Hello fellow humans and welcome to E Pluribus Unum, the one and only recap show you need to listen to about the magnum opus of Vince Gilligan's Pluribus.

I'm Josh.

And I'm Eric, and let's get started at the beginning, as they say in Alice in Wonderland.

I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you here.

I think Vince Gilligan's magnum opus was, in fact, the X -Files spin -off series, The Lone Gunman, but this is a close second, I think, yeah.

You know, you might have me with that one, but we might just have to have an episode just on The Lone Gunman, and we'll have to...

really embellish that whole thought.

Pluribus represents Vince Gilligan's most ambitious project to date, a post -apocalyptic sci -fi thriller that explores what happens when an alien virus transforms humanity into a peaceful, content hive mind.

The series follows Carol Sturka, one of only 12 people worldwide that are immune to the joining.

As she grapples with being the most miserable person on the planet, full of relentlessly happy people.

The show blends psychological thriller, dark comedy, and horror while asking genuinely difficult questions about free will versus forced happiness.

Again, I went in blind on this show.

I didn't know if this was going to be a character study, if it was going to be set in New Mexico, if it was going to be anything that we would typically see from him.

And I remember reading an interview with Vince and he said, What I actually wanted to do is prove to people that I'm not a one trick pony.

And I thought it was both kind of funny, but I also got what he was talking about.

Especially after the spinoffs of Breaking Bad that's come with Better Call Saul, as well as Camino, I could see why he wanted to break away from that a little bit.

And I thought he did a really fantastic job so far through this first episode, especially in setting up a new world, setting up a new tone.

Vince Gilligan and his writing team throughout the years across his series have always been very good about their cold opens and that's one thing I've always loved about his stuff and this one is no exception here and I think with this cold open he really lays down the tone in a way that says you're watching something else this isn't my other shows my more popular shows we're into something new here just with things like how bright the colors are or in this sort of satellite array that's in the, what is that movie from the 90s?

There's probably a dozen of them, but the one I remember is Contact.

Contact, yeah, that's what I was trying to get out.

Right.

So yeah, a great setting there and just the colors themselves, that beautiful blue of the sky and the green of the grass, it's very different from the stark filtered view of Albuquerque in Breaking Bad.

Interesting.

You know, I'm going to ask you this because I had this sensation as I'm starting to watch this introduction with these scientists that are out at the huge array where you have these giant satellites pointing toward the sky and they're all excited, almost like kids that have discovered something brand new.

And I immediately felt like I was watching a Vince Gilligan property because of his his look, his direction.

And I realized how much I had missed it.

And he has it in Breaking Bad.

He has it in Better Call Saul.

There's a distinct way that he directs a scene.

And it really came out just immediately off the bat.

And it felt very comfortable.

It felt really great to sort of see him come back in that way.

And when the show starts, essentially it starts off with...

These scientists they are at the array they come across some sort of a signal and it's Also plays to Vince's comedic side It's not too serious in the moment.

These scientists are kind of goofy and funny and yet they're dealing with something that's Quite interesting and quite serious.

You have a signal that's coming from 600 million light -years away Apparently it may have been pointed towards us for a very, very long time, longer than we've been on this planet, and we are just now picking it up.

The entire opening sequence is essentially these scientists trying to figure out what this signal is.

It's a very entertaining sequence.

It's very fun, but then it starts to...

get serious as the episode goes further.

One thing I want to point out at this point in the show is the show literally begins with a sort of a timer mechanic.

And I believe he's probably going to bring this through as the series goes.

And as an Easter egg hunter, I like little things like this.

So it makes me wonder why did he start the clock at this particular time and why do we get a scene beginning with a particular time?

Speaking of Easter eggs, I guess I wanted to point out one specific portion of this cold open with the scientists as the scene cut it does sort of a match cut to More scientists being there and then another one to even more scientists being there It's almost the exact same way that the virus that is not a virus spreads as well, right?

There's two scientists and there's six scientists and then there's 12 scientists in this tiny little research cabin It's almost like a bit of an Easter egg in itself Absolutely Another thing I'll point out with the show is not only the timer sequences that we have throughout but also the unnerving and uneasy sense of Symmetry in the show it really starts early on as we break this first act and the scientists discover It's an RNA sequence.

