Transcription
Carol has spent the entire season trying to get the hive to leave her alone. Sometimes you just need a little space, you know, after everything that's happened.
Well, in Pluribabus episode 5, Got Milk, they finally grant her wish by packing up the entire city and ghosting her. This wasn't a decision they could take lightly. Following Carol's near nuclear outburst, the Hive faced an impossible risk assessment. Option A, give the erratic, probably alcoholic a nuke. Option B, say no and potentially trigger an outburst that kills millions. They realized the math was too close. So after the latest incident, they chose option C. They disappear.
They empty the city, leaving behind only an uncredited voice on a hilarious voicemail from a Better Call Saul alum. The hype gave Carol what she wanted from the beginning, space. But as she finds out, when you empty a city of people, you just make more room for the real ghost to move in. That's what sends Carol into full gum shoe mode.
Got Milk is another episode directed by Gordon Smith and it opens with a shot of Blue again. This time it's curtains. They're almost sheer lit up by the harsh New Mexico sunshine. As the camera pulls back, we see the desert scrub outside. It's a reset after episode 4's tense ending. It's quiet, peaceful, and then you hear an unnerving slurping sound in the background. The camera moves and we see a hive member, a patient at the hospital propped on a gurnie, drinking milk from one of those small cartons, the same type Zosa was struggling to open in the previous episode.
Things at the hospital appear to be back to business as usual after the crying incident Carol caused at the end of episode 4. We see workers moving around. We even catch a glimpse of Zosa in one of the rooms, confirming she survived her ordeal. We see Carol squeezing a rubber toy, a panic pee. Jurassic Park fans will recognize this because Dennis Nedry had one in that movie. When you squeeze it, the eyes and ears pop out. It's the physical embodiment of bugging out after trying to keep too many things in. The visual kicker is that Carol is still wearing the handcuff on her wrist from when she shackled herself to Zosa. The Hive had to use bolt cutters to separate them to save Zosa's life. So now Carol has this permanent metal reminder of her guilt dangling from her arm. She's squeezing the panic, Pete. Eyes popping out, trying to keep a lid on her own internal turmoil. Because, as we already know, that can lead to serious consequences if it comes out in the wrong way in the hive's direction. She knows she's responsible. She almost killed the only friend she had there. She's supposed to be the indifferent lone wolf, but she is human and the guild is eating at her.
This episode is full of rapid tone shifts, and what better way to set up one of those than to have Carol get a call from Laxmi, who immediately calls to complain. She tells Carol that she made her son cry, that she made the whole world cry. She asks Carol, point blank, if she's mentally unsound. Carol tries to explain that the joining can be undone, but Laxshmi isn't interested and doesn't let her get that far. She cuts her off. "You do not make my son cry again." Click.
When Carol wakes up from a nap later, the hospital is silent. She walks into the hallway. No nurses, no patients. She looks around the empty rooms. They haven't just left the building. They've evacuated the city. She dials zero and gets a recording. And this is the running gag of the episode. It's always the same recording. "Hello, Carol. This is a recording. At the tone, you can leave a message to request anything you might need. We'll do our best to provide it. Our feelings for you haven't changed, Carol, but after everything that's happened, we just need a little space." It's hilarious. The tone is that of a scorned lover who needs to back away after a nasty fight. And I already hinted at the coolest detail. That voice is Patrick Fabian. Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul is uncredited here. And I can't think of a better candidate to deliver one of the best passive aggressive breakup speeches in sci-fi history. Of course, he's the guy on the line when the entire planet dumps you.
Carol goes to the roof and sees the cars leaving the city. She handles it well with a very Carol reaction. "Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Fine. Good riddance. [ __ ] you." Rather than linger on that, Carol decides to pivot. She is fiercely independent, and if she's going to go it alone, she's going to be professional about it. She comes home, puts on makeup, dresses up, and hides her booze. She sets up her camera, the same one she used for her true serum test, and records a call to action for the other 12 immune survivors, as she calls them. She's trying to frame herself as a leader, or maybe in the absence of anyone else to step up, she's trying to do the right thing. She lays out the situation, essentially boiling it down to, "they left because they're scared I'll uncover the truth, which tells me I'm on the right track." She wants to get the other non-joined humans on her side and believes what she's telling them about saving the joined and not allowing the others to force them into the peace, love, and understanding of it all. She means it when she says she thinks they'll realize too late that they treasure their individuality. She dials zero to arrange for the tape to be delivered. The recording plays again. "Our feelings for you haven't changed, Carol." She uses a subtle threat. "I can't make you do it, but keep in mind the biblically shitty mood it'll put me in if you don't." Without a direct response, they send a drone to pick it up. And Day One alone appears to end on a productive note. She even decides not to have a drink with her microwave dinner. Evidence that she's trying to be better while also reminding us that she had the Hive restock an entire supermarket because, you know, her need to be independent.
