Transcription
In my video on the premiere, I said Pluribus felt lab-made for me. It takes so many boxes for what I love about television and also tickles the part of my brain that leaves me lost in thought like good sci-fi can.
Episode 7, "The Gap," feels like the show's biggest swing creatively and its greatest test. It's a test for the characters, for the audience, and honestly for me as someone trying to talk about it, because how do you recap an episode where not much is happening is what drives the story? The challenge is the point. The show challenges itself. Can we sustain an hour focused on two isolated people with minimal dialogue and make it compelling? That challenge then extends to Carol and Manus. How long can you sustain yourself when you're the only one holding your line? And finally, it challenges us, the viewers. How long are we willing to sit in that uncomfortable silence with them?
This goes back to the show's sci-fi premise. Everyone else has become a part of the hive. They'll never grapple with being left alone with their thoughts again. The 13 immune or unjoined, but the majority voted not to include Carol in their community, and Manus is probably too paranoid about their association with the others to trust them. The Hive is a single entity, a seamless "we." Carol and Manus, they are irrevocably "eyes." This creates a fundamental philosophical loneliness that goes beyond being physically alone. They aren't plugged in at all, and that option isn't really on the table anymore.
After leaving Mr. Diabate in Las Vegas so he can get back to his fantasy roleplay, the only interaction Carol has is listening to a pre-recorded message over and over and over again. To try to tie it back to the show's imagery, let's say this is our petri dish for an experiment in isolation versus solitude. Because the initial reaction I had when I finished it the first time was that "The Gap" was an episode about negative space. Abandoned golf courses, empty museums, silent stretches of highway and jungle trails. Distractions take a backseat by design, but which is not necessarily what you go into your favorite new television show expecting.
The challenge here is whether the show can find drama in stillness. And it comes down to performance and the implications of what we see on screen. Every long shot of Carol or Manus driving isn't just filler. The time it takes to get from point A to point B is a factor in character development. The show is betting on the actors being able to sell the experience through their faces and the way they present themselves. The thing I find most compelling is that with no scene partners, we never really know what they're thinking. We see what they do. In other words, how they present themselves to the world, empty or not. All the while knowing that how they feel inside probably doesn't match up.
After episode 6, Carol isn't just alone. She's been professionally and ruthlessly, but also diplomatically isolated. Her isolation is imposed with the Hive's trademark efficiency. And you have to think it's corrosive. Her smoking gun was a complete dud. Her purpose exposing the hive was preemptively neutralized by John Cena. I talked about her perceived victory in winning her autonomy by not consenting to the stem cell collection, but we'll see as she tries to exercise that as freedom and tries to enjoy that like Mr. Diabate. It comes off as a different kind of performance. You see it in the petty demands, ordering an ice-cold Gatorade and promptly complaining when it's lukewarm. It's a tiny performative act of control. You also see it in her curated soundtrack for her days. She's not just listening to music or singing in most of the scenes. She's scoring this new chapter in her story. "I'm All Right at the Golf Course" is a song that sounds like someone who is not that, trying to convince you there's nothing to worry about. It's the end of the world as we know it on the highway, but then the shot cuts away on the "I feel" part so that she never gets to the word "fine." The music is drawing attention to the internal conflict, and each scene is packed with subtle details and clues.
It's funny because the premise leaves you in this state of coming up with constant questions about how the hive works. This is something that always seems to come up in our live discussions on Sunday as well. It makes you think about how the hive works, then also how Carol operates in the new world that's emerging post-joining. I wonder how she gets gas. It's answered with another chance to play the "we just need some space" message in its entirety, which is still funny, but now that they've kept the running gag going for so long, the humor comes from not being able to believe they're still doing it rather than the substance of what he says. You think things like, "I wonder if they're still watching Carol." And the quick Gatorade delivery confirms that even though they avoid direct contact, they know exactly where she is at any given time. Her audience is always watching.
Her trip to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is the most intriguing act of this performance. For fans of the Gilligan universe, this is a familiar location. It's where Jane wanted to go with Jesse in Breaking Bad's second season, a plan that was put on hold because of Walt's ambitions. When Carol makes the short trip to Santa Fe, she doesn't just look at the work, she takes it. She's had a poster hanging in her home and now she has the chance to replace it with the real painting, "Bella." In the old world, this would have been impossible. Now it's an empty gesture. Is there any difference between one and the other? Does possessing the real one mean anything? Or is it just beauty without shared wonder? Later in Breaking Bad, when we see a flashback to Jane and Jesse actually visiting the museum, she tells him she thought Georgia O'Keeffe repeatedly painted the same images as a way to make a feeling last. Carol seems like she's trying to make a feeling, any feeling, start. She just wants to feel something.
The climax of this performance is her solo dinner. At her request, the Hive recreates perfect dishes from her past with Helen. Say what you want about them, those crazy bastards sure can cook. And they do. The food is perfect, the setting is perfect, and it's devastating. She's not having dinner. She's trying to relive moments from memories with no one to share them with. It's the idea of trying to make a feeling last, and the perfection of the setting and meal only underlines the futility. Her isolation immediately undermines any joy. The absence of connection makes any internal peace unsustainable. Humans might not be wired to be a part of a global hive mind out of the box, but we're not built to be alone like this for very long either.