They start using rats and other creatures to experiment with this RNA sequence trying to figure out what it is during their experiments with the rats the I'll say trope happens where you have a scientist working with a rat that they thought was dead and they open up the cage and they bring the rat out and they're like no there's a there's a subtle heartbeat there and the rat bites her and she starts to have these convulsions and we get to sort of see it in the background Another thing Vince does a really marvelous job, especially with the first couple of episodes of Pluribus, are the action's not necessarily happening at the forefront of the camera.

A lot of the action is happening in the background.

And so you're more concentrated on what's happening in that background than you are with what's happening in the foreground.

And I think that that was brilliantly done and illustrated in this scene where one of her coworkers is not looking and she's in the background going through this fit.

And after she goes through this fit, This neat scene comes up where we see her walking down the hallway as one of the security guards in the building is just trying to get something out of a vending machine and it's not working.

It's the, again, trope of the item not coming out of the vending machine and he's frustrated.

And she comes over to him and gives him a big kiss on the lips.

And then he starts to convulse.

And you can see that there is sort of a invasion of the body snatchers scenario right off the bat.

But instead of them being angry and evil, they're all happy.

And so again, you have comedy that gets to be played off of that concept, but then there's also a lot of darkness that gets played off of that concept as well.

So again, brilliant on him to bring this kind of a story to the television and give us something a little bit different to watch other than a lot of the stuff that's gone out there.

But to just sum up, that facility is taken over by...

the kissers, I'll say, and more and more people at this military facility are taken over.

And this is again where that unease of symmetry comes in.

They aren't speaking to each other, but they're all working hand in hand in all of these tasks as though they are all pre -planned and perfectly timed.

The sequence where you have half a dozen people on one side of the table.

another half a dozen on the other and ones are taking a DNA swab to their mouth and then the people on the other side of the table are holding a Petri dish and they wipe it onto the Petri dish and then they close it and put it into a box and you can see what they're doing is essentially shipping these things off to somewhere and That symmetry again comes in play.

It's almost like a ballet You have these people that are doing these exact same movements over and over again, but not quite exactly right And the reason I want to point that out is because I think that I would like to posit a theory toward the show at this point.

And that theory is as much as this, we'll call it a virus, but they don't say that it's a virus, as much as this virus is symmetrically put together, it also makes really interesting mistakes that seemingly shouldn't happen in a perfectly symmetrical being.

So that's where we are with those first two, I would say scenes or acts that really get us literally elbow deep into the lore of this show right off the bat.

And I'll say this as well, thank you for just letting us jump into it with these first couple of episodes and not stretching it out and making it into, I'm just gonna point it out from where you have to spend three seasons trying to figure out one or two things.

Thanks for just saying, here's where we are, here's what's happening.

And now what?

And I think that that's really brilliant.

Yeah, it seems like he's earnest and eager to get this story started.

You can tell by how it's made that he's almost excited to show us where it's going.

I think after this first episode in particular, I was just completely enthralled with all the possibilities.

And there's just so much that could happen within this world that he's created just in these first two episodes.

It's just a very broad avenue for a lot of different stories to be told as well.

And I think, you know, there's certainly some potential here for a lot of great character work as it sort of hones in on a very few amount of characters.

And I think if we're going to start talking characters, I think we need to start talking about Carol a little bit as she's introduced.

Of course, she's played by Rhea Seehorn, who was in Better Glossal, and she does a really fantastic job in this first episode.

She has really given it her all.

And I think Vince Gilligan had mentioned something of I wanted to have her as the focus so that Everyone sees her as the superstar that she really is and she really brings the performance throughout not only in her introduction as a character where she's a despondent writer who is on tour with her manager slash romantic partner into when shit really kind of hits the fan here and I like how it Gives a little bit of breathing room for the couple characters.

But again, we're jumping right into the action and we're jumping right into the plot as it's unfolding.

And that scene where Carol's at the bar with her partner and they walk outside to see the contrails from the airplanes overhead.

Absolutely.

And just us as the audience knowing, okay, it's coming now.

We're here and it's time to get this thing kicked off.

