Everyone Is Everyone Now
A science-fiction show is only as good as its core idea. The higher the concept, the greater the story. And with Pluribus, Vince Gilligan (creator of Breaking Bad) delivers an instant classic: When the world’s population is infected with an extraterrestrial virus, popular romance author Carol Sturka (played by Rhea Seehorn) discovers that she is inexplicably immune to it. The virus turns everyone “happy,” and happy is in quotation marks here, because the series stretches the definition of the word. Can you really consider someone to be “happy” when they are simply following orders? Not only are they “happy,” their sole purpose in life is to cheer up others — in this case, Carol.
Once her town is hit by the happiness epidemic, our heroine finds herself in situations surrounded by people who are full of optimism, wanting to help her, suggesting she hydrate and take care of herself, sending food and other items that might bring her joy. No one can say no to Carol — even if it’s a hand grenade, a rocket launcher, or a tank, if she asks for it, she will receive it.
Carol, for her part, is far more interested in reversing whatever is happening. She understands that the virus has connected everyone into a single collective entity, one big hive mind that can speak through any being on Earth. “We” want you to join us, they tell Carol, “we” are working on finding out how to make that happen. She goes on the hunt for other unaffected humans across the globe (they do exist). After spending a few testy hours with them, Carol realizes that not all of them are against the notion of everyone being everyone now. Because she chooses to keep her agency and rejects this forced happiness, Carol is the most miserable person on the planet.
The show poses several profound questions: What is autonomy? Are we really free? What is the meaning of community when we would much rather want to be left alone? The writers address the limits of our hyper-capitalist society, while also deconstructing ideas of connectedness. How being constantly online and over-reliant on artificial intelligence rather than embodied experiences is slowly but surely taking over our lives (and our brains).
Would it really be so bad to be infected by the virus, becoming one with everyone else? Carol is asked this by another immune person. And that is the billion dollar question: Who are we, when we are not ourselves anymore? For all this and more, Pluribus is the show of the hour.
