Rhea Seehorn in a world Breaking Glad. Vince Gilligan's PLUR1BUS on Apple

First two episodes available now then weekly instalments.

Your life is your own, Carol

thought abt starting this & would have exactly used that “your life is your own, Carol” quote so well done

this show seems extremely good so far based on moral of second episode (‘americans are worst xunts going’)

from reading early reviews I might have gotten the wrong end of the stick - rhea seehorn is the heroine apparently though you’d never know it from her nauseating individualism and narcissistic total absence of curiosity in the first two episodes. interested to see how they develop this to make her perspective more sympathetic - have to say the blissful community and interconnectedness of everyone else on earth seems mildly idyllic (and def not at all dystopic - notwithstanding the mortality figs) so far

Vinny gills has done it again

starting this tonight -excited to dig in!

I like it so far

Seehorn’s contrarianism & fear & righteous indignation speaks to me pretty deeply so I enjoy the growing sense that she is on the outer rather than the hero. Also the shiny + creepy vibes of the whole thing is very good

Albuquerque suburban sprawl & its associated architecture continues to confuse, delight, amuse & fascinate me

Rhea Seehorn is the GOAT

The Mauritania dude & his Fanta Girls is v good

Carol frisbeeing the sunhat over the fence, and her sitting in the VERY back row of the plane = god-tier contrarianism no notes.

Oh also in ep1 the CSPAN phonecall w the President/Secretary of Agriculture and the buzz words of their convo appearing in the chiron was so funny to me

I did chuckle at the Indian (?) woman's look of angry FFS! at Carol when her son is fitting next to her after Carol's latest outburst has set them all off again.

Did I miss them explain how almost the entire planet seemed to turn at the same time? Like it seems to need fluid transfer to spread at first (kissing, licked donuts etc) so not sure how it then happened to everyone instantaneously

yeah i tried not to ponder that stuff too hard i dont really get it

It did lead to that fantastic sequence at the bar so not going to complain too hard

I assumed they dispersed it in the _chemtrails_

wonder if we’ll get a sutter cane-like situation - ‘bitter chrysalis’ seemed a little too pointed

Of course, lol xp

This is like that twilight zone episode where the guy wakes up and he’s the same but everyone else is different!

For real tho, very it’s a good life in particular. Also thought of watchmen with the idea of this v extreme cataclysmic intervention for supposedly benevolent purposes

I laughed at the doughnut licking scene coming AFTER the agar plate sequence, v funny hat on a hat

The whole concept of this is so clever, upending the idea that zombie-like infections have to be spread in a horrible way and that becoming infected is a fate worse than death. Apart from anything else, it saves the production company a lot of money in special effects to simply spread an infection through kissing rather than ripping each other's throats out.

I would like to know that there's a full roadmap for this series before I get too invested in it, though. I mean, I've more faith in Vince Gilligan than I would in, say, Damon Lindelof, but still.

Thought this was toe curlingly bad!

just finished the first episode and I’m dying at the chyron messages on the tv while she’s on the phone

so good!

Dying at Peter Bergman showing up. Didn't know he existed outside The Young and the Restless

omg i didn’t realize that’s who it was! perfect casting

i was listening to a lovely interview w Gilligan on The Watch podcast this morning and i am struck by this feeling that maybe is just unique to me, not saying its a universally held truth by any means but:

i feel like just in terms of loyalty and creativity, Gilligan is sort of like an American George Miller.
Crews and actors work w him for years and he engenders so much loyalty in his projects; but also he never ever stops praising and giving credit to the people who get him to this place of fame, etc. They both have that.

I dunno.

Obv George for me is one of one, let’s be real, but Gilligan gives me a little of that flavor and I enjoy not only the things he creates, but listening to him talk, and listening to ppl talk about him.

It’s good when good ppl create good things!

I went into this very excited and completely spoiler-free. My reaction after the first two episodes is… cautiously optimistic for the rest of the season. Right now it feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone which is going to stretch for an entire season and I’m not totally sure it’s got enough juice to last that long without wearing extremely thin. But I trust Vince Gilligan—it’s nice to see all that trademark yellow—and will stay along for the ride.

my kids said it was like a Black Mirror episode and i have to agree, though probably at the top end of the scale of Black Mirror episodes. it seems churlish to say so but I can't help noticing what i think of as Extreme Netflix Cinematography i.e. inky blacks and high contrast accent lighting, rich reds, deep primary colours, everything kind of oversaturated and the focus so crisp you could sharpen a knife on it

I loved all the colours. Felt refreshing after so any shows these days with either drab colour schemes or almost perpetual darkness

Oh I think the colors are definitively Gilligan’s. That’s how you can identify his shows.

