There were many things that made season one of Pluribus incredibly compelling, including its intelligent and original take on an alien invasion and its across-the-board fantastic performances. Drawing on both of those is the dilemma faced by main character Carol (Rhea Seehorn), who, after proving initially immune to the hive mind that ensnares almost every other human on Earth, immediately decides she must cling to her individuality no matter how tempting it might be to just give in.
And Pluribus does a lot to show you the temptations Carol faces. If only she’d surrender, the Others insist, she’d be so much happier. So much more at peace. She’d never be lonely again.
In a new feature with Entertainment Weekly, Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan was asked which post-apocalypse scenario he’d choose if the show became real life.
“My answer to this would probably change day by day these days,” Gilligan told EW. “When you watch The Walking Dead or The Last of Us or other shows like that—which are very excellent, worthy shows—the choice they seem to present to me as a viewer is: How would you survive, and would you want to in this world? But the choice is never really presented as, ‘Would you want to be a zombie?’ That’s not really a choice. I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Gee, I want to try that out.’”
He continued, “Actually, part of the point in the creation of Pluribus was to have something that looked and felt like a post-apocalyptic tale. But I think part of the hope for me was when you’re watching it as a viewer, you start to think, ‘Is this so bad? Are Carol and [fellow immune person] Manousos barking up the right tree, wanting to change the world back?’”
On a personal note, Gilligan pointed out his age (almost 60) and the real-life dystopia we’re currently living in as potentially swaying factors. “These days, I’m starting to think, ‘Gee, would it be so bad to be Joined?’ We were actually talking about this very thing this morning before lunch in the writers’ room. The simplest way to put it is, we’re always trying to keep our minds open to the possibility that Carol’s not right.”
But before you worry too much about Gilligan losing his mind, he added, “Then there’s other days where I say to myself, ‘No, that’d be terrible. That’s not what human beings are here for. We’re not here to just be at peace all the time.’ I’d take a happy medium with the accent on happy.”
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