If Carol represents isolation, then Manus's side of things is about solitude, something you can choose and may even be good for you. Ideally, it can be disciplined and purposeful. His alone-ness is self-imposed and reframes his trip as a pilgrimage in which he follows a strict moral code. From the moment he leaves Paraguay, every action is a ritual of the old world or the way things used to be. He leaves money for the gas he siphons even though there's no one to care, which is a direct contrast to Carol taking the painting home because why not? He practices English by repeating the phrases from the lesson tapes he brought along. "The yellow dog chases the gray cat." He's trying to improve himself. He sleeps in churches. He holds on to a Catholic icon. He isn't just trying to survive. His performance is an act of resistance through routine. Maintaining the world he lost entirely alone. His performative acts of discipline are a way to separate himself from what's happening in a post-joining reality.
The religious overtones of his quest are not subtle. You could even view the different times when the hive approaches him to offer help as temptations. The mirror to Carol's early experiences with the others and the fact that this is the first time he's been outside since the world ended helps to define how his character is different. Later when he crafts his mantra, "My name is Manuso Soviado. I am not one of them. I wish to save the world." This isn't the same as when he was practicing English. It sounds more like an incantation. It's him declaring his individuality, not because he doesn't want to change, but because the world needs saving. It's the only version of the story he'll accept. Where Carol's performance is for an audience of no one, Manus's discipline is for an audience of one, himself.
This is made text when he reaches the end of the paved roads he's been traveling on, which for us had been a beautiful scenic journey from Paraguay to Colombia. From shots of the map and the car's license plate, which provided him with more fuel, we can see that he made his way through Chile and Peru. He's arrived at the Darien Gap, which is where the episode gets its name. And the Gap is a place many commenters on my last video pointed out makes it impossible to drive from Paraguay to New Mexico. In real life, he would be able to take a ferry, but since he won't accept any help from the hive, it's not like he can do that in this situation.
Beyond the offer to help him when he ran out of gas and the hellos from people as he drove by, the hive remained relatively hands-off in dealing with him here. It shows up right away and warns him that this is a terrible idea. It's a long trek. The weather report is brutal. There are deadly animals and insects. A crazy-sounding chunga palm with infectious spikes growing out of it. And more than anything, it's pointless. They offer to fly him to Carol's place by nightfall, and they'll even transport his trusty MG convertible. We know this isn't a threat. It's an honest offer and a plea to just not do this crazy thing. They don't want him to die and see the futility, but nothing about him says he would trust them.
Manuso's response is a high point of the episode. And there's several details along the way that set it up, like the way he recognized Carol's name when they said it. He sets his car on fire, the MG, the Virgin of Carmel icon, the tapes, all up in flames. "Nothing on this planet is yours," he says. "You can't give me anything because you stole it." This isn't just rejection. It's a formal renunciation. Where we watch Carol try to consume the artifacts of the old world to fill her emptiness, Manus destroys the ones he cares about, proving that his soul resides not in possessions, but in his principles. He would rather walk through hell than accept a single bit of help from the smiling interlopers. To keep with the religious angle, his solitude almost becomes a sacred, punishing vow.
Ultimately, both characters break in parallel, and the form of their breaking is everything. Carol's breaking point is psychological and quiet. After a time jump to 48 days since the joining, there's another scene to emphasize just how punk rock her performance is getting. Chipping golf balls into plate glass windows in an office building reads punk rock to me, anyway. But I guess since the track she's playing is Judas Priest's "Anthem," "You Got Another Thing Coming," you could definitely make an argument that it's metal. This short sequence and the fact that her CD from 2005 is called "Booya Jams Volume 2" serves as another reminder that the show values taking the time to lighten the mood to balance out a heavy episode. Let's not forget that hilarious answering machine message. And how could we? If this is the last stand of her [ __ ] attitude, the fireworks scene is the collapse of her performance. She's built this elaborate Diabate-style spectacle to up the ante of her own existence, even adding a patriotic soundtrack to express the rugged individualism on display and her newfound skill of coordinating fireworks displays. When she notices that one firework has leaned over and is pointed right at her, she doesn't move. It's not an act of defiance or courage or anything like that. It's indifference, and it looks like she's given up. Her posture asks the question, "Is a world where I'm this alone worth living in?" The firework misses but sets her neighbor's house ablaze. There's no question she was all right with the alternative ending. You get a real sense that she ran out of road. She watches for a long beat, considering letting it all burn. After all, it's not her world anymore. How is the whole thing any different than the glass windows she was breaking in the previous scene? Isolation has taken its toll, and you understand the urge to give up the fight. Then, in a surprising turn, and slowly, she definitely doesn't rush. She grabs a hose and starts to put it out. It's a small thing but a crucial detail. Even at her lowest point, the part of her that fixes things is still there. It's a small crack in her first surrender.
