The following contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Pluribus, premiering Friday, November 7 on Apple TV. The following also contains mentions of sexual assault.
Vince Gilligan’s new series, since You better call Saul, is finally out on Apple TV with the first two episodes, and it’s already the weirdest thing on television. Starring Rhea Seehorn (the second collaboration between her and Gilligan), Apple TV’s To many follows a woman named Carol in the wake of almost everyone on Earth suddenly becoming happy. And it’s not just that they feel pure joy. Afflicted human beings are held together by a psychic glue that connects each in each other’s minds. Individuality is a thing of the past To many. As the hive mind calls it: “We are us.”
But how the hell did this happen in the first place? It takes a bit of extraterrestrial imagination to accept the logic of the situation. Of course, nothing like this could happen in real life (as far as anyone knows), but in Gilligan’s world, it’s a surprising possibility. Another big concern in the strange world of To many What exactly makes Carol and the 12 other immune humans exempt from the hive mind’s conquest of the human race? While the show hasn’t really answered that question yet, or how the hive mind plans to “fix” Carol so she can become one of them, it quickly provides some insight into how humanity got into this mess in the first place. But the hive mind certainly wouldn’t want to degrade its new state like this.
Pluribus World Peace is an alien virus
Before he reaches Carol, To many begins with a group of astronomers searching for and studying signals in space. They discovered a radio signal coming from 600 light years away and composed of four tones: guanine, uracil, adenine and cytosine. Initially, they believe they have encountered a message from extraterrestrial beings that they cannot decode. But they realize that it is actually a recipe for a nucleotide (RNA) sequence. Over 14 months, scientists created the sequence in the laboratory and tested it on animals to study it and understand what it was. Of course, this is always where the danger begins.
Those who pay attention will realize that To many has a sort of oral fixation in the first episode. Scientists and military guards are given donuts to eat; Carol and her partner, Helen, use a car breathalyzer; they go to the bar to have a drink; and, even more alarming, affected humans are kissing each other to spread the “virus.” And while the hive mind doesn’t exactly think that’s an accurate term for it, human-to-human contact via saliva droplets enabled the happy apocalypse. It’s as contagious as a cold, if not worse.
When it spreads, the affected person freezes in a sort of catatonic state. More than 800 million people have died due to “shock,” or because being put into a state of shock caused a dangerous situation, such as a car accident or falling on concrete. When those who survived woke up, they were no longer the individual person they once were, even if that person still technically exists. But they are now joined by all the other affected people thanks to a “psychic glue” that binds everyone. This could mean that a nine-year-old boy is not only that, but also the Prime Minister, a postman from another country or his mother’s gynecologist. He is literally everyone on the planet.
How does the hive mind work on Pluribus?
No one really knows how the hive mind works, only that it does. Unlike other aliens in underrated invasion shows, they also don’t prefer to be called aliens, although they see themselves as beneficiaries of alien technology. What they do know is that it is a biological imperative that they cannot control, compared to breathing. The imperative of their new DNA is that they cannot say no to people because they are motivated by the happiness of others. When Carol does or says something horrible to them, they don’t lash out and cry because their feelings were hurt. They just smile and ask how they can improve his life. However, they are also deeply connected to his feelings; When Carol screams and berates Zosia (her chosen guide in this chaos), it causes her and everyone else who is part of the hive mind to freeze.
Making the world a better and happier place of peace also involves doing no harm. each living being, which includes animals. They cook and feed what has already been killed and processed, as they do to prepare meals for English-speaking immune people, but they refuse to kill beings like lobster, chicken, or even an insect. But Zosia also makes a point of saying that if something violent were to happen between English-speaking immune individuals, they wouldn’t be able to step in to help.
But there is a danger zone that the hive mind finds itself in while living to please living beings. By not being able to say no to people, they also have to perform certain acts that the individual they inhabit may not have otherwise consented to. Here, To many evokes a conversation around the definition of “consenting” participants in sex. One of the 13 immune survivors takes advantage of the new look of the world by surrounding himself with all kinds of luxuries: flying Air Force One, wearing high-end clothing, and traveling wherever he pleases, all because the hive mind says yes to everything. But the beautiful women who serve him sexually can’t actually give him consent, as Carol points out. These are certainly dark topics tackled by the series, but they are also reminiscent of some of the scariest episodes of series like The X Files.
Do these people really have a say in the intimate acts they perform if their DNA prohibits them from considering the alternative, even if it makes them believe it is a good thing? Their biology also tells them to think about what might sexually attract immune people in order to make them happier. They choose Zosia as Carol’s guide because she is the female version of the love interest from Carol’s romance novel. This emphasis on sex could be because it is an innate part of connection and love, as it seems the hive mind prefers to stick to the basics of human survival. But by nature, the hive mind places its hosts in dangerous scenarios that individuality could potentially prevent.
Why is Carol immune to most?
As Carol learns in the pilot episode 10/10, only 13 people, including herself, have not been affected by the hive mind virus on Earth (although she only later learns of the 13th person, who no one can contact in Paraguay). No one has figured out why Carol and the others are special, but it seems like they’re working around the clock to figure it out and “fix” it. But by their definition, fixing it actually means erasing everything that makes a person unique. But even some survivors wouldn’t mind. One even said she planned to become part of the hive mind to be with her aunt and cousin again.
The most likely possibility is that Carol’s immunity was as random as that of the other survivors, which made her special in the world, but not for any particular reason. Metaphorically, however, Carol’s quirk is probably the most ironic thing that’s happened to her since she became a bestselling author writing heterosexual romance novels as a gay woman. Carol was, of course, considered depressed because she felt obligated to hide her sexuality to boost her career. Plus, she didn’t even write in her favorite genre. She lived to serve others at the cost of losing self-expression.
Just to make the irony even more robust, Carol is the strongest advocate for overthrowing the membership and restoring the world to normal order. As soon as she loses what makes humanity special, she doesn’t realize how much she has missed out on life by living a lie. She could easily give in to the hive mind’s control and become one of them, giving up her freedom but also losing the fear of being alone for the rest of her life. But she persists in saving the identity of every person on Earth, even if she has to do it herself.
New episodes of Pluribus air every Friday on Apple TV.
- Release date
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November 6, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV+
- Writers
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Ariel Levine
