Transcription
Well, that is not a butterball turkey. We're halfway through the first season of Pluribus. And historically, this is the point where a show either flips the table or doubles down. Between episode 5 and six, it felt like that cliffhanger. Carol finding what we expected to be human remains was going to be a massive game-changer. It felt like the moment the show could shift gears and build on its shocking reveals toward a dramatic conclusion.
But by the end of episode 6, we realize the writers are actually sticking to the formula. And honestly, that could have a bigger payoff. Plus, as much as the Soilent Green twist got people talking, it still felt too early in the story for Carol to get the other Unjoined on her side. If episode 5 was a study of how Carol would react to being left alone, episode 6 adds a layer to examine how she'd react to realizing her big discovery doesn't actually matter. It becomes an episode about the crushing weight of being truly alone. Even when you're standing in a penthouse in Las Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world, freaking Sin City, in the king's suite.
Before we go there, the episode picks up right where the last one left off. Carol fleeing the Aggra Jet warehouse, fighting the urge to wretch. She gathers herself, grabs her camera, and decides to give the other Unjoined a tour of the facility. She narrates the footage, panning over rows of shrink-wrapped items, setting up the big reveal. She holds up a human head wrapped in plastic and drops the butterball turkey line. She explains that the facility has an industrial processing plant with meat grinders, large vats, and everything else you might need to reduce corpses to bags of the white powder she discovered in the last episode. It feels like the smoking gun. She believes this is the piece of information that will finally wake the other 12 survivors up and get them on her side to fight back. Which, to be fair, if you were to rank humanity's universal taboos, I can't think of a combination that wouldn't put cannibalism in the top three or four. This is big. The discovery stems directly from her exile, and in her mind, it'll justify everything that led to that. Rather than sending it by drone, she decides to hand-deliver this video to Diabate. She remembers him saying he was going to Las Vegas after Spain. And that's only an 8-hourish drive from Albuquerque. So, she sets off only to turn around almost immediately for a quick scene I really liked. On her way to the car, she must have remembered the white powder on her carpet, and the thought of it sitting there while she was gone must have freaked her out. She puts on protective gear and cleans it up before she goes to rid herself of it and exercise a little bit of control before embarking on this crucial journey.
After the title sequence, we're transported into a completely different genre. It's like we woke up in a James Bond movie with Diabate in the lead role. He's living his best life in Vegas and it looks like everyone else is having a great time. Diabate is seated at a high-stakes poker table wearing a white tuxedo, flanked by a pair of his hive girlfriends. This scene is hilarious because it's so clearly staged for his entertainment. He makes a dramatic bet at 2,400,000. His opponent, a guy wearing an eye patch to really sell the role, goes all in. After the call, he tables a straight flush, which is a monster hand. There's a dramatic pause during which everyone involved appears to be on the edge of their seats. Unsurprisingly, Diabate reveals a higher straight flush, specifically a royal flush to the ace, and everyone cheers, including his opponent, which prompts Diabate to say, "Hey pal, stay in character," highlighting that he has an acting and directing credit here. When he snaps back to it, his opponent knocks his drink off the table and tells him his luck is about to run out. Diabate says, "Someday perhaps, but not today," before he leaves to enjoy the carnal pleasures of having a handful of lovers who are in sync in their efforts to please you. While there are obvious benefits there, it does make you wonder how long it would take before this whole thing gets old. It also forces us to look back at Carol. We thought she was selfish for making the hive stock a supermarket, but Diabate is pushing them to fulfill an elaborate scripted fantasy. And this is underlined as soon as he leaves the room. The illusion is shattered. The Hive members stop acting and immediately start silently cleaning up. So, he's enjoying being the star and putting on this grand production, but how long until that starts to ring hollow? Or when you just run out of ideas on how to up the ante. Maybe there are some metatextual implications here. Either way, that answer for Carol is that it's already starting to ring hollow as we transition back to her because what Diabate sees as a fun, scripted coolest guy on Earth fantasy is becoming a devastatingly lonely reality for Carol.
