It’s a good thing we already know the second season Pluribus is on the way. Because the season finale for the show—a sci-fi drama on Apple TV, with the help of Breaking bad Creator Vince Gilligan – made it clear that things are just getting started. The episode brought together a number of important threads but, more importantly, opened up potentially explosive (literally) new lines of inquiry for what’s to come.
Spoilers for the first season of Pluribus to follow.
First, a little reminder of how we got here. Inciting incident Pluribus The unknown, but transcendent, origin was the release of the Origins virus, which turned the entirety of Earth’s human population into an interconnected hive mind. Hives are peaceful, they won’t even kill a bug or pick an apple from a tree, and they are physically harmed by negative emotions. There are about a dozen people who were not infected with the virus. Specifically, it involves an American woman named Carol (Rhea Seehorn) and a Paraguayan man named Manosos (Carlos-Manuel Vesaga). For most of the season, the pair are physically separated, but they are united in being fiercely opposed to the Hive’s presence, while trying to figure out a way to “save” the world by making it so.
The ending sees the two of them finally able to meet each other – but things have changed for Carol. Partway through the episode, her feelings for Hive begin to soften, primarily as she grows closer to her chaperone Zosia (Carolina Wydra). In fact, when the ending begins, they are a perfect couple. It’s a far cry from the show’s early days, when Carroll was so hostile to the hive that he abandoned it and the city of Albuquerque for safety reasons.
But Carroll’s new view of the hive, and of Zosia in particular, means that things don’t go as Manosos expected. Instead of finding a like-minded teammate who will help him “save the world,” he finds a version of Carol who is reluctant to talk to him. The dynamic is high Pluribus‘The second episode, in which Carol fails to convince the remaining survivors that they must work to keep the world from falling behind. Only this time the roles are reversed. Combine this dynamic with the fact that Carroll and Minoso are both super stubborn who are using Google Translate to communicate and, well, it’s not exactly a smooth meeting. After the two talk for the first time, Manousos interjects to himself “Well it’s going great.”
By the end of the episode, though, the two seem largely on the same page. And that’s because Carol learns that, despite her budding romance with Zosia, the Hive is still diligently working to bring her into the fold (the episode actually opens by showing one of the other survivors joining the Hive through a new method). It all culminates with Carol receiving a large package that turns out to be an atomic bomb. I guess she wasn’t kidding earlier in the season.
The first season of Pluribus It has been a learning experience. While there are plenty of postapocalyptic shows out there, there’s really nothing quite like this weird, hive-infested version. And so in nine episodes we see Carol emotionally come to grips with her new reality, but use the time to learn more about how it works. This, in turn, helps us, the audience, to understand just what the heck is going on. All stories require some kind of scene setting, but Pluribus‘Unique nature requires more than that.
But the atomic bomb reveal at the end suggests that things are going in a different direction in Season 2. I don’t expect it Pluribus to suddenly become a fast-paced show; Its measured pace is part of its appeal and allows it to really dig into the details of the world’s intentions. But many of the remaining plotlines and questions require more action than just learning more about the hive. Menoso may have found a way to lure individuals out of the hive using radio signals. The hives are in the midst of building a “giant antenna” that can potentially communicate with anyone or anything or whatever the virus is sent into first. The remaining survivors must decide whether they want to join or not. The hives need to find a solution to their impending food crisis. And, oh, there’s that bombshell that Carol may or may not have a plan for.