This is highlighted when she chases off some wolves who snuck into her yard to steal her trash, only for the show to undercut it immediately. The next morning, she bags up her trash and calls the hive recording to arrange a pickup. And what's in the bag? The silver cloch from that delightful breakfast she rejected in episode 2. We see the drone arrive. They told her to keep the bags under 17 lbs. We see her check the weight with a lazy lift and decide it's fine. It is not fine. The drone tries to take it away, struggles with the weight of that cloch, and wraps itself around a light pole. The drone is destroyed, the bag rips open, and the trash falls right back onto the street. It's funny as far as it goes, but more importantly, it leads to a big clue. She can't get rid of the serving tray lid, an ongoing symbol of Carol's refusal to accept their hospitality. And after she drives down the road to try to stuff the trash into a public trash can, which of course has a small opening to prevent people from throwing junk like the cloch away on any random street. She notices the only thing the others throw away are their milk cartons. No food wrappers, none of the things you need to throw away in a given day, just milk. This sends her into full detective mode. And I got to say, it looks good on her. She believes she can follow this trail to find the evidence that will help the other unjoined people realize she's right. And it leads her to a nearby dumpster. And this scene feels like a direct nod to Better Call Saul, specifically the Sandpiper dumpster diving scene. The difference is striking where Jimmy McIll was sifting through slime and filth to get his evidence. Carol falls into the cleanest dumpster in existence. These cartons are the only thing the Hive consumes, so it's the only thing they throw away. and every carton has an address on it. She tracks it to the Duke City Dairy. It's abandoned just like the rest of the city. She finds the assembly line, but instead of milk, the machines are filled with a weird amber colored liquid. She hears a noise that turns out to be ravens calling and follows it to a pallet of large brown bags. They look like grain bags or maybe concrete mix, but when she inspects them, she finds they're filled with white powder. She takes samples back to her house and grabs a testing kit from her hot tub. She records an update. "It doesn't have a smell. Weird texture like olive oil, but thinner. PH of 7.1." She's trying to be scientific, but by the end, you can see her start breaking down. She deletes the recording and starts over. She realized that the milk is just this powder mixed with water. It's probably a nutrient sludge and they're manufacturing it on a mass scale.
While Carol is playing detective, the ghost theme of the episode comes crashing down on her. Wolves return to her yard. We saw them earlier eating her trash. But now that the city is dark, remember the hive turned off the lights to conserve energy. The wolves are bolder. Carol pours herself a drink. She hears a sound. She grabs her golf club. But this time, it's worse. The wolves are digging at Helen's grave. There's a great call back here to episode 2 when she first buried Helen. We see the orchid she placed on the grave being uprooted. This is the one line Carol could not allow to be crossed. Helen was the only person who understood her. Helen managed her. Without Helen, Carol is unmed, and she needs this one thing to stay the same. This was all foreshadowed in the scene before the wolves arrived the first time. There was a shot of her looking at the empty side of the bed she used to share with Helen after she scared them off and had the hive turn the lights back on. There was a shot of her looking over at a sleep mask on the nightstand before she grabbed it. It was sitting on top of the Agatha Christie book and then there were none. A fitting title for a ghost town. Beneath that is what I believe to be the alcoholics anonymous which connects back to Helen demanding the keys to their car at the airport because of the alcohol interlock.
In the second encounter with the wolves, she runs to the cop car to get the shotgun. It won't come loose from the lock and she's panicking. She decides to jump in and drive away. And then we see her drive into the backyard. Sirens blaring and flashing lights blazing to scare the pack away. It works and she sleeps in the car to protect the grave. The next morning delivers the punchline. She wakes up stiff and angry. You can't really have a comfortable night's sleep in the front seat of a car. She looks over and right in front of her face, she notices a gun release button and presses it. The shotgun pops right out. Then she looks at her key ring and there's a handcuff key on it. She unlocks the cuff she's been wearing all episode and dead pants. "Son of a [ __ ]" It's funny, but the moment is incredibly revealing.