Speaking of shattered illusions, after a mature Bond's soaped-up companions all leave him hanging in the tub, there's a perfect transition back to Carol's journey, juxtaposing Diabate's elaborate construction with her harsh reality. She drives into a Las Vegas that is somehow stripped of its trademark spectacle. It's eerily empty. The glitz and lights are on, but the persistent den, which if you've ever been, you'll know exactly what I mean, is absent. You can literally hear the sound of crickets chirping on the Vegas strip. The previously mentioned entertainment capital of the world, aka Sin City, has been reduced to backlot status for the one-man show. Carol finds him in the Sky Villa, which I referred to as the King Suite in the Westgate Hotel, where Elvis himself once had a 7-year residency. He gave hundreds of live performances back when it was called the Las Vegas Hilton. And this room, which currently runs about $12,000 a night, was only about half the size it is now. I guess what I'm saying is that this is even more over-the-top than when Elvis would live here while he was in town. So, it's the perfect setting for a conversation that's about to be profoundly underwhelming for Carol. Diabate, who has always been warm and cordial, and the curious one out of the bunch, has the kind of welcome you would expect prepared. Carol drove eight-plus hours with an actual severed head/smoking gun combo, ready to blow the roof off everything. She even turns down his welcome drink. But before she can even get to her video, Diabate delivers what must feel like a body blow. He knew. They all knew. He just comes out and asks, "Is this another one of your videos? Is it about them eating people?" Carol's carefully prepared moment, the culmination of her exile, her investigation, and that drive is instantly deflated. Diabate and the other Unjoined had already seen her previous tapes, and the hive had already briefed them on the Pluribus equivalent of the Soilent Green twist: human-derived protein, HDP. The way this plays out isn't just a casual dismissal. He doesn't just steal her thunder, he steals her story, which had become her purpose and way to make sense of the situation. He knew the big secret a week ago, and they even had this delightfully fun John Cena-hosted explainer video ready to go. And while that lightens the mood, the heart of the episode lies in how Ray Seahorn delivers Carol's reaction as things unfold. I think the best example of this is when her voice sort of falters when she asks what they talk about when they get together, and you just end up tuning into each level of deflation Carol experiences.
The Hive's explanation boils down to pure pragmatism. They aren't evil. They're just doing the math. Since the others cannot purposely kill any life, not people and not even plants, which is a detail I wasn't anticipating, they have a massive caloric deficit for the post-joining world population of over 7 billion people. Their solution involves HDP derived from the 100,000 people who die daily from natural causes and accidents. And that's not mentioning the 800 million who died during the joining and the 11 million Carol killed with her outburst that glitched them out. It really puts a new spin on Zosa loading that body into the milk truck in her cold open introduction. The milk is also made up of all the stockpiled food stuffs that were left over. Stuff like actual milk from farm animals and what they call windfall, which is the fruits and vegetables they can scavenge after they fall on the ground. It's morbid, especially the eating people part. But they're brutally honest about their approach. And that honesty that's wrapped up in a clinical justification is what takes the wind out of the sails of Carol's big discovery. It's not a nefarious secret. It's a necessary, regrettable policy. They won't force Carol to consume HDP or serve it to her in any way. Instead, they'll reserve the best windfall for her, which kind of sounds like a consolation prize. But the real, true weight of her isolation lands here. Her discovery doesn't matter, and Diabate is just the messenger for the hive. But the second, even more crushing blow comes immediately after. Carol discovers Diabate and the other Unjoined are in weekly contact, meeting twice a week via Zoom meetings of all things. This is the gut punch. The people she was trying to connect with are forming a unified front, discussing solutions, and even voting on whether she should be involved. The majority voted no. She was written off as disruptive, someone with nothing to contribute. The professional writer, the one who can come up with stuff like robots all day, is told they're cool. No need to bother. We'll figure something out on our own. That moment in the suite's bathroom, crying next to a hilariously posed picture of Diabate peeking over his shades, is the real breaking point for Carol. The Hive isn't her problem. The other Unjoined have set up their own roadblock to keep her away. So, what does that leave her with? Is she the problem?
