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PORTSIDE CULTURE

PLURIBUS REVIEW – THE AUDACITY OF THE BREAKING BAD CREATOR’S NEW
TV SHOW IS INCREDIBLE  
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Lucy Mangan
November 7, 2025
The Guardian
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_ It takes some chutzpah to make television like this. Better Call
Saul star Rhea Seehorn is the only US citizen immune from an alien
virus that makes everyone in the world supremely happy – and it’s
a bleak, blackly comic watch _

‘Furiously miserable’ … Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Pluribus. ,
Photograph: Apple

 

Even with the name of Vince Gilligan attached as creator, Pluribus –
neatly styled Plur1bus on screen, to evoke further the unofficial
motto of the US “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) –
looks at first like a bit of light relief. The man who has spent the
past two decades immersed in the harrowing world of Breaking Bad
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Better Call Saul
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and El Camino
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you reckon, has probably earned it.

Perhaps he is returning to his X Files roots with this tale of an
alien virus that sweeps the globe, turning everyone happy and
content, literally uniting minds (everyone’s thoughts, knowledge and
memories are available to all – people no longer refer
to themselves but as “this individual” when they speak) and
causing them only to be kind to each other. Peace in our time! But
what, kids, are we going to do about Carol (Rhea Seehorn)? She’s a
middle-aged, bestselling writer of romantic fantasy novels,
fantastically rich, adored by hundreds of thousands of fans – and
as furiously miserable as only a misanthrope can be in such
conditions. And Carol appears to be the only person in America immune
to the virus. Hilarity must surely ensue!

Ah, no. Gilligan still has sociocultural business to attend to. It
takes some chutzpah to look at the world in 2025 – especially if
you are a non-Maga citizen of the US – and say to yourself, “Yes,
but wouldn’t it be almost more terrible if everybody just … got
along?” But that is essentially what Gilligan has done. The
execution may not be flawless – Pluribus is a slow burn that is
frequently just slow, and has the wonderful Seehorn spinning her
wheels too often – but the audacity of the question is incredible.

For Carol, utopia is a nightmare, made worse by the fact that her
wife, Helen (Miriam Shor), does not survive infection (one of millions
worldwide, it is revealed – one of the downsides to bringing bliss
to the rest). Everyone’s attention is trained on Carol as
the smiling hordes try to meet her every need while they work –
despite her desperate pleas for them to stop – on trying to find a
cure, as it were, for her immunity and bring her into the contented
fold. “We just want to help, Carol” is the increasingly
sinister refrain. “It’s not an alien invasion,” the new
president, who televises addresses just for her, assures her. “The
fuck it isn’t!” she roars, as well she might.

So begins an interrogation of what is lost when everyone is in
agreement. When there is but one mind, no variation – are we still
human? Exploiting the hive’s prime directive to make her happy,
Carol demands that she meet any other English-speaking people immune
to the virus. Soon she is confronted by a half dozen who are either
enjoying life as a cosseted rarity, or eager to join their families
again without any of the rage Carol feels at having their
individuality subsumed or independent thought stripped from them. She
cannot make them understand the problem. Maybe it is one of her own
creation? Wouldn’t it just be better, easier – they ask – to let
go? Some people can. Some people can’t. Carol is one of the latter
to the marrow.
On Gilligan goes, adding characters and plot sparingly, but keeping
platefuls of the big questions spinning: about the rights we think we
have, those we believe are inalienable but turn out to be anything
but (the lack of escapism becomes palpable as the series progresses),
the moral duty we have to others, and many more. Carol’s angry
outbursts induce emotional overload in the hive mind and result in
the deaths of about 10 million at a time – but does this mean she
should accept her fate?

Is there an inherent evil to extremism? If even the most apparently
benign form – everyone be happy! – leads to the suffering of
those who cannot or will not comply (let alone the impact it has on
the ability to make progress in a civilisation), what are we to make
of all its other forms?

Pluribus also functions brilliantly as a portrait of (especially)
middle-aged womanhood and as an allegory of abusive relationships.
Carol is urged to keep her feelings, especially her anger, in check,
deny her instincts, reframe her experiences and endlessly believe the
best of people – and believe they want the best for her – in the
face of mounting evidence to the contrary. She speaks and is not
heard. She repeats herself and she is not believed. She shouts and is
told to behave better.

Pluribus has great lines and blackly funny moments but escapist fluff
it is not. It’s almost as bleak as real life.

 Pluribus is on Apple TV now.

* pluribus
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* extremism
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* Feminism
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