Got more Good Place / Last Man on Earth vibes than Black Mirror, but maybe they're going in a different direction in next episode? They could go so many ways with the premise.

Is New Mexico really amping up tax breaks for production or is it a Gilligan thing?

Gilligian said he did it in Albuquerque so that he could work with his same crew again (the same ppl he’s worked w since Breaking bad and Saul)

Oh we'll probably see a lot of subconsciously familiar extras then! (I thought Michael McKean was in Ronald Reagan makeup to play the C-SPAN guy)

Enjoying this so far if mainly just for having no idea where it will go and the to be expected lavish Gilliganery. Funny how close it is (which I suspected it would be) to an idea for a show I've had in my head (that no-one else ever has...um) for a while but tbh couldn't expand on much beyond a more straight up 'godlike alien power descends, actually enables justice/peace/utopia and this is also interesting somehow..').

It did feel off to me tho how accepting all of the others unaffected came across as compared to the white American tho.

I thought that too. But theyre possibly more accepting of it as they have families.

from reading early reviews I might have gotten the wrong end of the stick - rhea seehorn is the heroine apparently though you’d never know it from her nauseating individualism and narcissistic total absence of curiosity in the first two episodes. interested to see how they develop this to make her perspective more sympathetic - have to say the blissful community and interconnectedness of everyone else on earth seems mildly idyllic (and def not at all dystopic - notwithstanding the mortality figs) so far

I'd like to see the show go in this direction, like a satire of American fetishization of "individual liberty" over the good of society or subversion of the common "pod people" trope that we already have plenty of films about. (Perhaps she's the galactic equivalent of an anti-masker/vaxxer).

A friend complained it was odd that Carol seemed like the only voice of reason—but aside from the fact that she's our POV character, we don't actually know she's the voice of reason. As the others point out, she hasn't bothered to learn much about her foe. She assumes the hive are lying about people being happy as part of the collective and must be evil, but perhaps she's biased by Hollywood movies about how these things work. She tells one of the others that they will lose everything that makes them unique, but she has no way of knowing that. Maybe people can ebb and recede as they please, with the hive as the mainframe/cloud and physical bodies as interchangeable computer terminals. Maybe Carol will turn out to be the anti-hero, obstructing humanity's ascension into nirvana or even forcibly dragging them out of it.

I think they’ve done well setting Carol up as a character that is interested in her own sense of agency and isn’t really a social person. I think it’s interesting to ponder whether you can retain a unique sense of self when everyone has a shared sense of consciousness, but to someone who’s a perhaps self-loathing individualist this isn’t even a question, just a flat-out “no.”

yeah they quickly set up the big & small ways Carol is suppressing her own happiness, hating her fans & hating her own books, even down to going w the male instead of female pirate protagonist, plus the alcohol intake & DUI underlines how she’s “dealing” w all of that

she’s so indignant & angry at everyone’s compliance but it’s pure kneejerk fear - she’s not talking TO any of the ppl

also just being the lone American makes the rampant individualism & self-interest quite stark & amusing

so yeah it’s super interesting

plus the “other side of the other side” is that we dont know what complete subjugation means for Us once it’s achieved - like there are so many shoes still left to drop

its a good setup w interesting possibilities imo

There was more levity in the first two episodes than I expected, which made me happy as I'm burned out on eschatology.

And I wonder, and hope, that the touches of absurdity, like Airforce 1 appearing and all that came with it, will give them license to keep moving events along quicker, rather than the need to linger on dire circumstance, and also bypass any desire to stuff it with internet minutiae, the kind which dulled my enjoyment of the last season of Severance.

It was kinda fun that it felt like barely any time had passed before all the immune characters had met up and were interacting, if it had been Lost, or some other similar show, that shit would have been strung out for ages. It feels to me, so far, more like The Truman Show than some Reverse Zombie/Stepford Wives/Black Mirror thing.

as soon as air force one rolled up my thought was “oh, of course at least one of these guys has to big dog this situation”

that Mauritius dude is v funny

xps yeah I was surprised how quickly the meet up with the others unaffected came about too! thought that would get more build-up and drama around it

kind of pondering how the hive mind consensus is supposedly super chill but if they get worked up, thousands of people drop out of it and die. hrrrm

they don't drop out of it, aiui, they just go into that trance thing and if they happen to be in the middle of, say, driving or some other dangerous situation requiring full attention, they die as a result

yeah was kinda hoping that turns out to be a manipulative lie tho that probably doesn't make sense

def does feel that way though!

