SPOILER ALERT: The following piece contains plot details from “La Chica o El Mundo,” the Season 1 finale of “Pluribus,” now streaming on Apple TV.
The season finale of “Pluribus” opens with Kusimayu (Darinka Arones) surrounded by loved ones in their small Peruvian village. She is one of 13 survivors of the global shift known as The Joining, which has fused almost all of humanity into a single shared consciousness with whom she’s eager to merge. A special gas has been delivered via plane, and she happily inhales it, briefly convulsing in a state of hive-mind bliss. She’s one of the Others now, and they all evacuate the village expeditiously. One down, 12 to go.
In the episode, titled “La Chica o El Mundo” (“The Girl or the World”), a bloodied Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga) completes his death-defying journey from Paraguay to New Mexico. And Carol (Rhea Seehorn) is playing house with Zosia (Karolina Wydra). With the rest of the unaffected living in delusion and shooting the shit on weekly Zoom meetings, Manousos may be Carol’s last hope at (in his view) saving humanity. But while he’s been trekking through the Darién Gap and teaching himself English, Carol’s been playing croquet and sleeping with the enemy.
The two “Old-Schoolers,” as the cast and crew of “Pluribus” refer to them, don’t exactly get along. Manousos dumps Carol’s phone through a drain grate, and they bicker about whether the Others are, in fact, people. Carol’s situationship with Zosia has softened her views on the 7 billion people stricken with the mind virus, so much so that she threatens Manousos with a shotgun as he attempts to cure one of them with radio frequencies.
Eventually, Carol chooses the titular girl over the world, and she and Zosia embark on globe-trotting adventures, including a luxurious ski trip. The honeymoon phase comes to a screeching halt, however, when Zosia lets it slip that the Others have found a way to potentially convert Carol into one of them, against her will. It was previously established that they would need her stem cells, but their biological imperative prevents them from retrieving them via injection without her consent. Now, Zosia admits, the Others have discovered eggs that Carol had frozen with her late wife, Helen. Through a tricky, months-long process, they hope to convert the eggs into stem cells, which they could use to share their happiness with Carol.
This betrayal makes Carol go nuclear — literally. Remember when the Others told her they’d give her an atom bomb if she asked for one? Well, now they have. Back in Albuquerque, she and Manousos make a pact to save the world by any means necessary.
In two interviews, Seehorn and “Pluribus” creator Vince Gilligan, director-writer-EP Gordon Smith and writer-EP Alison Tatlock break down those finale twists and reveal their original, less explosive Season 1 ending.
A major revelation in this episode is that the Others have Carol’s frozen eggs, which they can turn into stem cells, which they can use to convert her into one of them. Previously, they said they would need her consent — what changed?
GILLIGAN: Well, literally, the Others are very lawyerly. The specific question that was put to them — which they answered via signboard on that hotel casino in Las Vegas — was, “Is it true you need our stem cells?” And the answer was yes. Then Carol asked, “Is it further true that to collect those stem cells, you would need to stick a needle in my hip?” They were very cautious about how it was phrased. It’s like in Episode 2, when one of the characters says, “So, you are vegetarians?” There’s a little pause, and then Zosia says, “We would prefer to be vegetarians, yes.” It’s very “Perry Mason”–esque, very lawyerly in how they answer questions. But nothing literally changed.
SMITH: We talked about the possibility that maybe they learned something new about Carol’s eggs. They said at the very beginning, “We’re trying to figure out how to turn you.” And then they learned how to turn her. They can learn things.
TATLOCK: They don’t need consent to change people, of course, because the premise of the show — right from the pilot — is that they change everybody as quickly as possible, first by kissing and eventually by planes flying overhead. If they could put their special spice in the water, they absolutely would. What they do need is consent to intrude upon somebody’s physical being. So they couldn’t take her stem cells directly. But if her stem cells already exist — or if the eggs, which aren’t stem cells, can be converted through a tricky process into stem cells — and they’re already outside of her body, they’ll do it.
So, it’s still the case that they cannot lie, but they can withhold information?
GILLIGAN: They can mislead you all the live-long day. Absolutely. We were talking about “Perry Mason” — the Raymond Burr version from the ’50s. The famous moment in that show is when someone says, “What if I told you the killer was on the street at 3?” And later in the episode someone says, “You told me the killer was on the street at 3,” and Raymond Burr says, “No, I said, what if I told you.” That’s the key to it. For us, with these folks, they’re very lawyerly.
SMITH: They can lie by omission.
Let’s talk about Zosia’s betrayal of Carol.