And the way that they introduce her as a character as well, I think is brilliant.

She's at a Barnes and Noble reading from her book.

She's an author, and these are obviously pretty in -depth romance novels.

Her entire crowd are middle -aged white women who adore her and adore these books, and the whole sequence there at Barnes and Noble is.

So cheeky and so funny because it's almost like they bring up every version of a fan that you could when she goes to sign the books.

You have a guy that brings a real sword to her and talks about the in -depth nature of the boat that she has in her book and all this stuff.

It is just so brilliant and again so cheeky and it shows that you can have a good strong sense of real human humor in this moment that is also kind of strange.

You also get a real strong sense of the relationship between Carol and her part.

that it goes first from her partner seeming to just be her manager or whatever to you can see that they have such a close relationship that they literally give each other shit and I love that because you don't see that very often I think in relationships on screen but these two are literally giving each other real shit like real people in a real relationship and it's funny and it seems convincing in the way that I'm like, yeah, I believe that these people have been together for years because of the level of shit that they give each other.

And I thought that was really smart and cool.

Things, of course, turn sideways at the bar.

And we get to notice a couple of things here.

So I want to bring the time sequences back up.

When the series starts, it starts at 439 days.

Then at 71 days, we're in the lab.

And then at 29 days is when the rat bites Jen and she becomes patient zero.

and then at three hours and six minutes we have Carol and Helen arriving at the airport and then we go to the bar.

So we have these times that are very much laid out and When she's at the bar, she asks her partner, give me a cigarette.

I want to go out and have a cigarette.

So the two of them go out and have a cigarette.

And this pickup truck, which, by the way, is in pristine shapes.

Awesome looking C10, I think is what it was.

A Chevy C10 from probably 78, 79.

Beautiful.

Comes in and just slowly crashes into some parked cars.

And our main character, Carol, runs over to help him, but you can see that he's seizing in the front seat.

And we as the audience know what's going on here, but she certainly doesn't.

And this is, again, one of those brilliant scenes where we're more looking over her shoulder as she's tending to this guy at the car, but we see...

her partner Helen in the background holding a cell phone and looking at it.

And she's yelling at her, she's like, Helen, get off the phone, get off the phone, I need your help, call 911.

And I don't know how they do this, but it always blows my mind.

Helen literally falls flat backward onto her back and head, no support, nothing.

And so Carol knows immediately something is absolutely wrong.

And so.

She sees that her partner is struggling.

Her partner now starts to seize.

This is a very interesting detail.

She goes to grab her phone and the phone is broken.

So she can't see or hear what her partner had seen or heard on the phone.

So we still don't know how that happened.

And she goes running into the bar to ask.

someone to call 911 and guess what the entire bar is seizing and this scene again brilliant the first thing we actually see is she comes in through the door and we see these two glasses of beer that are shaking and then the camera flips more over to her view and it's a waitress holding up a serving tray with two 16 ounce beers that are shaking but they're not dropping she's just seizing locked in place again just brilliant smart never seen anything like that before pretty cool goes into the place, gets a phone, tries to make a phone call, can't make a phone call.

She goes out and she just wants to get away from this place.

So she takes her partner, throws her in the back of the truck, essentially, long story short, and takes off.

The show itself would call that zero hour because what we see after this, now the clock is counting up instead of counting down.

And so things switch significantly after this sort of zero hour.

And that's a really great scene.

I think there's a couple conversations that Carol has with her partner One being they're talking about Carol's unreleased book.

That's not sort of this romantic Fantasy that she's been previously writing.

It's essentially her serious novel and that novel goes by the name of bitter chrysalis I thought that was a really excellent name for a novel, but getting to think about what that might mean in the full story of this season or the series After this happens and and you know once we see that Carol essentially blames the hive mind for losing her partner rightfully I think she's a very bitter person at that point And we see that sort of anger that she has towards the hive mind and towards all of these events that are happening affect things in a very broad sense.

But that brings up the second portion of the title, which is chrysalis, right?

So we understand that she is most likely this bitter chrysalis.

And it makes you wonder what is Carol going to be when that chrysalis breaks open?

What is the butterfly that comes from the bitter chrysalis itself?

