Full spoilers ahead For many Episode 6, “HDP,” now available on Apple TV.
Okay, most of us realized this last week in “There is milk” as Carol (Rhea Seehorn) investigated what the Joiners' favorite drink was actually made of, culminating in the episode's final moment when she gasped in a way only someone who had just found a stash of frozen corpses could.
Yes, many of us were a little unhappy that this was actually a warehouse for frozen corpses. pieces that Carol dug up, but still the Joiners are definitely pulling out Soylent Green and eating us. Only because it's Vince Gilligan's Pluribus, it's not that simple. But it's darkly funny.
Of course, of course, instead of playing out this revelation in a drawn-out, thriller-like manner, Gilligan and his team (the episode was written by Vera Blasi and directed by Ganja Monteiro) rather quickly pull the rug out from under the viewer and squash their own big twist. “Yes, no, HDP are people,” the series essentially says. “Do you think we haven’t watched sci-fi movies in the last 50 years either!?”
And then in comes John Cena. Not only John Cena, but also Joined John Cena. And he is everything you can hope for. Charming, intelligent, informative… and all the while explaining the intricacies of why the Affiliates need “human-derived protein” or HDP – aka HDP. human flesh – for food. And Kumba (Samba Schutte) interrupts Carol before she can even deliver her big news about the frozen bodies, meekly: “Is this about them eating people?” It's not just funny; It's also our first hint at just how out of touch Carol was.
The dynamic between these two uninfected is interesting because we can obviously view them as polar opposites: Carol, the constant skeptic, and Kumba, ready to deceive. But is it that simple? In the end, it turns out that Kumba dealt with the DPN before Carol did, and not only that, but he and the other infected (minus Manousos in Paraguay, of course) were regularly talking about the situation and, in particular, worried about the sudden, unexpected plight the Joiners were in (they would end up starving to death). It's so easy to assume that the rest of the uninfected are suckers just because they don't lash out like Carol does and because they're so willing to go with the flow, but then it turns out that Carol, for all her stubbornness, hasn't actually made any significant progress on any of those things.
And then there's the fact that the uninfected deliberately kept Carol on the sidelines, voting (if not unanimously!) not to include her in their meetings. Kumba received her videos, as probably everyone else did – “they were very dramatic” – but no one has yet responded to them or even acknowledged them. It's so offensive that Carol has to take the powder in the bathroom before apparently getting drunk on champagne and passing out for the night. But the really sad part comes the next morning when she tells Kumba that she's going to get a hotel room, only to notice the look on his face: he doesn't want her there. He's a good guy, but he has to live with his “lovers” and there's no room for Carol at all. “What do you say? Check in from time to time.”
Meanwhile, what kind of survival instinct do the Joiners have if they are ready to starve rather than eat corn? Their mandate to not even eat plant life is limited, to say the least. But then again, this may be the ultimate method of birth control. As the human race dies out from starvation, eventually the planet will reach some equilibrium point where enough fallen apples or whatever will feed the relatively small number of remaining people. Maybe?
And then there's Carlos-Manuel Vesga's Manousos, who – wouldn't you know it – not only watches Carol's first video, but is so moved by it that he finally leaves his Omega Man bunker and heads out, presumably, to find her. He doesn't even know there are 12 more uninfected ones until he watches the video. This leads to one of the creepiest scenes in Pluribus to date, when Manousos encounters his mother on the street as she emerges from the shadows in the dead of night. Carol had never had to deal with this when meeting people she knew in the old days, let alone family members. We have already established that she lives separately from her own mother. But then again, this could be something Manousos and Carol have in common when he tells the woman, “You're not my mother. My mother is a bitch,” before driving off into the night.
Questions and notes from Kepler-22b
- I love how Carol puts down the video camera and takes the frozen head wrapped in shrink wrap and holds it in front of the lens rather than just pointing the camera at the head. This is much more clumsy, although unlikely.
- Seehorn's reaction at the beginning of the episode is excellent: she runs out of the factory and tries to shake off what she just saw, as if enough effort will erase the horrifying image from her brain.
- Ooooh, Joiners can't convert 13 uninfected without their explicit permission, huh?
- What's with the frequency 8.613.0 on Radio Manusos?
- Kumba in full Casino Royale in Vegas is like a real cosplay adventure, a holodeck without a holodeck (but more real than a holodeck). However, you'd think this would all get pretty boring, pretty quickly. First of all, the maps need to be fixed, so what's the fun in that? At least on the holodeck there is always a risk of failure! (But, man, if the Joiners aren't committed to their performances, even if the guy with the eyepatch screws up at the end.)
- Speaking of the holodeck, you can't help but see avid Star Trek fan Vince Gilligan having a little fun with the basic concept of this famous Trek technology, albeit in his own way.
- But how sad and creepy is it when Kumba leaves the casino, and all the Joiners quietly begin to clean up, and even Kumba's main card rival bends down to pick up the broken glass?
- Incidentally, the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, formerly known as the Las Vegas Hilton, was where Elvis Presley held his famous series of sold-out concerts from 1969 to 1976. Hence the Elvis elements you may have noticed here. (It was also the location of the now-defunct Star Trek: The Experience!)
- Heck, Joette can go to the hot tub too!