First half an hour of this show is ridiculous in a bad way. Does it get better? I’ve seen enough zombie shows. Can’t even make it though this first episode. So dumb.

omg just finish the ep dont be such a drama queen lol

i cant tell you how to live yr life but ep 1 and 2 kind of need to be watched together to get the full effect but feel free to complain abt a show you effectively have not watched

not tryna be rude but this kind of performative haterade annoys me

I too thought of "The Truman Show" when I was watching this, but I was also thinking of "V," tbh.

Unlike zombie or other post apocalypse stories, survival is not really the issue here, and I suppose that's an interesting take. But there is also no threat of mortal danger (yet); right now the only real stakes are psychological. Gilligan (who of course cut his teeth on The X Files before going more terrestrial) is a really smart dude, and I've got to assume given the efficiency of the storytelling in these first two episodes that he's got more than his share of surprises in store. I mean, I hope! The challenge of stories broadly like this is that there is no clear narrative exit, which is intriguing. Maybe earth will be invaded by *real* aliens! Maybe she will go to space! Maybe it will turn out this new collective entity *needs* her. There are a lot of way this can play.

The first few minutes of episode 2 were mesmerising and real classic Gilligan flamboyant set piece stuff. I'm a sucker for long tracking but the camera following Zosia on the scooter was particularly cool.

Btw did anyone catch where in the Middle East (I presume) that intro was taking place?

Tangier

Great show so far. Though Carol isn't making the best case for it, I'm in her camp here -- I don't trust this hive mind at all. It's clear it has an ego of its own separate from its individual members, with Zosia talking as the virus about how it doesn’t kill, it just follows its biological imperative to reproduce. I think the virus has subsumed all individual egos into its own, using their brains as mere cognitive substrate for one bigger consciousness. Presumably, it's going to redirect humanity's entire civilizational resources toward the one goal of spreading further beyond earth: essentially, coughing on another planet. That's how it got here in the first place, after all.

just picked up on the pun in the dog name “bear jordan” lol

OK, I think this episode finally set up a real conflict, and also what the Uruguayan guy has been doing with his radio. But I guess they will have to wait until next season, whenever that arrives, to get into it.

By the way, here is my prediction: Manousos will get to Carol OK, but the Pluribus is going to kill him. They've been ambiguous about their benevolent "no kill" rule, anyway - there's some grey areas at work - and rather than risk him telling Carol what he has learned they are going to take him out (perhaps also ambiguously). That introduces the threat of violence/danger, especially after this episode (where Carol is almost lulled into complacency), and offers an omg finale that hinges on the shock/irony of him making it all the way up to her, through all that danger and stubbornness, only to have his journey end in dramatic fashion. Also sets the stakes higher for season 2.

I think they would not have bothered saving Manousos in the jungle only to kill him later. Maybe they took stem cells from him during surgery tho.

ha ha wrong tag sorry

I don’t think either of those theories follow the logic that the show has built and I don’t think either will be the case

Most of the episode I’m afraid will be caught up with a tedious moment of plurb-lovin’ Carol having to convince Manuosos that she is still seeking to unJoin

But practically speaking, since this is still TV, how can the season end to make everyone go "omg, what is going to happen next?!" and remain excited or talking about the show for a year-plus? I think it needs a dangling hook.

I can't imagine Manousos, kind of one-or-no note character so far, will or can become a regular returning presence, which is one reason they've been focusing on his arduous journey and efforts and even more than Carol resistance. Hence my prediction, which would serve a shock or twist after the season-long build to his arrival. He and Carol will finally meet, his hardcore hatred for these Plurbiuses - he held a scalpel to a throat this past episode, and in the previous one lit his car on fire out of spite - will even give *her* pause. She'll be all, OK, they are bad, and I want the world back, but I don't actually want to kill anyone. And he'll be all, I sure the fuck do, btw, here is their plan, but before he can reveal what he's learned about the radio frequency he'll die or be disappeared and renew Carol's suspicions about these invaders who, she was quick to remind herself, EAT PEOPLE, and who also often bend the no-killing-anything rule. Where the show goes after that, dunno. It's still kind of a closed box with no clear path to resolution. Which is the dangling hook. I guess we'll see!

