The Institute’s Supernatural Series Is Officially Back, a Perfect Stephen King Follow-Up to Carrie

A return with new material

The Institute’s first season used up the story told in King’s novel, so season 2 is expanding its lore. The series received a mixed response compared with recent adaptations such as It: Welcome to Derry and Carrie, but MGM+ renewed it after it performed well enough.

Season 2’s opening episodes make the show’s connections to Carrie more apparent. Both stories center on young people with unusual abilities, while The Institute raises the stakes by depicting multiple children with telekinesis, telepathy and precognition.

Children exploited for their powers

Carrie was King’s literary debut and his first breakout horror novel. It uses telekinesis to explore the effects of abuse on a young adult. The Institute revisits related themes through children abducted from their homes and subjected to immoral experiments.

Links across King’s stories

King has not explicitly connected Carrie, The Institute and The Dark Tower. Still, the stories share elements: The Dark Tower describes psychic abilities as expressions of a cosmic force called the Shine, while The Institute’s characters are expected to use their powers through quantum manipulation.

In The Dark Tower books Wolves of the Calla and The Dark Tower, people with psychic powers are held captive by the Crimson King and called Breakers. They are expected to weaken the Beams of reality. The Institute’s focus on organizations exploiting gifted people echoes that idea, while Carrie presents an earlier story of young people with powers.