I don't think that's a mistake or that's just a bit of seasoning on what's going on here.

I think that's going to come into play and be a theme throughout this first season, if not the entire series.

Carol's partner also brings up specifically Finnegan's Wake written by James Joyce.

a big core of how that is written.

It's composed of all these different words from, I think it's 70 different languages all crammed into this single text.

But I think the idea of language connecting us, just like this hive mind connects all of the other humans in the world, is going to be a big theme throughout this story as well.

Everything is purposeful in what this guy does.

There's nothing that's throw away.

in anything that he does.

And one of the things that I wanted to keep an eye on, and I'll have to say from my mind, keep an eye on a little bit less than some other shows like Severance or something like that, but there are what you might call Easter eggs.

those little things that can drop that can either be the plane tail number N5039 matches the Kenyon aircraft crash that happened in that particular year that's a real plane crash.

Also having the C -span crawl across the bottom when we have a scene later is really important and a number of other things.

So just kind of keeping your eyes open for.

Some of those little things I think will either pay off later on or at least give you a little bit of joy from a Vince Gilligan perspective.

So after zero hour, Carol's trying to take Helen to the hospital.

When she gets to the hospital, she sees everyone there is also affected.

and is shocked and terrified by that.

And as she makes her way out of the hospital, what happens is now you have the flip where these folks are no longer catatonic and essentially having a seizure of some sort, but you could see them literally coming out of it.

They'll even run their hand over their face like they just woke up.

And then they'll have this.

odd smirk smile on their face and now they all at times speak together in unison and not only do they speak together in unison this is our first time that we get a sense of that hive mind right where she's trying to get back into the truck and they say all at the same time carol we're just trying to help you And what's really awesome is she doesn't do the typical horror movie trope where she's like, how did you know my name?

She literally looks right, looks left and jumps right back into the truck and peels out of there as quickly as possible.

And it lends itself to her character.

being the sort of, I don't trust anybody.

You get a lot of that from her, her sort of disdain for people.

She even calls her own fans morons and idiots for reading this drivel.

So she's very down on the world, down on other people, down on herself, and we don't know why.

quite yet because she has this lovely partner.

She does have a successful writing career.

We do get sort of an answer as we make our way through these couple of episodes a little bit later.

The hospital interaction is very fascinating because then she goes home.

And when she gets home, she rolls up and she doesn't have her keys, so she's trying to break in.

And this is a horror creepy moment, but you have these two kids next door that are in like their PJs speaking at the same time and saying, hey, Carol, remember that time you were locked out and you decided to hide a key underneath the pot by the front door?

It's still there.

You can use it again.

Super terrifying.

How do these people know these details about her that she and one other person might know?

Very, very.

and I like that she's, in my opinion, being very realistic in her behavior toward this interaction that she's having with these people because this is the reaction I would have.

And we see later that people have a different reaction to this behavior, but I'm looking at this very much like she's looking at it and this is horrible.

This is obviously some sort of a takeover of some kind.

These people aren't who they were before.

This is terrifying and something needs to be done about it.

And there's an interesting thing that happened.

She tells the kids, leave me alone.

Just leave me alone.

And they say, oh, don't worry, Carol.

We'll be out of here in just a minute.

And you think it's just the two kids going back home and going back to bed or whatever.

No.

She lives on a cul -de -sac and everyone that lives on that cul -de -sac all leave their house at the same time, get into their cars at the same time.

And again, it's like a ballet of cars.

They all pull into the cul -de -sac at the same time and all pull out at the exact same time.

So it's that unnerving symmetry that's part of the show that, again, another brilliant scene here that really illustrated that.

And she proceeds to try to settle in at home as best she can.

She locks all the doors, locks the windows, shuts the drapes, all of that.

that stuff, and we get a sense early on that she's a drinker.

Her partner wouldn't let her drive earlier, even though she only had one drink.

When we get to the bar, she's insisting her partner drink, but her partner doesn't want to, but she is definitely going to.

And she's told at this point, as she's flipping through the television, she sees that none of the channels are working except for one.

And it looks like it's at the White House, and it looks like a man is standing behind.

the partition or the microphone stand there and just waiting.

