Note: This story contains spoilers from episode 9 of “Pluribus.”
“Pluribus” set its two unlikely heroes on the path to saving the world in the Season 1 finale, but not without some messy bickering beforehand.
Episode 9 of the Apple TV drama series, titled “La Chica o El Mundo”, saw Carol’s (Rhea Seehorn) new relationship bubble with Zosia (Karolina Wydra) burst with the arrival of Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) – the only other individual on Earth with the desire to rid humans of the alien hive mind that took over more than 70 days prior. The encounter would have been a dream come true for Carol earlier in the series, before she was isolated by Zosia and her fellow infected humans leaving her begging for their attention.
But now the fact that the Paraguayan man arrived at his cul-de-sac in an ambulance, brandishing a machete, was seen as an added inconvenience. And just when viewers think Carol might be ready to ride into the sunset with her beautiful chaperone, a shocking revelation puts her back on her mission to restore humanity’s individuality – but time is no longer on her side.
Stop
Episode 9 began in the mountains of Peru, as a young woman from an indigenous village swept the ground while watching a plane fly overhead. The entire village prepared for the arrival of the plane, which carried an expected package for Kusmayo (Darinka Arones) – one of the individuals revealed to Carol to have avoided the hive mind the first time.
Viewers watched as the village came together to support Kusimayu as she prepared for a ritual. She was appeasing two other women, probably her family but now sent to the hive mind like Zosia, when she expressed her nervousness about the upcoming ceremony. She also took the time to hold a cute baby goat that she seemed to love, before another villager arrived with the package. It contained a silver container containing an unidentified gas that Kusmayo was supposed to inhale. She asked if the ceremony would hurt her, before the others assured her they would never hurt her.
After inhaling the gas, the others helped her down to the ground before she started convulsing – much like the people around Carol first did in the series premiere, when the hive mind took over humanity. When Kusmayo settled in, she awoke as a new member of the alien collective, and all the humans around the village quickly retreated, leaving all the animals and objects behind.
Carol and Manousos
Back in Albuquerque, Carol was reluctant to receive her Paraguayan visitor now that she had secured Zosia’s return and they had settled into a new physical and emotional relationship. Still, Carol agreed to meet Manousos, which went about as well as viewers could imagine given their respective stubbornness.
After some discussion about the possibility of Carol’s house being bugged, the duo spoke at her house. Carol seemed reluctant to turn her back on the infected humans to side with Manousos – knowing it would mean abandoning Zosia. But that loyalty was tested when Manousos found a device in Carol’s liquor cabinet. Carol confronted Zosia about the device, leading to the revelation that it was actually Carol’s late wife Helen who had installed the tracker, at a particularly dark time in their marriage, when she was monitoring Carol’s drinking after retrieving her eggs. This revelation put Carol in a bad mood, leading her to place Manousos in one of the other houses in the cul-de-sac so that they could rest and continue talking the next morning.
But Manousos wasn’t going to let the mission wait. He called the hive and asked Zosia to ask him about Carol herself. Carol learned what he was doing and took Zosia home for a frank conversation. Zosia admitted that, since he is an individual, she and the rest of the hive “love” Manousos as much as she does – meaning they must comply with his requests and answer all his questions honestly.
This conversation was interrupted when Zosia lays down and begins to seize, a sign that the hive is in distress. Manousos had requested that a new person come so that they could experiment with their brain frequency emissions, an experiment aimed at dissociating the person from the hive mind. But Carol stopped him and everyone was pulled away from Manousos, much like Carol had to endure earlier in the series.
But this time, Carol went with them, having chosen her fantasy life with Zosia over saving the world with her new neighbor.
Ticking clock
Of course, that didn’t last long.
The episode initially followed Carol and Zosia to an idyllic spa and other beautiful locations around the world. Then they went skiing before settling into a sumptuous lodge to relax. There, Carol and Zosia talked about the former’s inability to be “good at feeling good.”
Zosia tried to comfort Carol by explaining the chemistry behind happiness, citing research into early evidence that animals began to feel empathy. She then suggested that Carol wouldn’t have to wonder about these issues for much longer. When Carol asked her if this meant that the procedure to get her to join the hive was closer to completion, and if it still required her verbal and blatant consent, Zosia hesitated to answer.
It turns out that the hive found the eggs that Carol had collected and was using them to grow the stem cells needed for the procedure to transform her – its version of the gassy concoction they used to transform Kusimayu at the beginning of the episode. Carol asked how long she had until they were ready to do it, and Zosia said it would be a month, two to three months at the latest.
The new countdown sent Carol back to Albuquerque where she had left Manousos, himself still researching his theory on how to bring humanity back. After a silent goodbye to Zosia, Carol committed to helping Manousos with his project.
She also arrived with a large package, which she said contained an atomic bomb – a reference to early in the series when the hive said it would give her one even though it was neither advisable nor safe, if it was her command.
Thus ends Season 1 of Vince Gilligan’s ambitious Apple TV drama, giving its two heroes a new incentive to save the world before they too become trapped in – or saved by – this collective alien consciousness with many more mysteries to reveal. Season 2 has already been ordered but filming has not started, meaning it will be a while before new episodes.
Hold on tight, “Pluribus” fans, more episodes of this fascinating series are on the horizon.
Season 1 of “Pluribus” is now streaming on Apple TV.
