Pluribus episode four went full throttle into some seriously messed up territory and its a very twisted one that I was not expecting, this episode really showed us what Carol is willing to do when she gets desperate and its not pretty at all. We got to see a new immune survivor named Manus down in Paraguay who is basically living like the world ended in the worst way possible, eating dog food out of cans and taping cardboard over every window because he does not trust a single thing the hive mind is trying to give him, the guy is starving himself rather than take their free gourmet meals which honestly I get it but also dude you are eating dog food so maybe reconsider your priorities here. The whole opening with Manus was cool because it showed us a completely diferent response to this whole situation compared to what we have seen so far, Carol is angry and difficult but she still interacts with them and uses them to get what she wants, Manus is just full on hiding in his storage unit facility waiting for someone anyone to respond on his old analog radio, when Carol called him from the plane last episode he thought she was one of them at first and told her to screw off but then she yelled back at him and called him names which made him realize oh shit this person is actually pissed off and rude so she must be human. That whole sequence where he is forcing himself to eat the dog food while the phone keeps ringing was nasty to watch, I mean I doubt it taste any good as it look very sloopy, you could see him trying not to throw up with every bite and then Carol just keeps calling over and over, I liked how they showed the same phone calls from episode one but from his perspective this time because it added so much more context to how isolated and terrified he actually is, this guy is not out here driving police cars and blowing up hospitals he is just trying to survive without becoming one of them and its working so far but barely.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22202452/
- Platform: AppleTV+
Back in Albuquerque Carol has sobered up a bit from her vodka and Xanax bender and now she has a new mission, figure out how to beat the hive mind at their own game. She gets the mayor of Albuquerque to sweep her driveway which is bit of distopian to a certain level, this dude used to run the city and now he is out here with a broom cleaning up Carols mess like its no big deal, the hive mind really does not care about hierarchy or status anymore everyone is equal and everyone does whatever needs to get done but its still not right, for sure there are other things that they might be hiding or if they cant lie then they just not openly telling until they are ask about it. Carol starts testing the limits of their honesty by interrogating this guy named Larry who goes by Shorty even though the actor is like six foot seven or something, she asks him about her books and whether the hive mind actually likes them or if they are just blowing smoke up her ass to keep her happy. Turns out they actually did read her work and they can quote specific passages that made people tingle which is a weird way to describe enjoying a book but okay, Larry tells her that the hive mind loves her books just as much as they love Shakespeare because both of them saved peoples lives at some point so they are equally valuable, Carol is not buying it though because that logic is insane and also because she knows they are just trying to make her feel good about herself. Then she makes the mistake of asking what her dead wife Helen really thought of her books and this is where things get sad as hell, Larry tries to avoid the question twice but Carol pushes him until he admits that Helen thought the Wicaro books were harmless cotton candy and that she never actually finished reading Carols serious unpublished novel Bitter Chrysalis, Helen stopped on page 137 out of 489 pages and only told Carol to publish it because it would make her happy not because it was any good, but if you think about it Carol took it the wrong way, I think this is just life and you will eventually do things like this to make others feel good and not be a buzz killer, Helen didnt hate the book. That revelation hits Carol like a truck and you can see her trying to process the fact that her wife was just managing her emotions this whole time instead of being honest with her, a hard moment and it connects back to Carols whole thing about hating people who smile all the time and pretend everything is fine when its not.
