In nine episodes For many quietly disassembled alien invasion genre and rebuilt it in the signature storytelling style of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. Just a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Apple TV The series introduces a new disease in which most of the world's population becomes infected with an otherworldly happiness virus.
The story centers on Carol Sturka (played by Better Call Saul's Rhea Seehorn), a successful but cantankerous romance novelist. When the reality around her changes – and it does so quickly – her grumpy behavior sets her apart from the happy hive mind that is taking shape. She sets herself the task of correcting the situation, but it is not an easy task.
The ninth episode, entitled “La Chica o El Mundo,” hits like a silent bomb. Its final moments highlight the show's emotional weight and relevance. What does this all mean? Where will things go next? I sat down with Seehorn to get to the bottom of Carol's thinking, the turning point that brought her back to reality, and her potentially incendiary motivations moving forward.
If you're not caught up on the ending of Pluribus, turn back now. Major plot spoilers follow.
Rhea Seehorn stars in Apple TV's Pluribus.
The final act of the episode revealed Carol's chilling realization. Although she officially informed the hive mind that they did not have her consent to access her stem cells to convert her, in reality Zosia (Carolina Otter) and the others were actively tinkering with a workaround: her frozen eggs. Up until this point, Carol had been romantically involved with Zosia, which was understandable after the hivemind abandoned her and began living a solitary existence as the only person in the entire state of New Mexico.
But is this betrayal? It was the slap in the face that Carol needed. According to Seehorn, the scene exists in multiple layers and is about Carol's struggle to maintain her free will and overcome her grief over the death of her wife. “First of all, I thought I had to agree,” Seehorn said. Us too.
“It’s being taken away,” Seehorn said. “Now that clock is ticking again and you will lose your individuality. On top of that, the idea that all this time someone said they really cared about me and that behind my back you were still planning to change me. Even intellectually, Carol could probably guess this because of their biological imperative. But it feels like it's drawing attention to the fact that Carol knows she was a fool.”
Rhea Sehohorn and Carolina Otter Star in the movie Pluribus.
Losing a loved one at the same time the world is losing much of its humanity would probably make me do stupid things too.
If you noticed, there was a potential romance with Zosya from the very first moment they met. Seeking physical love—and even the misconception of emotional love—to comfort yourself after a deeply traumatic experience doesn't seem like a bad decision. It is this perspective that makes the next detail even more treacherous.
“The third way is, of all ways, the eggs that I froze that represented my future with my wife, who is now dead because of them,” Seehorn said. “Actually, I don’t know what’s worse than betrayal. You might argue, is it heroic that she finally breaks out of it only when it puts her in danger? At the same time, I would object to everyone else telling me that they are fine. I can't fight for everyone anymore. They don't want to fight these people. They don't want to save the world, except for Manousos, who just wants to destroy people, and that's the wrong way.”
Miriam Shor and Rhea Seehorn star in The Sea.
In our chat, Seehorn compared this breakup scene with Zosia to the diner scene from Episode 8 of Charm Offensive. It was Carol's favorite place to write when she was little, and it apparently burned down, only for the hivemind to rebuild it and subject her to manipulation driven by nostalgia.
Was your relationship with Zosia the same? I think so, but Seehorn said it's up to interpretation. However, she did not expect the questions about love – and what we do for it and how we respond to it – that Pluribus raised in her.
“Because the show is so good, for me it raised a lot of questions about, like, how do you measure what true love is?” Seehorn said. “True love cannot have any purpose when we do things with love for the people we love? We often have a goal: I want you to love me back. I want to make you happy. So it was a pretty deep dive into what's actually going on here.”
So what is Carol's mood now? Is she in a better place than where she was when she pointed the lit fireworks at her face in Episode 7 “The Break”? I wouldn't say it's better, but it's definitely a different place.
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Firstly, there are now weapons of mass destruction near her house. What's her plan for this? Seehorn had no comment on this, but if you look at the third episode entitled “Grenade” and how Zosia reacted to that explosion, I have a sneaking suspicion that the upgrade to a much bigger bomb will destroy the world – that is, the world of the hivemind.
As for Carol, “she's scared, defensive, hurt, ashamed and embarrassed,” Seehorn said. “As we've seen, she's very reactive and very impulsive, with a little bit of rage thrown in, and she can't sit with those feelings.”
The Zosia scene took two days to film, Seehorn told me, as everyone explored the emotional spectrum of this betrayal from all angles. “Eventually, I saw the take they had chosen, which almost backed off,” she said. “We tried something where I refused to ever be vulnerable in front of these people again. You don’t even deserve to see how angry I am or how upset I am.”
Seehorn continued with a laugh: “She just turns on and says, 'I need an atomic bomb, and I'm leaving.'
The first season of Pluribus is available to stream on Apple TV.
