Editor’s Note: The recap below contains spoilers for episode 3 of Pluribus.
After a two-episode premiere that may or may not have crashed the Apple TV itself – not to mention upending the very fabric of humanity in its fictional world – Vince Giliganthe new science fiction series To many East slow things down this week with its third hour. As the series’ protagonist, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), there is no doubt that viewers still have a lot of questions that are not yet answered.
Episode 3, “Grenada,” written and directed by Gordon Smith (Break the bad, You better call Saul), attempts to answer certain outstanding questions, particularly regarding the internal workings of this strange collective mind and whether their biological imperative to meet everyone’s happiness should really have strict limits. The question of how much free will the “Others” (as they’ve now been dubbed) actually possess in their new existence has been raised before, most clearly in last week’s “Pirate Lady,” but this week Carol is ready to put that to the test, with her continued drive to push the boundaries culminating in an explosive ending that reveals the episode’s title isn’t metaphorical at all.
Carol just wants to be alone in episode 3 of “Pluribus”
Before returning to the consequences of Carol literally jumping in front of Air Force One to stop Diabaté (Samba Schutte) takeoff with Zosia (Caroline Wydra) as a newcomer to his entourage, “Grenade” travels back in time, first — 2617 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes and 42 seconds (and counting) until membershipto be precise. Carol and her partner/manager, Helen (Miriam Shor), are celebrating the milestone with a “once-in-a-lifetime” stay at an ice hotel in Norway, and it’s clear from the start that only one of them wants to be there. Helen is amazed by their room, kept at a gentle three below, and enthusiastically practices her Norwegian with the bellman, Bjorn, while Carol grumbles that they stole “sixteen hours to be frozen like Walt Disney” and is far more concerned about whether her last Wycaro the book reached the bestseller list. Helen assures him he’s in the top 20 (“but, like, closer to 11 or closer to 20?” Carol persists) and tries to get Carol to sit still enough to enjoy the view of the Northern Lights overhead – and let herself enjoy the moment, for once.
After the show’s opening titles, the episode cuts to three days after joining, and Carol returns home to Albuquerque after a mostly failed meeting with the other English-speaking immune. At least this time there are real pilots flying the plane. Carol rejects Zosia’s offer to sit in first class, where it is more spacious, but then calls her back with a question about other immune people who cannot speak English in conversation. They include a 68-year-old candy seller in Istanbul, a 23-year-old contortionist in Bali, an 89-year-old retired fisherman in Sardinia, an eight-year-old man in Lesotho whose family raises sheep and a 37-year-old muezzin in Yemen. In other words, no doctors in the group, since it’s clear that Carol still intends to find a cure for what happened. As for the last individual from Paraguay, Manousos Oviedo (Carlos Manuel Vesga), he is the manager of a self-storage facility who, as Zosia reveals, has been “reluctant to make contact” with the Others. Maybe he’ll respond to Carol?
Zosia dials Oviedo’s number from the plane, but the man is difficult to reach, to say the least. The first time he doesn’t even pick up, and the second time he hangs up before Carol can show up. Redialing number two, it’s clear he thinks she’s one of the Others, as he hurls insults at her before ending the call – so Carol forces Zosia to call back one more time just so she can say her most cutting Spanish profanities. Back in Albuquerque, Carol tries to abandon Zosia at the curb, but Zosia wants to make sure she delivers all of Carol’s mail.which the Others made sure to collect on his behalf at various transit points. Most are bills, junk mail, or the occasional takeout menu, but at least one envelope has Helen’s name on it, which Carol dwells on briefly. The largest package contains a personal massager, and when Carol picks up the phone to call the others and ask where it’s from, Zosia reveals that Helen ordered it for her as a return gift: “You had been so stressed on the tour. You tried one at the Atlanta airport, but you said it was too expensive, so Helen bought one online.”
