Pluribus Just Put A New Spin On A Classic Sci-Fi Trope
Try to survive with everything you could possibly desire.
Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s new sci-fi series on Apple TV, has already gained a massive following with just its first two episodes. So far, we’ve met Carol Sturka, disillusioned romantasy author, as she witnesses the end of the human race as we know it. After she sees everyone around her either perish or get absorbed into an otherworldly hive mind, Carol swears she’ll never become one of them. She’s dead set on saving the world, even if she has to do it herself.
But in Pluribus Episode 3, we learn that Carol’s hatred of the hive mind isn’t just unmatched, it’s completely one-sided. The result is a take on a classic sci-fi trope that we’ve never seen before, one with a villain who is incredibly willing to help, even if it means setting up their own defeat.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Pluribus.
Carol tries to go back to a routine, but finds herself lonely and isolated.
In Pluribus Episode 3, Carol returns to Albuquerque after her less-than-stellar meeting with the other English-speaking survivors of the Joining. She tries to settle into a routine, but finds herself increasingly frustrated by the hive mind’s control over her life. They turn off all the power outside of her cul-de-sac, and when she tries to go grocery shopping, her local Sprouts is completely emptied. But it just takes one phone call for hordes of people to come pouring in, restocking it completely.
It’s then that Carol realizes that the hive mind would give her whatever she wanted, even if it's something that could help her in her quest to destroy them. She accidentally learns the extent of this when Zosia shows up on her doorstep with the grenade she jokingly requested. In a conversation about the hive mind’s quest to bring Carol into the fold, Zosia describes it as instinctively throwing a life preserver to someone drowning.
That completely reframes Carol’s situation. She’s trying to survive the hive mind, while the hive mind is trying to save her from personhood. It transforms Pluribus into a sci-fi thriller unlike any other: a survival story where the hero has everything she could possibly desire except for what she needs most...knowledge.
Zosia and Carol’s heart-to-heart reveals the hivemind may be helpful, but won’t stop til she is “saved.”
To the hive mind, Carol is someone who is burdened by her individuality, so they try to accommodate her every need. To Carol, she’s mounting a one-woman campaign against basically everyone else in the world, and while they are happy to help her in every way they can, she’ll always be skeptical of her intent.
The first two episodes of Pluribus may have established the world Carol lives in, but this episode establishes the mission she now has: biting the hand that feeds her and stopping this silly “world peace” thing to give the world back its humanity.