Carol takes this new information about the hive mind not being able to lie and decides to test it on Sosa, she goes to visit her in the hospital and asks if there is a way to reverse the joining process. Sosa tries to dodge the question by saying she cannot answer that but her silence is enough for Carol to figure out that yes there is a way to undo this whole thing, the hive mind knows how to reverse it they just will not tell her because it goes against their whole biological need to spread and multiply. I think Carol is just full of trauma from her past and why she hates the hive mind so much, she tells Sosa about Camp Freedom Falls which was a conversion therapy camp her mom sent her to when she was sixteen because Carol is gay and her mom thought that was something that needed to be fixed. Carol says the counselors at that camp were some of the worst people she ever met and they smiled constantly just like the hive mind does now, so for Carol this whole situation is not just about losing Helen or losing her freedom its about being forced into something against her will by people who think they know what is best for her, Sosa tries to argue that the hive mind loves everyone equally and that they have been human before so they know what its like but Carol snaps back that if they love everyone equally then why are they trying to change her, its a solid point and Sosa does not really have a good answer except to say that Carol wants to change them too so its kind of a stalemate. But what caught my attention the most is when Sosa said we know what its like to be you but you have never been us, that line was haunting because it implies that maybe the hive mind actually is better than being human and they just want Carol to experience it for herself but Carol is not interested in finding out because she has already made up her mind that they are the enemy.
After the hospital visit Carol goes full Breaking Bad mode and heads to a pharmacy to get some theopental sodium which is basically truth serum, she tells the pharmacist she wants heroin as a cover story so they would not get suspicious about why she needs needles and the whole interaction is funny in a dark way because the hive mind is trying to practice harm reduction by offering her other opioids and suggesting she snort it instead of injecting it, so funny how they will literally let her autodestroy just to make her happy, so Carol gets what she needs and goes home to test the truth serum on herself first, she sets up a camera and injects the stuff into her arm then we get this one woman show where Rhea Seehorn just goes off, Carol cries about Helen, reads her own book in a funny voice, wears a towel on her head and admits that Sosa is really hot which confirms that the hive mind knew exactly what they were doing when they sent her to deal with Carol, it always make it strange to me how Sosa was so similar to Carol's book character, like it was all part of the plan to make Carol like or even fall in love with Sosa. The whole show is sad and funny at the same time because you can see all the grief and loneliness that Carol has been burying under her anger and sarcasm, she misses Helen so much and she has no one to talk to about it except herself on camera while high on truth serum, once she confirms the drug works she flushes the heroin down the toilet and heads back to the hospital with a pair of handcuffs from the police car she has been driving. Carol offers to take Sosa outside for some fresh air and then injects the truth serum into Sosas IV line, she handcuffs herself to Sosa so the hive mind cannot separate them and starts demanding answers about how to reverse the joining but Sosa starts convulsing and going into cardiac arrest instead of answering, all the hive mind members come running and they are all crying and begging Carol to stop by chanting Please Carol over and over in unison which is creepy and sad at the same time. Its a really mess up scene and Carol realize how wrong she has done to Sosa considering she "likes her", in the middle of panic they start giving first aid to Sosa trying to get her stable.
This episode was emmontionally intense and it really showed a different side of Carol, I already knew how wreckless she was but this time she went really far, yes she puts humanity first before the hive or Sosa but take in consideration she have feelings for Sosa so whats right or wrong here?, until now she has been angry and difficult but you could argue she was justified because the whole world got taken over and her wife died, but this time she crossed a major line by drugging Sosa without consent and almost killing her in the process, I get why Carol did it because she is desperate for answers and the hive mind will not give her any but that does not make it okay to inject someone with truth serum and handcuff yourself to them while they go into cardiac arrest. The Please Carol scene was really sad as hell because you could see Carol emotion, about the hive I dont mind because its all fake, its a defensive mechanism, they were not smiling or being cheerful they were crying and begging but I doubt they feel any pain. Rhea Seehorn killed it in this episode especially in the truth serum scene where she was just raw and vulnerable, you could see all the grief and loneliness that Carol has been hiding and it made her way more interesting as a character, she is not just angry for no reason she is traumatized from her past and from losing the one person who actually loved her. The Manus stuff was also really good because it showed us another perspective on this whole situation, not everyone is going to be like Carol and try to fight back some people are just going to hide and hope it all goes away eventually but the question remains how and when the hive is going to absorb them too? and will they do it against the consent. Overall this was a strong episode that pushed the story forward and but also generates way more questions than answers, I am still not sure if Carol is the hero or the villain at this point but I guess that is kind of the whole point of the show, but what worry me is that Carol likes Sosa and the hive knows it so when they will really going to crank that leverage?
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