Back the 1990s, Vince Gilligan was a staff writer on The X-Files, writing many of that show's best and most-acclaimed episodes. In 2008 he created Breaking Bad, the story of a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin by oppressive American healthcare costs. He followed that up with Better Call Saul, a prequel/interquel/sequel, that expanded on the character of Jimmy McGill, who became noted criminal lawyer Saul Goodman, which many critics rated as being even better than its parent show. That project also introduced Gilligan to actress Rhea Seehorn, whose quiet but powerful performance as Kim Wexler was astounding. Seehorn and Gilligan have now re-teamed for Pluribus, a distinctly different kind of show.
The genre here is science fiction: an alien message from 600 light years away has been decoded by secret government researchers and found to include the ingredients for genetic material. This material is basically a virus that rewires humans into a single entity, a hive mind formed by the life experience of all almost-eight billion people on the planet. The logical ramifications of this idea are entertainingly explored: any single person on the planet can do anything that any other human being can do, instantly. A fast food server can fly the most complex aircraft on the planet, a school gym teacher can perform brain surgery at the very highest level achievable. Gilligan is a master of detail, the slow burn and thinking through the logical ramifications of situations, and employs that here to impressive effect.
Carol's continuing immunity to the alien virus is basically a chaos grenade that the hive mind struggles to deal with. The thirteen immune people can still impact the infected: displays of anger or physical violence towards the infected can send them into a fit, so the infected cannot themselves use violence or force to cajole the immune into cooperation, though they claim not to be able to do so anyway due to inherent pacificism. Testing the limits of what the infected can and cannot do becomes an interest of Carol's, as she looks for a way of freeing people from the virus, or even if the individuals still exist on that level.
It's richly interesting stuff, but it feels like the sort of premise you can explore in a novel better than in a TV show. The first episode, depicting the total chaos of the virus taking over and Carol's bewilderment at not knowing what the hell is going on, is dynamic and action-driven, with phenomenal performances and setpieces. The next couple of episodes, which explore the ramifications of both the hive mind's arrival and how Carol can coexist with it, as well as the identities of the other dozen uninfected and what their stories are (and how some have a radically different view of what the joined are than Carol does, with some subtle nods at the American mindset versus that of other cultures), keep up the pace.
Things flag somewhat mid-season and one detects a note of wheel-spinning as the show indulges in flashbacks and plot misdirections: one massive "gotcha!" plot revelation turns out to not be a big deal after all. Things ramp up towards the end as we make more discoveries about the hive mind and what its ultimate goal might now be (it turns out that Carol's ability to strike a good deal with every single lawyer on Earth on the opposite side might be a tad optimistic), and Carol discovers that one of the other uninfected might be even more driven and ruthless in freeing the people than she is. These are strong story elements but seemingly exist only to ramp up to an inevitable cliffhanger ending.
Pluribus's reception has thus been divisive due to its love of the slow burn. In an age of "second screen" viewing, seeing a show happy to take its foot off the gas and just vibe at times with some great cinematography of the New Mexico desert or the jungles of the Darien Gap can be refreshing. But sometimes you feel maybe the show needs to get a move on. When Breaking Bad decided to have a slow episode, it could still use its time to explore character or the details of Walter's drug operation or something else. One of the best-rated episodes of the show is a budget-saving piece of filler featuring Walter and Jesse battling a persistent fly. Pluribus can't quite do this because there are effectively now only fourteen characters alive (the thirteen unjoined plus the hive mind), so you can't bring in a guest character or some newcomers to the regular cast to keep things fresh.
Still, the problem can be a little overblown. The season is only nine episodes long (it might have been even better at seven or eight, a rare thing to say these days), the episodes aren't hugely long (many clock in at around the 40-minute mark) and the show does have superb cinematography, location filming and acting. Rhea Seehorn is absolutely nuclear-hot and we can hope this show gets her the awards she inexplicably missed out on for Better Call Saul, and the rest of the cast is excellent, especially those playing the infected, who all effectively have to play the exact same character expressing itself through different bodies. The show also works well on a thematic level by not lingering on any theme like a TED Talk. There are ideas swirling around here about interconnectedness, loneliness and the morality of enforcing any one ideology on anyone else. So far the show has presented being joined as a bad thing, forced on people against their will, and the desire of the hive mind to add Carol is wrong, but we so far haven't had the other side of the argument: are the people in the hive mind genuinely happier and better off, and would suffer at being separated? Is Pluribus a four-season exploration of the ideas presented in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Tuvix? This remains to be seen.
The first season of Pluribus (****) is beautifully-shot, written and acted, with phenomenal acting, attention to detail and a logical exploration of the premise. Midseason, it definitely slows down so much that the show risks losing the audience's full attention, but it does rally and come back strong for an interesting ending. Whether Season 2 can up the ante to make a longer-form story out of this limited premise viable remains to be seen. The season can be seen worldwide at the moment on Apple TV+. A second season was commissioned at the same time as the first but, slightly inexplicably, is still to enter production.
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