"Foreign Language" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hysterical strength

Back in Georgia in 1982, while repairing a car, a man was trapped underneath, the result of a jack breaking while he was under it. His mother attempted to lift the car on her own and, in spite of the vehicle's overwhelming weight, she was able to succeed in pulling it up and off of her son. 'Experts' called it a case of hysterical strength. The truth was that she actually discovered a latent power within her, stronger than muscle and bone, that allowed her to lift the 3,000lb car for three minutes, and it was something she could tap into from that point on.

After the incident in the locker room, Carrie was brought to the principal's office where Principal Grayle and Ms. Desjardin asked her, kindly, to let them know who started the teasing in the showers. Ms. Desjardin led this along, indicating that Chris Hargensen was leading the charge when she came in. Nonetheless, Carrie wasn't forthcoming with this info, instead claiming that it was too loud and too bright to tell. Grayle sent her to the nurse's office and had Ms. Desjardin follow soon after, but not before letting her know that she'd need to call Margaret White-- already not a fan-- and tell her about the incident. If Carrie gave up some names he could lead in repercussions, but there was nothing else he could do in the meantime.

Answer: None of these

Chris would end up showing off her video of the locker room incident in class, joking with the other students that they should be calling her 'Bloody Carrie', or 'Carrie Red'. Brooklyn, one of the other girls in class, suggested that Carrie was probably terrified and deserving of a bit more sympathy, but Chris shut that down quickly, suggesting that no one needed to be self-righteous on the girl's behalf.

In the nurse's office, Carrie would confide in a willing and open Ms. Desjardin about her situation, asking if there was something wrong with her, but she was reassured that the opposite was true; everything that she was experiencing was completely normal. The real shame was that her mother never told her about any of this. Ms. Desjardin gave over a couple pamphlets explaining the situation and suggested that she would call her mother, but Carrie asked her not to. After all, Margaret never wanted her to come to the school in the first place, so an unexpected phone call would be a problem.

Answer: Department store

It was probably for the best. While Carrie was at school, her mother struggled through the day working the checkout line at the grocery store. Despite being obligated to ring customers through, she hit the first of many breaking points when dealing with one customer, suggesting that she put everything back due to the processed ingredients in the foods they'd picked up. When another customer came through the till with more sensitive products, she refused to serve them, calling up discussion of abortions and promiscuity.

Margaret's supervisor would call her into the office, having already accrued several complaints about her throughout the day, and Margaret would go on the offensive about the right to refuse business, but unfortunately, that wasn't a right she had as a trainee. Instead of being fired outright, her boss swapped her to a maintenance role.

That afternoon, while walking home, Carrie noticed (eventually) that every mailbox she passed by seemed to open on its own. She didn't know it was because of her anger.

Answer: Brooklyn

At home, Sue had to ask her boyfriend if she was being an awful person. Contemplating the day's events, she felt bad, but Tommy reminded her that she never joined in with Chris and Tina in the locker room.

Chris, meanwhile, didn't think about it much at all. While she was thinking about dinner, Sue messaged to let her know she told Tommy about Duke. That took a back seat though, as her food app order didn't go through-- card declined. Her dad brushed it off, suggesting it was probably fraud detection, but it was instead another indication that their family money problems were worsening. While he tried to order on his card he gave her the bad news, specifically that she'd have to be splitting time between his house and her mother's, even though she didn't particularly like mom's new boyfriend or his daughter, Brooklyn. Chris went to her bedroom without eating.

At the White household, Carrie refrained from telling her mother about her day as long as possible, but when her mother acknowledged she was wearing a new shirt, she was suspicious. To regain a bit of control over the situation, Margaret told her to bring her homework down after their meal; she wanted to know exactly what her daughter was being taught. Carrie, she said, was too trusting of these insidious institutions. The world has never been kind to people like them. Margaret reiterated that she would set things right, but in the meantime, they needed to play their parts.

Answer: A cattle prod

Ms. Desjardin found herself at the bar in the evening, unwinding after the long day at school, and after being approached by Billy Nolan, not knowing who he was, she ordered a drink and played along, letting him know that she was new to town, having joined the faculty of the nearby high school only a few months earlier. She was saved from the awkward conversation by Mr. Peist, there to meet her for a drink, and he let her know that Billy was the reason the school had metal detectors installed; he was expelled two years earlier for bringing a cattle prod into the school to attack a kid at lunch.

The two brought their drinks back to a waiting Mr. Morton, there to gossip about the day and commiserate, and there, Ms. Desjardin laid out what really happened. At the end of it, she said she wanted to hit Carrie-- not to be mean, but to rough her up a bit so that she could weather actual problems she was going to face at the hands of mean teenagers. She acknowledged that if it were only a few years earlier, she'd probably be there making fun of the girl. In the meantime, Peist recommends, if Grayle won't do anything about it, she had their full support in being a vigilante. Carrie would be fine.

Answer: Sex-ed pamphlets

Carrie was awakened in her bed when her mother found the pamphlets from the nurse's office, and though she had a brief vision of her father, it was Margaret sitting next to her, silently contemplating her next moves. Margaret had rooted through her daughter's bag, found the sanitary pads the nurse gave her, and figured out the truth-- at least as far as Carrie's first period. Despite Carrie's insistence that she was going to tell her mother, that withholding was enough to justify penitence. Margaret would march her down to the prayer closet, force her to kneel on a ruler, and keep her there until she knew she had enough.