She wakes up the next morning and for a brief, quiet moment, there is a flicker of humanity, if not hope. Diabate proves he's not helpless without the others by putting together a pretty good-looking breakfast. Eggs, bacon, avocado, and toast. She turns this into an unruly, over-the-top sandwich. And in a great small, nonverbal moment, he copies her. He just makes the exact same crazy sandwich. It's a literal window into the possibility of him being open to Carol's messy, unconventional way of thinking. But the hope doesn't last. Having nowhere else to go, she plans on staying in Las Vegas, but senses his reluctance. After all, his heron won't return until she's gone. And so, she chooses to take one for the team she conspicuously hasn't been asked to be on. She pretends like what she said was just a joke, saying she can't wait to get out of Las Vegas, effectively exiling herself again just so his party can continue. But as she's leaving, Diabate gives her one last gift that actually does change the game. He drops the episode's most significant revelation. The Hive figured out they cannot join them without their consent because of the painful stem cell harvesting process required to make it work. Just yesterday, the Hive discovered that they could assimilate the Unjoined, but it would require them to cause them some discomfort, which is something they can't do without permission. Diabate, who is much more open to the Hive's charms, has even opted out of the process. Think about that. Carol drove all that way with a dud of a smoking gun, got shot down by a smiling John Cena, and learned she was voted out by 11 of the 12 people on Earth who understand her situation. All that and the real victory comes from a simple act of refusal, just doing what she's been doing all along. There's a great back-and-forth where he throws out the idea of her trying to figure out a way to stop the others from starving and dying off independently, of course, but she responds that maybe they should pick an apple. In her mind, they're doing it to themselves, and her perspective doesn't really allow room for any nuance when it comes to how she feels about them. When she hears the news that they can't force them to join, she immediately runs to the phone, and of course, Patrick Fabian is still on the answering machine message. Seriously, they're pushing that running gag as far as it can possibly go. And she leaves them a message. She gets the affirmative answer from the sign on the hotel and then calls back to firmly say, "I don't consent." She lost the battle to become the leader of the resistance. She didn't convince anyone to join her, but she did win the fight to secure her autonomy. She won her freedom by exercising her defiance streak, which feels right since we know her by now. And it's interesting because this is the first episode where you really feel for her, not because of something that happened like Helen's death, but because you can't help warming up to her. The secured freedom amounts to a monumental victory, and she leaves Las Vegas of winter, which is no small feat. There's a funny exchange when Diabate asks her about her choice of automobiles. And we see his fleet of Lamborghinis, a different one for each day of the week, mind you, that sets up her leaving him with a final hard him when he mentions the Hive wants her back. He argues that the Hive is just doing what they have to do to survive. And we're left to wonder if the mention of Zosa stirred up any feelings in her. I'm guessing yes, but we'll have to wait and see because Carol is alone, but she's no longer defeated. Hopefully, the glow can carry her because she's headed back to an abandoned Albuquerque without an obvious next step as far as I can tell.
And it might seem like I'm talking down on how Mr. Diabate chooses to spend his time, but Sambashut manages to include something in there that makes it so you can't help warming up to him either. There's a lot of pomp and circumstance, but it's all dressing up a guy who is just having the best time trying out all the things that weren't available to him before the world ended. Sure, there's a lot of sex with supermodel types, but he doesn't come off as one-dimensionally trashy as that sounds when you say it out loud. For a guy who likes to dress up as a Bond character, there doesn't appear to be a hidden agenda. He has the capacity to enjoy himself without feeling too bad about it. And like the hive, it feels like we can take most of what he does or says at face value.
