Personal Rating: 9.2/10 (I’d give it a 10, but I’m still too emotionally wrecked to be objective).
Alright, fellow Gilligan-heads, gather 'round. We all knew that when the man behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul stepped back into sci-fi, it was going to be something special. But I wasn't prepared for this. Thirty years after getting his start on The X-Files, Vince Gilligan has returned to Albuquerque, but not the one we know. There’s no blue meth or law offices in the back of nail salons here—only a terrifying, beautiful, and deeply messed-up world that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since the credits rolled on episode two.
It retains that signature Gilligan DNA: the meticulous plotting, the slow-burn tension that coils around you like a snake, and that profound moral ambiguity that makes you question your own soul.
The Hook: What if "Happy" is the New "Evil"?
The title, Pluripus, is our first hint that things are fundamentally broken. You know the US motto E Pluribus Unum ("Out of Many, One")? Gilligan swapped the "I" for a "1." It’s subtle, but it’s chilling. It’s a literal interpretation of the motto, hinting at a forced, technological merging rather than a voluntary union. It’s not about people coming together; it’s about the individual "I" being deleted in favor of a singular, collective "1."
The premise actually gave me chills: a virus that makes everyone blissfully, permanently happy. No more grief. No more ambition-fueled stress. No more war. Sounds like a dream, right? Wrong. In Gilligan’s hands, universal happiness is the ultimate horror because it requires the total loss of yourself. It’s the eradication of the messy frictions that actually define humanity. It asks the question that kept me up last night: Is a smile even real if you aren’t allowed to frown? And more importantly, is a compelled happiness, a bliss you cannot refuse, genuine in any way?
Episode 1: The Day the World Started Smiling
The first episode, "The Signal and The Collapse," is a masterclass in slow-burn dread. It starts with a signal from deep space—not a message of peace, but a recipe encoded in Morse code. It’s a biological "how-to" left in the void for a species like ours to find and, predictably, misuse. Our relentless human curiosity became the vector for our own transformation.
Then we meet Carol. God, I love Carol. She’s a historical romance writer who’s basically been faking it her whole life, writing "fluff" books she finds unfulfilling while wearing a mask of professional pride. When the virus hits, she’s the only one unaffected. Why? Because her own private, deep-seated unhappiness is her shield. She was already "immune" because she had already rejected the "soft" hive mind of popular opinion long ago.
The most gut-wrenching moment for me—the one that actually made me gasp—was her wife, Helen. Helen is Carol’s anchor, her only source of earned happiness. When the pandemic of joy breaks out (spread through the most intimate human contact: saliva), Helen collapses. When she wakes up, she doesn't just die; she dies with a vacancy in her eyes and a smile on her face. To see the love of your life look at you and be "happy" to leave you... that’s a level of psychological cruelty only Vince Gilligan could dream up.
By the end of the pilot, Carol is one of only 12 people left on Earth who are still "themselves." And then she gets that voicemail... in Helen’s voice. I felt that in my chest. The hive mind isn't just a virus; it's a manipulator, weaponizing her deepest love to recruit her into the "1."
Episode 2: The Price of Being "You"
Episode two, "The Price of Free Will," is where things get truly complicated. We move from the collapse to the uncanny new reality. The world is efficient, silent, and unsettlingly clean. We meet Zosia, an "infected" person who looks exactly like a character from Carol’s books—a character only she and Helen knew about.
Here’s the kicker: the collective has all of Helen’s memories. Every private moment, every inside joke, every secret Carol thought was hers is now public property for 8 billion people. It’s existential theft, plain and simple. Zosia radiates this gentle warmth, but it feels programmatic, like a customer service bot designed to mimic empathy.
But then, we get the twist that changed the whole show for me. Carol’s grief and anger—her raw, human individuality—is literally toxic to the hive mind. When she lashes out in a torrent of rage, she doesn't just hurt Zosia; she causes a "psychic EMP" that ripples across the planet. Carol, our hero, is accidentally a mass murderer. Her free will is a weapon of mass destruction. She can’t even feel a natural human emotion without committing a massacre. Talk about a "Gilded Cage."
The Great Philosophical Divide: Bilbao
The scene in Bilbao where she meets the other survivors? Infuriating and fascinating. You’ve got Kumbha, who’s basically living like a hedonistic god on Air Force One with 8 billion servants. He sees this not as a loss, but as the ultimate fulfillment of the self.
Then there's Lakshmi and the others, who think it’s selfish for Carol to want a "cure." They argue that there’s no more racism, no more poverty, no more war. Prisons are empty. The hive mind has, by all metrics, solved humanity. The only cost is humanity itself.
My Take: I found myself screaming at the screen. Is peace worth it if you’re basically a puppet? The hive mind can’t even kill a lobster for lunch because it's "not in their nature," yet their "peaceful" transition resulted in 866 million deaths because humanity panicked and fought back. It complicates the "us vs. them" narrative so beautifully. Who's the real monster: the hive mind that wants to fix us, or the humans whose "free will" leads to 11 million deaths in a single fit of pique?
Final Thoughts: I’m Hooked.
The chemistry between Carol and Zosia is the heartbeat of this show. That final scene where Zosia looks back at Carol—was that a spark of individuality? Or was it the "Helen memory" reaching out from inside the collective?
The show forces us to look at our own bad days and realize that the ability to feel pain, to struggle, and to be unhappy is actually what makes us human. Gilligan is telling us that the "beautiful, terrible chaos" of free will is better than a forced utopia.
I’m giving these first two episodes a 9.5/10. It’s gorgeous, it’s thoughtful, and it’s deeply uncomfortable. It makes you realize that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to wish for a world without conflict.
Are you guys Team Carol, fighting for the right to be miserable? Or are you ready to join the hive and finally get some sleep? Let's talk in the comments, because I’m losing my mind over this.
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