Full disclosure: I couldn’t have been more predisposed toward Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s first new project after eleven seasons of scintillating crime fiction in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. The track record of those two shows, plus the involvement of Better Call Saul’s secret weapon Rhea Seehorn, made this new SF series an absolute must-watch for me. Given that lead-in, you can trust me when I say it’s “merely” very good — which, in light of my sky-high expectations, feels…oddly disappointing? Still, you should totally watch it.
Seehorn stars as best-selling fantasy novelist Carol Sturka, whose wildly successful career and happy(ish) relationship with her agent Helen (Miriam Shor) masks a prickly misanthropy. Carol’s semi-complacency is shattered when [spoilers, well, unavoidable] an alien virus infects all of humanity. Carol is one of a handful of a people inexplicably immune to the virus’s effects, which while deadly for some have a profoundly stranger effect on the rest. The survivors instantly become “networked” into a worldwide, benevolent hive mind, one from which Carol is excluded. With her familiar world suddenly erased, Carol — in mystifying isolation — is confronted with navigating a new one that challenges her core values as a person.
Pluribus sets the stage with a tantalizing pilot that lays the groundwork by first depicting Carol’s life, then devastating it when the science fictional premise launches in earnest. Gilligan quickly reveals he hasn’t forgotten how to write SF TV since his days on The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, here bringing along the patient visual storytelling and sunny locales of the “Badverse.” Thanks to Seehorn’s riveting presence, the nine-episode run engages throughout, although at times the pacing lags as its cranky heroes — Carol, of course, but also another immune from Paraguay, Manousos Ovieda (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) — investigate their strange plight and resist assimilation. Pluribus lacks something Gilligan’s other shows do so well; it fails to supply a robust ensemble, putting the onus on Seehorn to carry the drama. Fortunately, she is more than up to the task. Her one foil is Zosia (Karolina Wydra), a carefully chosen hivemind “chaperone” who becomes a key source of information. Wydra brings an ethereal otherworldliness to the role that contributes greatly to the tone, and a shout-out must also go to the only other significant immune character, a Mauritanian hedonist played with verve by the scene-stealing Samba Schutte. Even so, Seehorn is alone so often that the episodes can lack rhythm and conflict dynamics.
That said, the obstinate individuality and purposeful solitude of the heroes is thematically relevant. Both Carol and Manousos, their cynical worldviews similar but different, are the mirrors Gilligan is holding up to the viewer; the show becomes more and more interesting as the ethos of the hivemind comes more into focus, which increasingly raises questions about the depth and passion of the heroes’ resistance to a new normal. Pluribus’s most fascinating element is the way it sweepingly rewires the infrastructure of the modern world, simply by replacing individuality with collective action. This affords the show the opportunity to examine and critique our world as it is, as well as confront the conundrums of an alternative way, with the show’s characters struggling at that intersection. Given the perilous straits of the current world order and the need to re-examine it, Pluribus serves as a meaty, timely topic for discussion. If the journey isn’t exactly electrifying, the show’s artistic mission is worthy; it’s a classily produced and superbly performed show that entertains thought-provoking ideas.
