Editorials
“Black Summer” – Why the Intense Zombie Series Deserves a Third Season on Netflix
What was once a promising landscape of streaming movies and television has now begun evolving and—some would argue—devolving. Companies are making cuts across the board including Netflix, who is notorious for cancelling their shows before they even have a chance to grow. Probably one of their best horror series to date has been “Black Summer,” a show that has shown immense promise but was at risk of cancellation from season one. The spiritual prequel to “Z Nation,” the John Hyams created horror drama proved to be a powerhouse of a zombie apocalypse series, spawning enough fan demand that it managed to earn a second season.
The well received second season came to an end on June 17, 2021. Since then it’s been virtual radio silence from Netflix and The Asylum on whether we’re ever going to see a third season, and much to fans’ horror, creator Hyams confirmed on Twitter that all hope of a third season seems dim at this point. Although Netflix hasn’t confirmed a cancellation, there also hasn’t been news of a renewal. This is heartbreaking not just as a zombie fan but as someone who, like a lot of other horror fans, had been invested in this particular universe. Season two’s finale ended on a big gaping question mark, allowing for all kinds of interpretations on the events that unfolded.
Mom Rose was left lifeless on an airport tarmac after a massive explosion, and daughter Anna was left waiting in a getaway car unsure of the condition of her mother; even more interesting was survivor Ooh “Sun” Kyungsun. She’d managed to not only find the mysterious airplane that all of the survivors were venturing toward, but she’d been whisked away by the pilot. The season two finale ended on uncertain terms, leaving fans to ask Netflix when or IF we’re ever going to get a third season. In a world saturated by zombie entertainment, “Black Summer” has managed to stand apart as a rollercoaster ride of pure adrenaline, compelling drama, and bloody zombie horror. And if there’s any horror series that deserves a third chapter, it’s this one.
In the fast-moving “Black Summer,” there’s no time for flashbacks, back stories, or even an explanation on what the virus is. The first episode starts with characters running and the running just never stops. “Black Summer” introduces a brand of infected that is not just quick, but is also ruthless, relentless and can re-animate in a heartbeat. In this world there’s no room for tearful goodbyes to a deceased loved one; you either stay and get attacked, or run like hell. To make things worse, they’re tough to beat. One episode from season one revolves entirely on a group of survivors sheltered in a diner trying to figure out how to take down ONE of the infected lurking outside. Despite outnumbering it, they spectacularly fail to bring it down. The freshman season managed to garner some great drama and conflicts, but also kept the pacing at a ten at all times.
There’s never any time to comprehend what’s unfolding because survival is the number one priority. And if you think “The Walking Dead” was big on killing off characters, “Black Summer” ups the ante by killing anyone and everyone without a hint of notice or foreshadowing. In one instance, an elderly woman is saved by a getaway car, prompting her to tearfully thank them and promise she’d repay their kindness. Only literal moments later the car crashes and she’s thrown head first through the windshield. “Black Summer” watches the carnage like a pseudo-documentary where the camera is almost always following the survivors – and most aren’t survivors for long.
The big showdown involving the survivors’ attempts to reach the stadium in season one is still one of the best scenes in any piece of zombie fiction. And season two is just outright lawless chaos and havoc that completely eliminates all hope as soon as it can. Season two kicks off with a gut punch to the viewer as we re-visit Lance. For those that don’t remember, Lance spent most of “Black Summer” season one running away from the dead, and barely escaped in the finale. When the season two premiere opens, Lance manages to grab a car and stops to help a couple in distress. In an instant he’s shot in the neck at point blank range and kicked out of the car. After some events lead to some speeding around and evading the dead, the new driver of the car slows down to a stop to collect himself, only to be interrupted by a now re-animated Lance who smashes through the car to lunge at him.
All bets are off from this point on because we stuck with Lance throughout the freshman season. We rooted for Lance. And in a split second he’s murdered, reduced to one of the millions of infected darting through the streets. He doesn’t die a heroic death. No one does in this world.
From there, “Black Summer” season two opts for something different by dropping us into a snowy wasteland where survival is even more difficult than ever. With dwindling resources left behind, scavengers are reliant on random supply drops from the military, which should be an indication of hope. But when everyone sets their sights on it, they’ll do anything to lay claim. This is where the hope all but fades out, as once again no one is safe, no one is spared, and no one is immune.
“Black Summer” season two outright explains without a hint of subtlety that, when everything crumbles, we’re all going to be at each other’s throats clawing for resources. It doesn’t matter if you’re friends, family, co-workers, or whatnot; when it comes down to it, many of us will resort to savagery and go to war, even if it’s for a ham sandwich or just a few more bullets. Whereas season one had society falling apart, season two finds mankind falling apart. Director John Hyams doesn’t hold back in depicting how ugly mankind is and will be when everything goes down. While many, many shows have shown the lows that we’re capable of in these situations, “Black Summer” approaches it at breakneck speed. It starts in high gear and rarely gears down.
With “Black Summer” virtually left on the bubble, fans are still somewhat left hanging and hoping there’s some sort of confirmation. The zombie series has so much potential to continue to raise the bar for the sub-genre and continue exploring the devolving of mankind. This is a series that deserves to go out on its own terms, or at the very least complete its entire arc. Unfortunately, that notion has become a luxury that TV junkies just aren’t afforded anymore.
Maybe we just have to be loud enough for Netflix to hear us.
“Black Summer” Season 3. We’re begging you, Netflix. Please?
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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