the time everything is over, her bullies and most of the senior class are dead—and half the town is in ruins.
In that regard, this take of Carrie isn’t any different from previous versions. There will be blood—and lots of it. Teenagers are going to get brutally murdered by a girl with telekinetic powers. Adults will spectacularly fail to stop the bullying that causes it all—perhaps even doing a little damage themselves. And Carrie’s very religious mother will play a significantly detrimental role in the teen’s mental state, including trying to kill Carrie.
But Prime Video’s Carrie differs in a few ways, too. For instance, when Carrie begins menstruating, Margaret doesn’t claim that it’s a sin. However, she does punish the teen for lying about it by locking her in their family’s prayer closet. Additionally, Carrie isn’t the only person with psychic abilities: Apparently, there’s a whole school of young women who share this power and attempt to help Carrie.
Still, foul language flows as plentifully as blood. Unkind and unsympathetic teens exhibit extreme bullying behaviors, which could be triggering for some viewers. The murder of those teens is treated as something to celebrate, as just desserts. Teen couples are seen making out at every turn, including LGBT pairings. And Christianity isn’t painted fondly, either, especially since the only representation of the faith is from a woman who physically and emotionally abuses her daughter.
If this version of Carrie isn’t all that different from previous versions, why unpack it at all? Well, frankly, when a show’s main characters are teenagers, teens are usually the target audience. And while many may be inclined to think that this version is different, somehow, it’s important to know that it’s not.
Carrie is and will continue to be a story that, while about teens, shouldn’t be shown to teens, no matter how cautionary a tale it may present.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
When Carrie White’s father passes away and the state becomes aware of her and her mother’s presence, she’s required to attend public school for the first time in her life. Unfortunately, her ignorance about the outside world results in severe bullying at the hands of her peers.
Throughout the episode, we see flashes of a future event where half the town is destroyed by a fire. These flashes and voiceover narration tell how a fire was started at the high school’s senior prom, which then spread all over town. We hear emergency calls where crying people say that everyone who attended the school dance is now dead. Other calls indicate that there are dead bodies in the streets where the fire has spread. We see a shot of a teen boy bleeding out on the gym floor. And we ultimately learn that more than 200 people have died.
A pile of cinderblocks collapses on top of a man, crushing him to death. Later on, when investigating his supposedly empty house, police discover the man’s wife and child (Carrie). Someone alleges that perhaps the man was abusing his family (referencing a news story about some parents who held their 13 children in captivity with chains), but that doesn’t appear to be true. That said, a flashback indicates that the wife, Margaret, may have been abusing her daughter. When she catches a young Carrie speaking with a neighbor, she drags the girl back inside their house as Carrie screams, begging not to be locked in their family’s prayer closet.
That incident triggers a strange phenomenon: As the neighbor watches in horror, rocks begin to fall from the sky on the family’s house. She recalls that the rocks didn’t hit anyone else’s property. Later, when Carrie becomes a teenager, traumatic events trigger a psychic response. Without realizing it, she causes lights to flicker and objects to move. For instance, during an active shooter drill at school, she causes a TV to fall on the foot of a police officer helping to conduct the drill.
It should be noted that the active shooter drill traumatizes Carrie. Because she was raised in an extremely isolated environment, she didn’t know about school shootings—and she certainly didn’t know about the drills designed to prepare students for such events. She panics during the drill, in which a police officer bursts into the room with a weapon. Carrie tackles a fellow student to the ground in an attempt to protect her. (That student isn’t amused, feeling that Carrie overreacted.) Carrie later has nightmares about the drill, and her mom confronts school administrators, demanding that Carrie be exempt from future drills. (In the nightmare, she also sees her dad, who disappears in a flash that frightens her.)
Carrie’s new classmates bully her, mocking her clothes, the way she talks and her response to the shooter drill (which one girl films). When Carrie gets her first period, though, the other girls act monstrously: Carrie doesn’t know about menstruation, so when she sees the blood on her pants (and gets some on her hands in examination of herself), she panics, believing that she’s dying. One girl throws her into the locker room showers and turns on the faucet—it’s clearly meant to humiliate Carrie since a sink would have sufficed. The girls then pelt Carrie with tampons, chanting, “Plug it up!” They film the entire incident as a terrified Carrie sobs helplessly. (This triggers another telekinetic response, which is apparently felt and partially seen by another girl with psychic powers miles away.)
Carrie is shocked to witness two girls making out at school. When a teen boy starts kissing his girlfriend in class, a teacher tells them to stop. Later on, we see them making out in the back of a car. An apparently transgender teen scowls at Carrie in the hall. Many teen girls wear cropped tops that show off their belly buttons. A few wear shirts that show cleavage.
When something on Carrie’s neck sets off her school’s metal detector, she misunderstands the female guard’s direction to show what set it off. Carrie begins to unbutton her top before the distracted guard realizes what’s happening and corrects her, indicating that she only needs Carrie to lower her collar enough to show the necklace. A female classmate who witnesses this makes a crude joke about not wanting to see Carrie’s breasts.
A man going through a divorce says some foul things to his teenage daughter about how his wife is sleeping with another man. He is clearly not invested in his daughter’s life. For instance, when she asks him about paying for college, he tells her he doesn’t have time for her “drama.” In response, the girl herself is mean to the daughter of her mom’s new boyfriend, blaming that girl somewhat for her mom’s infidelity and her dad’s financial woes.
Many high schoolers vape outside of school.
Before his death, Carrie’s father listens to a radio program that talks about various conspiracy theories. We hear from his coworkers that he’s a doomsday prepper. Margaret demonstrates that she is also deeply untrusting of the government and other institutions. Because of this, she prefers to live in isolation—by which she hopes to protect her daughter from the outside world. And she often says that the country has fallen far from God’s favor.
However, Margaret is rude to all authority figures, insisting she knows better than them (and spouting off more than a few conspiracies in the process). When she’s required to find a job after her husband’s death, she ridicules her new boss and the customers she must now serve, lamenting their consumerism.
A cross hangs on the door of the White family’s downstairs closet. There’s a small altar inside with a painting of angels above it. Carrie and Margaret kneel to pray at this altar, but we also learn that Margaret sometimes locks Carrie in the closet as a form of punishment. Carrie and Margaret both wear cross necklaces. Carrie is taught that any woman who doesn’t share their family’s beliefs is a “whore.” We learn that Carrie’s parents never let her read anything but the Bible growing up. (A neighbor secretly loans her several other books, many of which do not necessarily align with Christian beliefs.) One girl at Carrie’s school wears a hijab.
We hear nine uses of the f-word and six of the s-word. Other profanities include, “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “d–k” and “p-ss.” God’s name is abused seven times, twice paired with “d–n,” and Jesus’ name is abused twice. After hearing her mother swear, a young girl repeats the swear while her sister scolds their mom for the profanity.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
This reboot of ‘Super Why’ proves to provide the same preschool-friendly, preposterous predicaments of its predecessor.
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