Manus's breaking point is physical and brutal. The chunga palm spike doesn't care about his morality, and nature steps in to do what the hands-off hive couldn't. It stops him from completing his journey. His manufactured solitude is violently punctured. In a superbly crafted scene, we watch him lose his footing, get impaled, only to struggle free, and then his reward is getting to cauterize his own wound with a heated machete. How's that mantra helping now as it dissolves into screams? His body, not his will, gives out. And as he collapses, his final whispered words aren't the mantra. They're Carol's "Sturka." His purpose has subtly but profoundly shifted from saving the world to reaching the one other person who might understand why it matters.
This brings us to the ending that delivers a lot of emotional weight with the right amount of ambiguity as Pluribus tends to do. We get a scene of Carol's process in doing something while we aren't sure what that is. She goes to a home supply store, returns home to start a project, and starts painting something on her cul-de-sac. There's a change of expression. As things unfold, you realize she looks determined and something resembling resolved, but the mystery kind of distracts you from the feeling. This continues inside as she stands there looking at "Bella Donna" on her wall. We find out that part of what she's doing there is waiting. She painted the words "come back" on the street, and Zosa eventually pulls up in their car outside.
This show has excelled in its bid to make me think about it and the empty spaces in between episodes. And while that's been enough, I've been wondering about how it would make me feel. As Zosa approaches and those two track each other, coming from places that are entirely disconnected, I found out she collapses into Zosa's arms, which looks like her second surrender. Knowing what it might be like to be that alone makes this look like total surrender. Like the firework incident. "I don't care if you're not even human. I just need somebody, anybody." But I don't think that's the full story. Knowing what we know about Carol, her embrace with Zosa isn't a conversion. A month of isolation therapy isn't really going to change how she feels about the joining or the hive. It's not going to prove any more effective than the conversion therapy her mother forced on her when she was a teenager. So, this is a capitulation to a biological and psychological truth. Humans start to fall apart when they're alone for too long. She isn't surrendering her belief that the joining must be undone. She's surrendering to the undeniable fact that she can't wage war in a vacuum. She needs connection, even if it's from the very entity she's fighting. It's all part of being human, which ties it directly back to what she's trying to preserve. This could mean it's a tactical move. We'll see if she tries to deceive them about her goals when we pick up in the next episode.
This furthers the complications that are baked into the premise. Everything the Hive is offering fixes some of her problems, but the cost of individuality is just a little more than most people, and Carol especially, are willing to pay. And this makes you wonder how long the Unjoin can hold out. But then the last episode introduced that the others won't be around indefinitely if they can't sort out their caloric deficit or figure out a way to pick a [ __ ] apple. Neither side is cruising to victory here.
This is where the contrast with Manuso's story becomes really compelling. Carol is spiritually isolated while Manus is physically broken and at the mercy of the hive, who literally saved his life. In a way, they're opposites reflecting each other's failure at the end, but their extremity still draws them together. As laid out in the last episode, the other Unjoin have taken the opposite moral position. For them, the right thing to do is to accept the hive. And if you do that, then the right thing to do is to try to save them from starving to death. Right now, Carol and Manus are the only two people in the world who are willing to endure any form of suffering in the interest of turning things back to the way they were. In that, the show's created an insurmountable challenge for itself. Neither one of these characters will change their core beliefs about the hive. Where do you go with that? It creates more potential conflicts the story could explore, but it makes it hard to anticipate where things will go next.
It seems silly to write this many words about a thing I really enjoyed, but then also admit that I'm not 100% sure where they're going with it. To this point, it's the good kind of unsure. And I mean, look, there's a ton of great stuff going on in this episode that I didn't even have time to touch on. I didn't even mention that it was directed by Adam Bernstein, who helmed some classic Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul episodes, as well as some of my favorite Silo episodes. I didn't get into all the different ways you could apply the episode's title, "The Gap," to everything that happens in this episode. The brutal jungle dividing the continents, the space between Carol's beliefs and her needs, the distance between Manuso's sacrifice and his destination, and the silence the show challenges us to endure between each of the times it plays the answering message in full.
But having said all that, I can see how this episode might not be for everyone. It goes back to the challenge they set for themselves that I mentioned at the beginning. For an hour, the show asks the audience to find drama in stillness. And that kind of slow-burn, meditative storytelling will naturally lose some viewers who are expecting more traditional plot movement. If the show can't make you care about the characters or what they're trying to do, you're not likely to feel invested, and then the whole thing feels empty. Because we're seeing things on the surface, how the characters want us to. It's presented through their performances, and that makes me wonder about what's really going on inside. It's the kind of episode that leaves you thinking, "Am I missing some crucial detail, some hidden meaning?" If you feel like you're in on it, then it's brilliant. If you don't, then I imagine it can get annoying, and that's a potential problem, which I mostly don't worry about because I know I enjoyed how their past shows delivered in the end. No one who made something good ever came back and made something bad, right? Still, it could develop into something to think about. For now, I'm just enjoying the ride, and that I've got something like this to look forward to. And I think that's a great place to leave things.
Please like this video if you enjoyed it. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. We do a Pluribus live discussion every Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. So, join us for that. We'll explore some of the unanswered questions that this episode brings up. Let me know which ones of those you're thinking about the most in the comments. And thanks for watching. I'll talk to you soon.