And then you see right across the crawl at the bottom, Carol, when you're ready, give us a call at this number.

And I mean, again, funny, but unnerving.

And also I have to ask you, did you call the number?

I've not, no, but I did see that it is indeed a working number and it has a message for.

Carol to let them know when she's ready to start talking.

And I believe if you say yes or something on the call, it sends you a text message.

But yeah, another really great little piece of world building there.

Well, I called it and it does say, hello, Carol.

If there's anything that you need from us, please press zero and we will provide it for you.

It reminded me of Mr.

Robot and a number of other shows that were clever enough to actually use real numbers.

I don't believe there's a 555 number in this show.

And I don't know about you, that is a trope that most certainly pulls me out of a film.

If you are gonna use 555, then just don't show the number.

It'll pull me out faster than a grab and throw.

So at this point she decides to go ahead and call the number and we get.

an information dump.

And I want to point out something here really important about Rhea and how much of a phenomenal actor she is.

The first thing that I liked about her appearance on the screen when we first see her is she has this smirk about her that I recall from Better Call Saul.

And it reminds me of our favorite gal from Severance as well.

She has such a great smirk.

And Rhea just, man.

She's another one of those fantastic actors that you can just show her face and she can act the hell out of whatever that scene is but she gets such a fun cool character here that is so cynical and so angry and so put off that it guides all of her decisions as she's navigating this new world that we're in.

And so she's talking to this guy through the television, essentially, she calls a number, talking to the dude, and she's like, uh -huh, yep, uh -huh.

And he goes, well, hey, you know, I feel like we've been doing all the talking here, as he describes what we've already mentioned before, that the scientists found the RNA sequence, they did the thing, and now everybody's got it.

She literally just goes, yeah, what the?

What the fuck is going on here?

And she just stretches this thing out and you can just feel it.

And I'm right there with you.

What the fuck is going on here?

And he explains it in an interesting way.

He says, we're not aliens.

We're still the humans that were here.

This sequence has aligned us in a way to where all of our minds are connected.

It is a hive mind scenario.

And she goes, so this is an alien takeover.

He's like, nope, there's no aliens on this planet, he says, by the way.

I thought that was very cool and clear.

And she goes, well, how does this work?

And he goes, we don't know.

We just know that it does.

And I thought that was another brilliant way to answer it without answering it.

So just to build that in so early in a show is awesome.

We know right off the bat, this is what this thing.

is and how it sort of works.

So roll with us.

So she has this conversation with David Taffler until the point to where she's absolutely sick of it.

And we get to close out this first episode with essentially her getting hammered, which is probably what I would do.

We find out a lot of cool things and a lot of subtle things, I think, with this.

conversation with the secretary of agriculture or something that they, you know, they've co -opted now since the president is no longer alive.

It's like seven levels deep.

He was just around and he had a suit on.

And he was functioning, I think he says too.

He's like, he was functioning.

And I was like, Oh, what does that mean?

Yeah.

But we get a few things in this conversation.

He confirms that this Signal is in fact extraterrestrial which we sort of already knew right at that point this signal that was broadcast was indeed Otherworldly and he also says it's not a virus.

It's more like a psychic glue that holds us all together I Thought that was pretty interesting.

It popped a couple theories in my head and I think we'll get to that as we hit the end of the episode here Okay, but he also Confirms that there are indeed other immune My question especially when it comes to those that are unaffected It would be interesting to see, are there more that we don't know about?

Can more pop up as time goes by?

Another thing I would like to know is, why have a timer?

What is the significance of the timer?

Is there a significance of the specific timestamps?

Do they have an effect on what happens later on?

Does this story go 439 days into the future now?

And then that's our block of time that this situation might happen in?

Are we counting up to that 439 days now instead of counting down?

Or is there some other significance?

here that we need to know why these moments are time stamped other than the zero hour and what happens after that.

So I think all of that stuff kind of leaves things that are fun and interesting and make you think about different types of theories.

And again, I think in great Vince Gilligan fashion, we have a character here that is not black or white.

They are very gray.

And in fact, our little protagonist here is rather angry.

and I'm still rooting the heck for her.

