Pluribus S1E1 — The World Is A Scary Place — Review

What if everyone in the world were happy — everyone except for you, that is?

And what if the reality proposed by the villainous Borg of Star Trek fame were possible — that we are better when we are one collective unit, just separated by our physical entities?

In a sense, that’s what is being asked of us when we are watching Pluribus, from the writer and director of Breaking Bad, Vincent Gilligan.

Though I am not too familiar with either Breaking Bad and the prequel series that followed it, Better Call Saul, I get the sense that Pluribus is quite unlike either of these series.

The Premise

The show starts off with a rather ominous countdown — to what are they counting down, I had to wonder to myself.

I guessed correctly that it had to do with the event that made the very premise of this show possible.

So scientists pick up on a frequency that is coming from outer space and based on this, they make some kind of a formula — almost like a virus.

They then test this virus out on various lab rats and one of the rats seems to die because of it (awe!) but when the scientist goes to check on it, she can kind of feel a pulse.

Naturally since her protective gear is precluding her from feeling a pulse properly, she takes off the good glove that she was wearing and this leads to the rat biting her, getting her to be patient zero in all of this.

She then goes and open mouth kisses someone, who then finds someone of his own to open mouth kiss, and before you know it the entire planet seemingly has been infected by this.

Meanwhile it seems that the real main character of the show, Carol, has not been affected by the virus.

Carol is introduced as being an author who has lots of adoring fans, but it’s not going to be long before those fans all turn on Carol — and it’s not even to do with anything Carol has said or done!

The Borg

Considering how quickly the virus spread, it’s pretty impressive that it doesn’t take long before the hivemind populace is targeting Carol and are presumably trying to get her to join them.

It’s a bit like Night of the Living Dead in that way, but at least there people somewhat thought for themselves.

Here it’s like every single human alive, other than the handful of people that Carol has not yet met, either died from the virus or joined at the brain to all be thinking the same thoughts.

Me being me, I have to wonder if people are all enjoying food when any one physical person enjoys food, and other physical sensations as well — does punching one of them make them all feel pain the way that it did in Stranger Things when the underground tentacles were being burned?

The love of Carol’s life is dead because of the virus, leaving her pretty much alone in this world, and every television station is offline except for the one trying to communicate with Carol.

I for one would be quite intimidated in this kind of scenario.

Conclusion

I thought that this had a really slow start as far as shows go but I can see why the buildup was necessary.

I really appreciated the way they introduced Carol and really feel badly for her that she’s fundamentally alone by the end of the episode, though I get the feeling that she should have at least one friend by the end of the second episode.

Here’s hoping!