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Entertainment
Vince Gilligan’s unique interpretation of a post-apocalyptic world necessitated extensive groundwork.
Vince Gilligan’s unique interpretation of a post-apocalyptic world necessitated extensive groundwork.


It’s fortunate that we already know a second season of Pluribus is in the pipeline. The season finale for the series — a sci-fi series on Apple TV, directed by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan — indicated that the story is only just beginning. The episode wove together several essential threads and, more critically, introduced potentially explosive (literally) new avenues for future developments.
Spoiler alert for the first season of Pluribus.
To start, a quick reminder of how we arrived at this point. The triggering event of Pluribus was the release of a virus with unknown, yet extraterrestrial, origins, transforming nearly the entire human population of Earth into an interconnected hive mind. The hive is peaceful, to the extent that they won’t even harm a bug or pick an apple from a tree, and they are negatively affected by adverse emotions. A small group of individuals, around a dozen, were not influenced by the virus. Notably, this group includes an American woman named Carol (Rhea Seehorn) and a Paraguayan man named Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga). For most of the season, the two have been physically apart but united in their staunch opposition to the hive’s existence while seeking a way to “save” the world by restoring it to its former state.
The finale features these two finally reuniting — but things have shifted for Carol. In the second-to-last episode, her feelings towards the hive began to mellow, primarily due to her developing relationship with her guardian Zosia (Karolina Wydra). By the time the finale commences, they are a full-fledged couple. This marks a stark contrast to the earlier parts of the series, when Carol was so adversarial to the hive that they left her and the city of Albuquerque for safety reasons.
However, Carol’s evolved perception of the hive, especially regarding Zosia, means that things unfold differently from what Manousos anticipated. Instead of encountering a like-minded ally to assist him in “saving the world,” he meets a version of Carol who is hesitant to engage with him. The situation mirrors Pluribus’s second episode, where Carol fails to persuade the other survivors to collaborate on restoring the world. Yet this time, the roles are reversed. Considering that both Carol and Manousos are quite obstinate individuals and are relying on Google Translate for communication, their meeting is anything but seamless. After their initial conversation, Manousos quietly remarks, “well this is going just great.”
By the episode’s conclusion, however, the two appear to be mostly aligned in their views. Carol comes to realize that, despite her budding romance with Zosia, the hive is still making efforts to integrate her (the episode starts with one of the other survivors becoming part of the hive through a new process). This all culminates in Carol receiving a significant package that turns out to be an atom bomb. I suppose she wasn’t kidding earlier in the season.
The first season of Pluribus has been a journey. While there are many post-apocalyptic series, there’s truly nothing quite like this peculiar, hive-mind-infected version of Earth. Throughout nine episodes, we witness Carol grappling emotionally with her new reality while also taking that time to understand the hive’s mechanisms. This, in turn, assists us, the audience, in grasping what is happening. All narratives necessitate scene-setting, but Pluribus’ distinct characteristics demand considerably more.
Nevertheless, the revelation of the atom bomb at the end implies that the narrative will take a different direction in season 2. I don’t envision Pluribus transforming into a fast-paced production suddenly; its deliberate pace is part of its charm and permits an in-depth exploration of the intricate details of the setting. However, many of the unresolved plotlines and questions necessitate more action than merely uncovering additional information about the hive. Manousos might have devised a means to extract individuals from the hive using radio signals; the hive is in the process of constructing a “giant antenna” that could be used to possibly establish contact with whoever or whatever unleashed the virus; the remaining survivors must determine their willingness to join; the hive needs to resolve their imminent food scarcity; and, not to mention, that bomb that Carol might or might not have a strategy for.
I can’t ascertain how many seasons the Pluribus saga can feasibly span, but it’s evident it required at least two, simply because there’s so much to establish. It’s akin to Apple TV’s other wonderfully peculiar sci-fi series, Severance, a show that had a similarly distinctive premise and consistently tied everything together by the conclusion of its second season. Now we’ll have to wait and see if Pluribus can achieve the same.






“Ghislaine Maxwell (E-mail)” 












