Forget ‘Carrie’, Netflix’s Near Perfect Series Deserves Your Next Weekend Binge
Abby Jackam is a contributer for Collider and ShowSnob, a media journalist for Trill Mag, and an aspiring novelist. She graduated Washington State University Vancouver in 2025 with a Bachelor's degree in Humanities.
Whenever she can, Abby is writing. From research papers to book reviews, Abby's passion lies in storytelling and literary pursuits.
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High school can be rough. Making friends, keeping up with classes, falling in love, it's all a bit of a challenge. Especially if you realize you have telekinetic powers. With the release of Mike Flanagan's new Carrie miniseries, audiences are brought back to the horrors of high school through the eyes of a misunderstood teenage girl. But the miniseries isn't the only show out there with teen angst and psychic powers — Netflix already has that covered.
Fans of Stephen King will recognize IT stars Sophia Lillis and Wyatt Oleff in Netflix's short-lived I Am Not Okay With This. Based off a graphic novel, this series is an homage to Carrie while pushing some of the similar themes to a new extreme. It's a sweet coming-of-age story that takes a violent twist, leaving viewers desperate for more. Like Carrie, audiences immediately know that something bad is bound to happen, and I Am Not Okay With This lets the viewer sit with their questions before delivering on an intense finale.
'I Am Not Okay With This' Is 'Carrie' For a New Generation
Sidney Novak (Sophia Lillis) is an average high school student in a boring small town. The only difference between her and everyone else around her — she has strange powers she doesn't understand and can't quite control. As she deals with bullying, her strained relationship with her mother, and her burgeoning feelings for her best friend, Sid tries to hold down a normal life with powers that are anything but normal. Alongside her eccentric neighbor Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), Sid discovers more about her psychic abilities while also attempting to be a regular teenager.
I Am Not Okay With This takes what's fascinating about Stephen King's horror and gives it a new twist. Instead of leaning heavily into horror, the Netflix series allows for a slow-burn thriller to take place, while still pushing forwards with the themes of friendship and family. Sid's journey in the show is as much about her powers as it is the relationships in her life. In many cases, her powers and her feelings for those around her coexist, creating more problems than Sid knows how to solve.
'I Am Not Okay With This' Focuses on Another Side of the Story
It'd be a disservice to I Am Not Okay With This to write it off as a Carrie copy. There are similarities, but it's not a direct repeat of King's work. I Am Not Okay With This allows for the story of focus on other aspects that Carrie never had, creating something that feels familiar but still its own.
Where the show diverges from Carrie's similar themes is where it finds its footing. One of the main emphasizes in the show is Sid's relationship with the people around her. Her family life is complicated, with Sid's dynamic with her mom being a source of angst, but she still tries to foster a close connection with her younger brother. Her new friendship with her neighbor Stanley allows for her to find an ally in her journey to understand her powers. But most importantly, her crush on her best friend Dina (Sofia Bryant) is what drives a lot of Sid's complex feelings. Her questioning sexuality is just one developing factor in Sid's hectic life, sometimes playing right into her new psychic abilities. As she becomes more confused about her feelings, Sid's powers become stronger and much harder to control. With Sid's volatile personality leading the show, the supporting characters give some much-needed heart and comedic relief that balances out the series' heavier themes.
I Am Not Okay With This is the perfect mix of teenage drama and superpowered occurrences. It's funny, a bit awkward, and captures what it feels like to be a teenager in all the uncomfortable, humiliating ways. Sid feels like a real person, with all her faults and fears conveyed to the audience. Her telekinetic powers may connect her to Carrie, but her angst is her own. For audiences looking for a similar feeling to the Carrie miniseries, Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This will deliver.
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