SEEHORN: I don’t think the betrayal could have been larger. Carol was living in a willing delusion. But there was always a part of her still in there. So, by the time Zosia says, “We stole your eggs,” it’s like: the eggs that represent the future that I wanted with my wife, who is now dead, partially because of you? And I also told you implicitly that I don’t want this, and you’re doing it behind my back? It’s also that horrible feeling of feeling like a fool for letting your guard down for a second. For Carol, it’s magnified: How did I dare think I could have love and joy? On top of that, this massive clock is now ticking about how long Carol has before they’re going to turn her.
Courtesy of Apple
What is Zosia’s motive for kissing Carol in Episode 8?
TATLOCK: I think the motive behind the kiss, from the Others’ point of view, is to offer Carol something that would bring her comfort and pleasure and help her forget her troubles for a little while. I think it’s an act of love in their mind. Now, watching it, you could say it’s an act of manipulation, or maybe even worse. But from their point of view, they feel like they’re giving her something she longed for but wasn’t able to fully take for herself, and that it would help her get through a hard, transitional chapter in her life — the chapter before being changed into one of them.
To what extent is Carol enamored by Zosia?
SEEHORN: Enamored is a great way to put it. I think she is sincerely enamored by her. The kiss is something Carol didn’t even know how much she needed. Even when she runs down the driveway to hug her [in Episode 6], I think Carol is profoundly shaken and surprised by how much she — who used to be such a misanthrope and crave being alone all the time — could be pushed to the limits of realizing, I do need people. I need companionship. Voluntary isolation is a much different thing than involuntary isolation. She’s in an extraordinarily vulnerable and fragile place in that scene.
As to whether the Others are “manipulating” Carol, I suppose every action can be justified by, “We just want to make you happy, Carol.” But at what point does making Carol happy mean the same thing as, “We’re going to give you everything you want so that we see eye to eye on things?” It’s not lost on me that Episode 8 is titled “Charm Offensive”!
GILLIGAN: You’re definitely asking the right questions. What it boils down to is two people trying desperately to change each other. It’s a very dramatic set of circumstances, and I think about how this plays out in relationships all the time — people who love someone but also want to change them. You hear about that all the time: “We’re going to get married, and I’m going to change them.”
SEEHORN: How do we separate altruism and manipulation? Most acts of kindness and love do have a payoff, even if it’s just feeling good about yourself. Even unconditional love might be a child you have a responsibility to raise, or a fear of being alone, or a desire to receive love back. I honestly don’t know the answer, and I haven’t asked Vince to definitively tell me. I know he’s thrilled that it’s open to interpretation — whether the Others are being manipulative, whether they’re being sincere, and whether those two things can coexist.
Why does Carol threaten Manousos to stop experimenting on the Other? She’s come a long way from how she felt at the beginning of the series.
SEEHORN: From the very beginning, as angry as Carol was — screaming at them, “You murdered my wife, I want nothing to do with you!” — she always felt horrible about physically harming any of them. She always showed extreme guilt, even to the degree that she was willing to suppress her rage in order not to harm them. She even asks them at one point, when she’s in Spain, “Can you give me anything to make me stop doing this?” And that’s early on, when she still hates them.
Now, she has feelings for Zosia that are individualized, which illustrates to Carol that these are humans with a neurological shift, and they should not be harmed. So when she sees Manousos screaming at that guy shaking on the couch, she knows that not only could it cause Zosia to go into cardiac arrest, it could also mean killing millions of people all over the world again. And it infuriates her that he can’t see any other way. At the same time, the audience knows she’s being extraordinarily defensive, because this guy can see through her. He knows she’s lying about why they came back and why she cares [about them] more now.
Courtesy of Apple
It seems like a lot of her conversation with Manousos is informed by the last couple days she spent with Zosia. I’m not sure she would have said the Others are “not evil” even a couple episodes ago.
SEEHORN: Fair point. The romantic part of it and feeling like she actually has a companion has muddied that. Some people have asked me if the Others leaving Carol in that extreme state of isolation was a manipulative tool to make her need them. I don’t know the answer to that, and I hadn’t even thought about it. I thought they were trying to protect themselves. But whatever the result is, Carol would absolutely see them coming back as an act of compassion. Many things have happened that make her feel like these people deserve compassion. They helped me. They put my Sprouts back. They made sure I was taken care of. Even when they couldn’t stand me, they brought me anything I wanted. And when I needed companionship, they gave it to me.
We see the Other drive away, seemingly unfazed by Manousos’ experiment. Just for the record: It did not work, correct? There is no way he has been converted back?
GILLIGAN: I never even thought of that.
SMITH: He’s not converted back. If he were converted back, Zosia would be doing something else. I don’t think she would be walking out to leave Albuquerque. There would be a four-alarm fire on their hands.
TATLOCK: He would be very disoriented. He just looks placid and pleasant.
GILLIGAN: Rick! That’s his name. Rick just gets in his Prius and leaves.
Surveillance is something Carol and Manousos bicker about. Manousos is more afraid than Carol about being spied on via digital devices. To what extent is that reasonable, or is he just paranoid?