Carol gently, if vehemently, asks the Others to forget everything they know about Helen and her memories – “Put her out of your head. Never mention her again. Never think about her again. Only I can remember her, get that? Only me.” A day later, Carol was clearly just binge-watching. Golden Girls DVDs when a doorbell rings: the Others have left her a tray of hot breakfast, because they know she doesn’t have much in the fridge at the moment. The tray is tossed in the trash in the back, and Carol orders the Others to leave her alone, but even she can’t deny that her refrigerator is a little lacking, so it’s to the supermarket that she goes, in that same unicorn truck she commandeered on joining night. But inside, everything was completely emptied in the interest of consolidating resources – “it’s just more efficient,” Zosia explains, and says they can deliver Carol everything she needs, but Carol, who prides herself on her independence, insists she wants to be able to take care of herself. A few minutes later, trucks arrive and Carol watches, amazed, as the Others restock the Sprouts in perfect synchronization.
The others’ attempt to cheer Carol up backfires in episode 3 of “Pluribus”
That night, while Carol tries to stuff herself more Golden Girls, the power goes out in his house and throughout the city before the lights come back on in his cul-de-sac only — another effort to preserve the Others. With no crime to prevent now and no work underway outside of essential operations (water treatment, hospitals, etc.), there is no need to maintain electricity everywhere. In a frustrated moment on the phone with Zosia, Carol sarcastically declares that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her that a hand grenade couldn’t fix – that it would be “the perfect climax to the greatest week in the history of mankind.”
After that, it’s back to Golden Girlswhere Carol decides to turn the volume up as loud as she wants without any neighbors to complain about the noise. Later that night, however, she is surprised by Zosia on her doorstep, holding the hand grenade she requested – because the Others thought she was probably being sarcastic but didn’t want to take the risk in case it was a real request. Rather than let Zosia wander off into the night, Carol invites her in for a drink with the pomegranate on the table between them. Using all of the Others’ memories and knowledge, Zosia can offer an explanation of the linguistic origins of the vodka they drink, as well as the distilled matter of that particular brand. Carol just wants to know how much time she has left before she becomes a “worker bee” like the others. Zosia says the Others work 24 hours a day; it may take a few weeks, months or more.
Carol then asks a question that hangs over To many since the collective mind took charge of everything: if his life is his, then why are the Others so motivated to assimilate him? Zosia explains it as a “biological imperative” and compares Carol to someone who is drowning and just doesn’t know it; of coursethe Others want to throw him a lifeline. Carol can already predict the type of speech they will try to give to her as an outsider looking in: that life is like living every day in a postcard, or vacationing in Croatia, or staying in Norway, above the Arctic Circle. Zosia finishes Carol’s thought aloud with a memory of their stay at the hotel, but Carol coldly reminds that Helen and her memories are still forbidden, then picks up the grenade to start playing with it. Zosia advises her to be careful, but Carol scoffs. “As you would give me a real hand grenade. “The pin comes out and Zosia just manages to snatch it from Carol’s hand, throw it out the window and slam it to the ground before an explosion rocks the front yard.
Carol staggers out to understand the consequences; All the windows of the truck were blown out and there was burning debris everywhere. Zosia staggers behind her and falls to the ground, her back full of shrapnel from the outburst she took on Carol’s behalf. First responders from the hive mind are already arriving, and the next morning Carol is at the hospital when a guy in a DHL delivery uniform comes out to the waiting room to give Zosia an update: blood loss, no significant nerve damage, but they want to monitor her symptoms in light of a serious concussion. But Carol is more interested in finding out why the Others gave her that hand grenade in the first place.because they would apparently give her another one, if she asked, as well as a bazooka or a tank, although they balked at her hypothetical atomic bomb. They have every right to say no, she insists, but they don’t seem able to – which poses a whole new dilemma for Carol, as well as a power she might be tempted to take further advantage of.
- Release date
-
November 6, 2025
- Network
-
Apple TV
- Directors
-
Adam Bernstein, Zetna Fuentes, Melissa Bernstein
- Writers
-
Ariel Levine
- Carol and Zosia’s relationship continues to become more and more interesting and complicated.
- The Sprouts supermarket scene is a great synchronized sequence.
- The final scene of the episode is one of the best yet.