The next day, when dropping Carrie off at school, she'd lay out the problems behind the pamphlets and their ideas. Carrie, reasonably, justified that knowing their contents would allow her to fit in, but the risk was too high. Carrie asked her mother not to go into the school and speak to the principal (again).

Margaret did it despite the request, demanding to know who gave her daughter the pamphlets (which she deemed pornography), but Grayle noted that they were okayed by the state as part of their basic curriculum. The problem is that Margaret opted Carrie out of this curriculum, a fact that Grayle assumed the opposite on in light of the previous day's incident. He inadvertently let this slip, and naturally that led to a bigger conversation.

Answer: That she saw her dead father

When the girls in Carrie's class headed to the gym, they found that Ms. Desjardin had a bone to pick in light of their activities the previous day. Sending Carrie off to Mr. Morton's office, she set the girls to line drills, running back and forth in the gymnasium until she told them to stop. Anyone who didn't would have two weeks of detention. Chris, frustrated, nearly took her up on the latter out of spite; Sue made her run.

Mr. Morton would apologize to Carrie for taking her from her class, but with a gap in his day, he wanted to take the opportunity to speak to her about reading, a topic he'd discovered, through others, was of great interest to her. After exchanging some of their favourite quotes back and forth, Carrie would open up a bit and ask him a question: "Is it normal to see things that aren't there?" She admitted to seeing her father around since his passing, and while she missed him and wanted to see him, it didn't feel particularly right or normal. Morton reminded her that it was normal to take time to process this grief.

Answer: A military brat

As what would appear to be a gift, Mr. Morton would bring Carrie to the school library and show her the options available to her. The books were free to read at her leisure; the computers were available. She could explore as she wished. It was at one of the tables, with a stack of books, that Carrie would see her mother walking outside, escorted to her vehicle by Principal Grayle. The concern she experienced in that moment coincided with a rumble that shook the table enough for her to notice. She would end up rushing to the restroom to cry, but looking at herself in the mirror, she had a vision of herself, covered in blood, looking back at her. A crack seemed to form in the mirror without her realizing.

That's when Carrie was surprised by someone else being in the room-- another student. Carrie initially lashed out at her for gawking, but the girl, named Emaline, put her at ease by letting her know that she was the new, weird kid before her, so she got where she was coming from. High schools were mean places, and she'd see a fair number of them; kids would always target other kids. Emaline would let her in on a secret though: Carrie had all the power, and the other kids would only hurt her if she let them. Carrie couldn't give them ammunition.

In gym, Ms. Desjardin finally relented, but not before she had at least one of the girls acknowledge her point. Sue would be the one to call it out, getting the other girls to agree that what happened in the locker room would never happen again. On the way out, Sue would be taken aside, and Ms. Desjardin would ask a favour of her-- to look out for Carrie. The girls followed her lead; she could set the tone by being kind.

Answer: False

At dinner, Chris would be stuck at her mom's new place having the meal with the new boyfriend, Kent, and his daughter (and her fellow student), Brooklyn. It'd be their first together as she'd held out for so long, and the reluctance would be palpable in spite of Kent putting his best foot forward about her future. Chris revealed that she got into Duke, a fact her mother wasn't aware of (she'd not been around, after all), but beyond that, she acted as a stick in the mud for the rest of dinner.

When her mother finally got to speak to her alone, they had a long-awaited talk. Her mom indicated that this new arrangement wasn't going to change. Chris would have to be nicer to Brooklyn at school and she'd need to put in the least amount of effort to be kind in general. Chris was forced to say that Brooklyn was off-limits for her teasing.

At the bar, over a drink, Ms. Desjardin would end up running into Mr. Peist and explaining everything that happened. Grayle had taken her into his office earlier in the day and essentially gave a final warning on account of her avoiding calling Margaret White. All said, she wasn't sure if she should even be a teacher; she only went to school to run and ended up taking the career on account of an injury.

It was a fortunate circumstance running into Mr. Peist though, as his date stood him up that evening. After a few more drinks and a bit of flirting, the two of them-- Peist and Desjardin-- would end up in the backseat of her car.

Answer: Instagram

Hopping onto a call with Sue, Chris complained that she'd be spending the night in a spare bedroom, stuck on an air mattress next to a Peloton, lamenting that her mother only wanted her to stay so she could prove shared custody and get child support. Sue joked with her, but when the conversation turned to Ms. Desjardin's punishment for the class, she changed her tune, reminding that they deserved the rough day for being stupid. When Sue asked Chris to delete the video, saying that she felt bad, Chris said she'd do it.

Chris didn't. Instead, realizing that she couldn't lash out at Brooklyn, she started a new Instagram account-- @CarrieRed_-- and uploaded the locker room video. She'd leave it a private account for the time being.

At home, after cleaning up dinner, Carrie and her mother would talk about their day and Carrie would confront Margaret for going back on her word. Her mom wouldn't hear any of it though, asserting that she didn't lie about her intention, she only changed her mind. Carrie, speaking seriously, couldn't get an apology out of her mom, so she ran upstairs instead, insisting she had homework. Barely able to keep her anger controlled, Carrie slammed the door shut with her mind, locking it from across the room as her mother came upstairs to argue, much to both of their surprise.