I wonder if the twist is that the radio sync beat that unifies humanity turns out not to be theme to the show but theme to mad men or succession.

When have the plurbs bent their no-kill rule? I think the major conflict in coming episodes/seasons is going to be between the humans— Chekhov’s atom bomb suggests a Cold War in the future, I think

But I do think Manousos knows something important re radio, that I agree with— I wouldn’t be surprised if this finale we see some significant flashbacks to the Joining as it happened in Paraguay, through Manousos’s eyes, and what made him so resolutely anti-plurb

I was intrigued by the number of births mentioned. I mean, sure, pregnant women were part of the Joining, but I've been wondering whether the Joined have any plans to perpetuate the race. They're fucking Diabaté (and now Carol), but do they fuck each other?

When have the plurbs bent their no-kill rule?

Maybe not directly, but the biggest indirect act was when they expedited the infection/whatever because the military was on to them, knowing that it would result in a billion or so deaths. But you could get nit-picky and say that even, say, antibiotics would be off the table. Regardless, it's unclear what they are or are not willing to do or accept; we're taking them at their word. Of course, their fundamental existence doesn't track as explained. Why spread around the universe to propagate only to accept that you are inevitably going to starve to death? That violates the (universal?) biological imperative of individual reproductive success.

Ya, I mean, not to mention the billions of bacteria and viruses existing in our personal biomes. I can’t get my head around why picked fruit (or ethically harvested milk or honey) (or potential meal sources from “dead” grains?) is off the table for consumption. But all of this just kinda buttresses my feeling that “it’s just storytelling”, and there’s some suspension of disbelief that is required to watch this show— and that the “do no harm” mandate won’t suddenly switch off for some logical reason, mostly because it’d end up being bad storytelling

Why spread around the universe to propagate only to accept that you are inevitably going to starve to death?

Was there something said that they starve to death in every biosphere that they occupy? I haven’t even picked up that the human Joined have any knowledge at all about other planets’ pluribii

That violates the (universal?) biological imperative of individual reproductive success.

It was said that the pluribii have “a biological imperative,” but nothing iirc about reproduction

I don’t know that it even makes sense to think of this as a species “spreading” or “occupying” other parts of the universe. All we know is that some entity in another galaxy, for reasons we may never know, gifted humanity with the recipe for a protein that codes for unity, pacifism and happiness. It’s possible that whoever did so didn’t realise this would render the species unable to feed themselves or that being around any strong negative emotion would give them seizures. I quite like the idea that these were basically mistakes and when they send pluribus v1.1.2 out to the next hopeless planet they’ll have fixed these bugs

(Agree that fundamentally these questions don’t matter & it’s all just there to set up an interesting situation)

I'm with fgti. I imagine there might be some shock revelation cliffhanger type ending but I'd be stunned if it's them killing Manousos because it'd just be terrible writing, especially when they could have just left him in the Gap if they didn't want him to meet Carol.

Tell it to Hallorann in "The Shining," lol.

I must have missed where jack torrance airlifted him part of the way to the hotel

Just sayin'. We already know that the Plurbs will go to ridiculous lengths to please Carol (and Manousos), but also that they have their limits/concerns. They can not want him to get to Carol while at the same time helping/healing him. If they were faced with the prospect of reversal, how would they react? Probably not well.

It feels to me that the do no harm/can't lie stuff has been hammered enough that I'm primed for it to be misdirection. Like we the viewers are supposed to think the matter's settled. But I have my doubts, just as Carol did, before she emphatically reminded herself that THEY.EAT.PEOPLE.. Then again, what difference does it make, if over a billion have already died, and there are only a handful of regular people left on the globe? How do you raise the stakes from there? *Are* there stakes? I don't know if it's good storytelling or bad storytelling, but this first season has been dancing around conflict in an almost subversive way, like watching a one-sided adversarial relationship, with one side aggrieved/scared/paranoid and the other just kind of smiling and shrugging benevolently. I suppose this (lack of) mystery is preferable to larding on lore, but I'm on the fence as to how compelling it and its characters are. Hence my suspicions about Manousos, who thus far has been even more one-note than Carol.