What follows should be a grueling sequence, but the score and the way it's put together reveal it to be something else. Carol drives to a building supply store and loads heavy paving stones into the trunk of her car. On her way back, we see the cop car suspension bottoming out. A visual metaphor for the weight she's carrying. She spends the day paving the entire backyard, almost placing one stone after another. It's hard labor, but a labor of love more than penance. She paints a marker with Helen's name and finally cries after she places it. She probably overdid it for a ghost she could never truly seal away, but can you blame her? and the body is definitely safe from the wolves at the very least at this point.
That sets up the perfect place to point out that Ray Seahhorn is literally alone in most of the scenes. The majority of the dialogue is her talking to a camera and it still feels like there's a ton of stuff happening. Outside of the opening sequence and the dose of synchry we get in their exodus scene after Carol falls asleep at the hospital. All of the Hive stuff takes a back seat. They're a drone and a pre-recorded repeating message. A choice which means Carol has to do most of the heavy lifting. The outstanding performance and striking visuals make it seem normal.
After the emotional release, Carol accidentally knocks over the bag of milk powder she stole when she sits down on her couch. She notices the bag has a barcode. She drives to Sprouts to scan it. When that gives her an error, she walks the aisles looking for a match until she notices that a brand of dog food uses the exact same bag, revealing the manufacturer's address. She breaks into the facility. It's dark, creepy. This continues the tension of her being the only living thing in these massive empty spaces. She finds a large walk-in freezer. It's full of pallets covered in plastic sheets. It looks like food storage consistent with the hive consolidating their resources. There are plenty of fruits and vegetables that you can make out and it all seems harmless until Carol lifts up one of the plastic sheets and we watch her freeze. Not literally, she freezes up. There's a long pause and then she covers her mouth and gasps and then the episode ends right there.
The sense you get is that this is a shocking reveal proving the others are up to something diabolical. because we saw them cleaning up dead bodies in the early episodes. The obvious implication is Soilent Green, which if you're too young to know that reference, Soilent Green is people. It's from a sci-fi movie of the same name where the food is revealed to be made from human remains. The obvious implication is that the others are recycling the dead into the nutrient powder she found. Now, usually I'd say this feels like a fake out. Maybe it feels too obvious. And honestly, this was my initial reaction. After thinking about it, I don't know what else might make her react that way. And I thought about the conversation I had with my guests in the live discussion for last week's episode. This show doesn't try to trick you. It's pretty honest. The simplest solution is probably the correct one. I remembered Vince Gilligan's quote from the preseason interviews about wanting to take every sci-fi trope and turn it on its ear. And I remembered the atomic bomb request. When Carol asked for the nuke, the hive didn't react with horror or confusion. They reacted with calculation. They are weirdly honest and purely pragmatic. If they calculated that giving a drunk woman a nuclear weapon was a viable option. They have absolutely calculated the caloric efficiency of recycling the 11 million dead bodies that were the result of the last time she turned her anger on them. They might not like it. I kind of believe they wouldn't, but they wouldn't necessarily have the same moral issue with it. It's just math. Carol's reaction isn't confusion, it's horror. I think the show is playing this straight. She found bodies. And that pause before she gasped. I don't really know. That might be her realizing the sheer scale of the operation. Maybe she recognized someone she knew. Maybe they wanted to up the cliffhanger aspect of it. I'm not sure. And there will likely be an added layer here. But I know I'm excited to see what they do with things now that she has this information.
Episode five proves that the scariest thing the Hive can do isn't necessarily to assimilate you. Not right now for Carol anyways. For her, it's just being ignored. They ghosted Carol to protect themselves and it helped to reveal some things about the character who is moving in a direction. But it may have also gave her the space to find some information that'll serve as a smoking gun. So, let me know what you guys think. Is it soilent green? Did it even cross your mind that the hive might do this and be able to get away with it? To leave Carol alone to have her have Albuquerque all to herself? How long do you think you could last like that? It might be cool for a little while, but I think your mind would start to play tricks on you eventually, and I think that's a great place to leave things. Please like this video if you enjoyed it. We'll be doing the live stream Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. So, join us for that. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already, and thanks for watching. I'll talk to you soon.