I think it's fantastic and I'm leaning into her direction a heck of a lot.

So overall, do you have any further thoughts on this particular episode?

And then after having looked at this one episode, what are your overall thoughts for what you think about the series at that point?

Yeah, I think a couple things here and I think going back to Carol in particular her sort of cynical approach to life and not only that but the events that come after I think some people could see it as Unlikeable in some portions, you know, it adds to that sort of grayness of the character I thought her actions were completely believable though.

I think I would have reacted in a very similar way Sometimes when you see how you would act In that circumstance, it makes you annoyed because that might not necessarily be the right way to act, but knowing that's how you would act as well, you project yourself onto the character a little bit.

That just exemplifies how good Vince Gilligan is at working with very three -dimensional characters.

I didn't watch episode one and two back -to -back, so I watched episode one the night before.

When I left it, Was really thinking mainly about that final conversation and this sort of psychic glue thing that the hive mind was talking about and it got me to thinking a little bit about What had initiated all of this, which is this?

frequency that has these Nucleotides that make up RNA that manufacture DNA.

It's not a virus.

It's something that changed our DNA as it is currently but that wouldn't necessarily explain how we could share consciousness at that point, changing our DNA.

In fact, the only way I could think of that would really give us this power, I guess you could call it, is if that aspect of hive mind and consciousness beyond ourselves was always there for us.

It was never something that was given to us.

It was always the power that humans or even maybe just sentient beings in general have.

And this RNA sequence is just what unlocked it for us as if the consciousness is something that exists already outside of ourselves.

Our own consciousness isn't confined to our own heads, you know, and it is something that is shared.

There is an idea of a shared consciousness that already exists.

And what if this Quote -unquote virus or psychic glue was just something unlocked by this change in RNA So a lot of questions here and how does it spread?

You know, it seems to spread through saliva and how does change in our DNA spread through saliva and spread by kissing?

You know because we see that the hive mind itself is a very courteous being it's a very Loving being almost they seem to love each other and they love the even the people who are immune they seem to have love for as well, but it also brought to mind of how they initially spread it by kissing.

You know, there's something about almost an evolutionary act of what kissing means to humans and how spreading that love brings us together if love is the first step in some sort of shared consciousness.

My overall thoughts on this is it's fantastic, it's mysterious, and anything that gets you really thinking about Some of the ideas I had just mentioned and consciousness outside of your body and love being something that connects us to a hive mind is a pretty damn good show, I think, at the end of the day.

It also brings up a couple of things.

It's mentioned when she has the conversation with the Secretary of Agriculture that as one that isn't part of the hive mind, you are your own person individually.

And it's not explicitly explained, but it's definitely saying you're apart from us.

And she asks, well, what are you looking to do here?

And he goes, oh, well, we're working on it.

And she says, what do you mean?

Oh, we're working on figuring out how to make you one of us.

And that's when she loses her stuff at the end of the episode.

And I think that that's important.

Secondly, similarly to what you're talking about, there's this idea of what's called the Akashic record and that everything that's ever happened or ever will happen or is happening now is available to you.

you just reach into this Akashic record and that would be everyone's thoughts memories every invention everything Would all be readily available to you instantly and they illustrate that in this show in a really neat way Because not only are they all connected their memories are connected as well and I find that really fascinating because it does start to make you think about some of these other elements of privacy and individuality But then it leans in another direction that might convince you otherwise.

And I find that that little line there is very interesting.

And I think that that's probably one of the best parts of the show.

So I appreciate you sharing your theory on the hive mind thing.

I think I agree with you as far as that sort of Akashic record and that, you know, some people even believe that we did have this before.

And that's why we were able to accomplish some of the things in the past that we can't figure out now.

And if we were able to get back to that, we would be more efficient in those ways.

And society would be, obviously, entirely different, right?

Beyond that, my friend, do you have anything else on the first episode of Pluribus?

I think that's about it, other than I'm very excited to continue on with this show.

Excellent.

Well, I couldn't agree more.

I want to thank everybody for listening to E!

Pluribus Unum, the one and only show you need to listen to about...

The Great Show, blurbous.

We'll catch up with you guys in the next episode, episode two.