Anyway, it's all enjoyable conjecture, we'll see soon enough.

e8: carol finally avails herself of the pluribussy

I don’t know that it even makes sense to think of this as a species “spreading” or “occupying” other parts of the universe. All we know is that some entity in another galaxy, for reasons we may never know, gifted humanity with the recipe for a protein that codes for unity, pacifism and happiness. It’s possible that whoever did so didn’t realise this would render the species unable to feed themselves or that being around any strong negative emotion would give them seizures. I quite like the idea that these were basically mistakes and when they send pluribus v1.1.2 out to the next hopeless planet they’ll have fixed these bugs

(Agree that fundamentally these questions don’t matter & it’s all just there to set up an interesting situation)

― 🤷‍♂️ Cunt Tory Cheese (wins), Monday, December 22, 2025 1:59 AM (seven hours ago)

i sort of like the opposite angle - that an alien race looked upon 'survival of the fittest' as a despairing philosohpy when paired with intelligence and sentience, and decided to engineer a euthanasia virus that spreads throughout the universe (via the imperative) and that is designed to slowly burn each species out over time

I assume that there is no plan to ever show us the aliens who sent the code but knowing how these writers like to challenge themselves maybe that means they actually will do so down the line

We generally hold that evolution isn't directed or intentional or designed; genes just either work or don't and what works gets saved and replicated.

The original broadcasters may have been beaming the code out in every direction for a billion years with no hope of it reaching a place where beings have the tools and knowledge to replicate it. Its internal problems (killing its host) don't matter as long as it works. Whether its effects seem benevolent (to us) or bonkers (to us) is immaterial.

It makes sense for it to work to replicate itself but it's also okay if it fails. There could be planets with beings that are more amenable, who knows?

lmao

Great episode.

I don't know if it's good storytelling or bad storytelling, but this first season has been dancing around conflict in an almost subversive way, like watching a one-sided adversarial relationship, with one side aggrieved/scared/paranoid and the other just kind of smiling and shrugging benevolently.

that an interesting comparison. Like if every episode had Carol trying to figure out a new way to break the hive.

Even better if they sent a new representative each time.

For a split second, when they said "you know what we need to do," I thought my prediction was right, lol. Anyway. Good episode, but this season could have been a short story.

I thought the last few eps of this were absolutely perfect

their weaselly way of answering questions "truthfully" is doing my head in, particularly because Carol doesn't take the opportunity to find out as much as possible about them

anyway, psyched for the next series but not the long wait!

Carol is a pretty boring, not terribly smart, and certainly very self-absorbed person, which makes her a frustrating watch but not necessarily a bad character. It follows logically that the number of random sentient people left wouldn't be rocket scientists or whatever, so in that sense I appreciate the show's choice to make her utterly average (or below average?) in so many ways. It's kinda funny that of the how ever many left, Vegas guy quickly sussed out the Plurb people's deal, as did Manousos in his literal first interaction with them, and each time Carol is shocked at what they've learned just by, you know, asking. She's the ultimate anti-hero, because she sucks at being the hero.

Only on episode 7 after binging it over the past week so won’t hang around here for fear of spoilers - I just want to say that I find the amount of shit Carol is getting to be really bewildering! Obviously they’ve made her out to be jaded/a smartarse/possibly an alcoholic, but up to ep7 we’re less than two weeks out from the weirdest event in human history occurring - an event which resulted in her wife(?) dying in front of her! I find her reaction and her lack of desire to have long conversations with the plurbs to be much more relatable than the guy in Vegas who apparently instantly realised that there’s no such thing as ‘consent’ any more and has no desire for the people he’s fucking to get their free will back. I get that I am out of step with the consensus on this but, just to pick on the post above, ‘boring’, ‘not smart’, ‘utterly (below) average’ - I’m just not seeing any of these things?! Maybe people want more backstory/internal monologue/big conversations where Carol reveals more about herself, which is fine to want I guess but it just wouldn’t be this show. Anyway, I’m quite enjoying it!

i agree... i posted this upthread

also btw I love you all but I am tickled by the fact that this board full of people who cannot deal with, idk, someone saying "whilst" thinks that a woman who has watched her life partner die in front of her and also seen the entirety of the human race including everyone she has ever known and loved be changed beyond all recognition and also stare at her all the time is not dealing with it nicely enough

btw can I just say I LOVE the contrast between when they are around non-joineds then instantly drop the "act" when they're not... as per the girl in the finale. like the biggest con trick ever

That goat looked properly distraught like damn.