But the episode isn't done with its twists. The countdown clock shows us that Carol is leaving Vegas on the 12th day after the joining. And when it starts rolling back to day nine, we transition to Manus in Paraguay. He appears to be making the ultimate counterpoint to Diabate's Vegas lifestyle real. He's been holed up at the storage space rental place that he works at, checking the radio spectrum nonstop, dumping the beautiful hive meals on the ground. And when he finally hits the last frequency and gets nothing, he looks done. But then he turns back the pages filled with all the frequencies he crossed out to get there to find one that isn't. When he tunes his radio to 8.613.0, zero. He hears a mysterious pulsing, almost like music. I would say that it's impossible to know for sure what this actually is at this point in the story. Can you imagine sitting in that room for 9 days, setting that egg timer, checking every one of those frequencies, crossing out the number in the book, and let's not forget eating that dog food. I don't know what the mysterious sound proves other than there's something else out there. And for the character, it seems to be enough. That's before the final sequence, which ties everything together and provides the one crack in Carol's isolation. Manus receives the VHS tape of her first message. And through a reaction game that rivals Ray Seahorn's, we watch as Carol's authentic, messy, desperate message, the one that the other Unjoined didn't even bother to respond to, finds the single most antisocial, anti-authority person on the planet. He doesn't know that there are 12 other Unjoined until he hears her say it. And he's instantly captivated by the one other person who seems to be fighting the joining. Hearing her say there's a way to reverse it. And realizing that the hive can't lie, he packs up, goes outside, and passes through the gate for the first time since the world came to an end. We see him head home. And when he hungrily hits up his over a week-old leftovers with just a quick smell test, you know he hasn't been there since everything went down. While there, he mainly just packs up. But it also reinforces how unique he is, or perhaps how uniquely paranoid he is compared to the other 12. If it hadn't been obvious where he was going, when he grabs a stack of maps and uncovers his car, a yellow MG convertible, a lot of the show's promotional material featured yellow. I'm just saying, we know his destination. He's heading for Albuquerque, which is probably good considering its current population is one. The final visual is Manus's epic journey starting with a stalled car. And when I say epic, if you drew a straight line between Paraguay and New Mexico, it would be 4,300 miles long or 7,000 km. And the actual driving distance would be a lot longer than that. After seeing the clock roll back, we know this is a little earlier in the timeline, but three days' head start is not enough for him to get there at the same time she does. He'll be a while before he gets there. When he gets out of the car for a moment after it stalls, a hive member approaches him and attempts to make contact. She looks like a kind older woman and calls him son. She says, "You must be hungry and confused. Can we answer any questions?" Only for him to spit back, "Don't call me son. You're not my mother. My mother is a bitch." Then he jumps back in, starts the car, and drives off.
The takeaway here is that while Carol has been shut down by the entire collective of her Unjoined peers, her message got through to the most isolated, antisocial, and perhaps most volatile survivor. The writers are sticking to the formula, but they have flipped the table on the stakes. Carol's alone, but as she heads back to an empty home, she's no longer the only one in motion, and that feels like an excellent setup for the rest of the season. HDP was directed by Ganja Montero, who's worked on a bunch of high-profile stuff, most of which I haven't seen. This is a fantastic Gilligan Universe debut. I like the way they put together the cannibalism reveal. It looked like Ray Seahorn was really shooting the video live for the Unjoined, and that paired really well with the lavish set that took us into the Vegas poker game. This is probably my favorite episode since the premiere. While most of that can be attributed to being pleasantly surprised with how they handled the cliffhanger and the way that turned things back towards the characters, it's a gorgeous-looking episode. On top of that, I feel like a lot is going on here that will reveal itself when I go back to watch it. Kind of like how I didn't even notice the giant banner of Mr. Diabate as Elvis hanging on the outside of the Westgate Hotel until the second time I watched it. I mean, those are all over Vegas. Those kind of stories, tall announcements for the different shows at a hotel. And I mean, there are funny pictures of him and I believe paintings of him everywhere in the penthouse. So, I guess it all might have started to blend in. I noticed the Elvis impersonator at the party because, well, it's Vegas. But when I was taking notes, it seemed like there were a lot of Hive members dressed as celebrities in the crowd scenes. The John Cena explainer was a real treat, and they're really taking the time to set Manus up to be a force of nature. Halfway there, it just keeps getting better, and I think that's a great place to leave things. Please like this video if you enjoyed it. Join us on Sunday at 9:00 PM for a Pluribus live discussion. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already, and thanks for watching. I'll talk to you.