What Happened To Charlie McGee In Firestarter’s Forgotten Sequel

While it came and went without much fanfare, Firestarter got a made for TV sequel in 2002, and here’s what happened to Charlie McGee as an adult. Firestarter isn’t generally considered in the top tier of Stephen King’s catalog, but it’s certainly not a bad book, and has plenty of fans. Firestarter was also adapted into a fairly well-regarded 1984 film, which starred Drew Barrymore as the titular pyrokinetic girl, Charlene “Charlie” McGee. David Keith also starred as Andy, Charlie’s telepathically gifted father.

King himself is famously not a fan of the Firestarter movie, finding it bland, and comparing it to “cafeteria mashed potatoes,” which is hard to imagine anyone ever saying as a positive. Still, even King liked Barrymore’s performance, and brought her back for 1985’s Cat’s Eye, for which he wrote the script. Firestarter is soon to get a remake, but what many fans may not be aware of is that there’s actually a Firestarter 2. Subtitled Rekindled, the sequel aired as a two-night miniseries on Syfy, then still called the Sci-Fi Channel.

As one might imagine, being made for cable before the prestige TV era didn’t lend high expectations for Firestarter 2, and sure enough, it was pretty awful. It did, however, allow fans an opportunity to see one possible adulthood for Charlie McGee.

What Happened To Charlie McGee In Firestarter’s Forgotten Sequel

At the end of Firestarter, with Andy dead at the hands of psychotic assassin John Rainbird, Charlie was left to be raised by kindly farm couple Irv and Norma Manders. By Firestarter: Rekindled, Charlie is all grown up, and living under an assumed name to try and keep off the radar of evil organization The Shop. She works at a university library, and is trying to figure out a way to control her powers, which as an adult embarrassingly flare up when she gets aroused. Unfortunately, she soon gets found by Rainbird, now played by Malcolm McDowell, who’s somehow still alive despite pretty clearly getting roasted in the first movie.

Rainbird has been systematically eliminating anyone tied to the Lot-6 experiment that led to Charlie’s powers, and wants to get revenge on her as well. He attempts to do this with the help of six young boys he’s had develop their own powers, but Charlie wins out, with a little assistance from Dennis Hopper along the way. Rainbird gets killed for real, and Charlie is free to move to Canada and live in the open. While all that might sound interesting in the abstract, it’s important to make clear that Firestarter 2 is very, very bad, bordering on unwatchably so at times. Firestarter fans are advised to simply read and absorb the above information, and not bother actually watching Rekindled.

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