Big contrast between the acts of joy / fun / community when the Others are shown interacting with the non joined vs when the Others are on their own and just look like joyless automatons. Same was shown when the Others were cleaning up after the poker game in Vegas

My point is that she is in a situation where she can literally sit any of the Others down and ask them any question and get a more or less honest answer. Vegas guy did that, guy from Uruguay did that. But Carol seems to have no interest in doing that. I think it is an intentional built-in character flaw. Yeah, she has experienced plenty of trauma from the takeover, but she seemed pretty troubled (what little we saw) before this happened as well. She clearly carries a lot of trauma around with her, it's how she is written. It may be why she seems more interested in personal gratification/comfort (not hedonism) than helping others/the world. She wants her Golden Girls, her booze, the way things were before, for selfish, not altruistic, courageous or heroic reasons. Maybe that's true for Manousos as well, we'll see. I'm still not particularly emotionally invested in this journey, but I am curious how or if they can offer any sort of satisfactory solution or even conclusion to their scenario.

They imply they know what they are up to in this hilariously maddening interview with Gilligan et al , in which he coyly responds to questions more like a viewer than the show creator:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/pluribus-finale-cliffhanger-creator-vince-gilligan-interview-1236455087/

I don't believe the plurbs are jobless automatons! It's just that they have no reason to speak to each other because they're all connected and know the others' thoughts.

It seems like they regard one another with a vague general tenderness as they work together on tasks, but why would they need to be demonstrative when their kinship is known and felt?

*joyless dammit, not jobless, they clearly have jobs

I wonder if Vince sat down one day to try to imagine if universal contentment actually existed and we were all finally connected (like in the way communication technology has been advertising itself for decades), and thought 'ugh'.

It would appear incredibly cold and creepy to someone outside the loop. It's like the first step in that sci fi trope of future humans sloughing off their corporeal form and existing as a cloud of gas or a brain in a jar.

But I"m glad it's not getting caught up in the (narratively dull) idea of 'what makes a soul or a person' like in 46514513987536 anime/manga.

surprised carol hasn’t yet asked ‘why you?’ about zosia. why out of the however many billion ppl on earth did the pluribus pick you as their emissary. she must be the perfectly calibrated person to try get carol on side. would expect carol to be more alive to how cynical that is

She realises that ("why so fuckable?!"/like Raban?) but gave in to it for a while as a means of cope.

I think she just looks like carols vision of Raban. Do these people even have different personalities beyond what the may be acting as for her benefit?

She literally holds the book cover up to Zosia’s face and then has a whole conversation about the genderflip, it’s not a mystery

Binged the whole thing over the past 3 days, amazing show, still riding an endorphin (or oxytocin or whatever) high. Not perfect, but really really good. There is a bit of a deus ex machina in the last episode, though, when the minute Carol expresses how happy she is, the combined wits and smarts of seven billion people including tens of thousands of international diplomats, hostage negotiators and veterans of however many seasons of Survivor blurt out "gonna be even better when you're absorbed into the hive!" Kind of a dumb unforced error.

Also, picking an apple harms the tree no more than clipping a fingernail harms the person. WTF, hive, your logic is shitty.

Also, VG and FGTI enjoyably otm throughout the thread.

Xpost, been thinking about why it seemed strange to me that the joined don’t appear perfectly happy and contented when the unjoined aren’t around. Maybe the joined aren’t joyless automatons but to an outside observer, when the joined are on their own, they don’t look like joyful humans. They are something different - pretty obvious given they were all zapped with the mind virus. The joined have to tell Carol how happy they are because she wouldn’t be able to know otherwise. IMO, Carol is rightfully skeptical and values her independence too much. I agree with WmC the joined were trying too hard in the last episode. Anyway now Carol and Manosous have an atomic bomb so things should really kick off when we resume the story in 1- 2 years

Kind of a dumb unforced error.

they literally cannot help themselves, need to tell everyone the good news

I feel like it's pretty well established that the hive will withhold info to protect itself and its reproductive imperative ("can this be reversed?" ".....umm...") and also withhold info that might make the Unturnt unhappy. All they had to do was keep their planet-sized yap shut and they could have kept Carol as happy as she'd ever been in her life AND contained one of the 2 biggest threats to their existence (along w/ Manousos). I love the show, but having the Hand of Vince reach down and touch Carol in the waning minutes of the season is a weak spot imo.

only just watched the first episode but i *very* much enjoyed jack abbott from the Y and the R being the televised avatar of Us

just finished the first season. someone upthread said gilligan could shoot paint drying and make it interesting. I agree, I just wish he wouldn’t take that as such a challenge! overall interesting premise, beautifully shot, but painfully slow and repetitive, and just not enough genuine humanity to carry 7 hours or whenever of runtime. one of the most compelling readings is it’s an allegory for AI, so in a sense maybe thats fitting