TATLOCK: We know there are drones. We’ve seen the drones come in and out to deliver things. We know in the beginning Carol says, “Are you spying on me?” So, Manousos is not entirely wrong to suspect that they’re being watched. There are many reasons to believe someone is keeping an eye on them.
GILLIGAN: They basically have admitted that.
Why does Manousos start speaking to Zosia after months of staunchly resisting the Others? I mean, he decides to cross the Darién Gap so that he doesn’t have to interact with them.
GILLIGAN: I think it’s his interaction with Carol. Carol says to him, “Have you tried just talking to them?,” which is rich coming from her, because in Episode 2 the character Laxmi says to Carol, “Have you not asked these people questions? Why have you not asked them what it’s like?” And now the shoe is on the other foot. Seven episodes later, Carol is saying, “Why don’t you just talk to these people?” And I think he takes her at her word. He tries it. And because he might be starting to feel like, I don’t know if I’m going to get straight answers from this woman whom I came 6,000 kilometers to talk to.
TATLOCK: Yeah, he becomes suspicious of Carol, so he decides to try a different tack, which is to get information about Carol from Zosia.
You have Chekhov’s gun in this season. You also have Chekhov’s atom bomb. When was it apparent that the nuke was going to be a major crux of this season?
GILLIGAN: Surprisingly late.
SMITH: A day or two into shooting the episode was when that became clear.
TATLOCK: It was not the ending we broke together in the writers’ room. We adjusted it later, which is a bit unusual.
GILLIGAN: We had an ending that was perfectly good. It would have been satisfying but not as satisfying. And we got a note. You know the old thing about how executives always have stupid notes. Actually, Apple and Sony said, “Is there an even better ending to be had?” And we listened, and I’m really glad they gave us that note. It made for a better ending.
TATLOCK: We had planted the seed in Episode 3 but we didn’t have an exact plan to pay it off in this way. It opened an opportunity to do that.
Can you share the ending you originally had planned?
SMITH: It was similar to that ending. It was more subtle. Carol secretly forges a pact with Manousos, slips him a note and is perhaps going to play double agent. There wasn’t as much of a flag planted, like: “Nope, I’m not doing this. This relationship with the Others can’t continue.”
GILLIGAN: Other than the atom bomb not being part of it, it was not open warfare. It was, I’m going to continue to be a double agent. It was covert. Even before we got the note, we thought, Is this the most satisfying way to go? Do we buy this?
Why do they give her the atom bomb? I know it’s established early on, but if they’ll go against her wishes with the stem cells, why won’t they go against her wishes with the nuke?
GILLIGAN: Good question. They contain multitudes. It’s this constant tension between wanting to make her happy [and protecting themselves]. As horribly destructive as one atom bomb is… obviously, they don’t want her to set it off. But if she did — no pun intended — one atom bomb would not be the end of the world.
TATLOCK: There are 7 billion of them populating the entire Earth, so they are trying to placate her as best as they can, and they know they have the upper hand.
Courtesy of Apple
What would Earth look like if the Others converted everybody? In the opening scene of the finale, they immediately leave the village after converting Kusimayu, because they have no reason to be there. And those bodies have no reason to even be with each other anymore — that family has no purpose. In other words, who are the Others without the Old-Schoolers?
SMITH: In Episode 8, we hear about the dish they’re building, so we know they have some sense of purpose. We’re not 100% clear on what that looks like, or what the boundaries around that are, but we do think that it might be a nice world.
TATLOCK: It’s a peaceful world. They’re a collective, and they are entirely pragmatic, so there’s no need anymore for them to recreate culture or to play pretend. If there’s no more Old-Schoolers left, they don’t need to do what they’re doing for Mr. Diabaté [Samba Schutte] or for Kusimayu. So, they are living as efficiently as possible and at peace with each other and with the Earth, but with no attachment.
GILLIGAN: The perfect reaction to the show is for the viewer to decide for themself: Is this paradise or is this hell? You could watch, for instance, the way the Others walk away from that Peruvian village and say, “Oh my God, this is a nightmare. Suddenly everybody is cold to one another.” But if you look really closely, they’re not actually cold to each other. They’re just there. It’s like all the cells in my body — I’m not paying attention to each one, but they make up one whole organism. They are happy, I think. But then again, is that paradise, or is it hell?
Why is it important that Carol is not necessarily always “likable” — or the perfect hero?
SEEHORN: She is a reluctant hero, to say the least. She definitely was not hoping to lead the revolution, but she feels like nobody else will. Her behavior is flawed because she is an everyman who is faced with an insane circumstance. She is not heightened. She is in a fantastical world, but she herself is utterly realistic, emotionally. What would you do if you found yourself feeling like you were in a dystopian, apocalyptic nightmare? I’d rather watch somebody misbehave in that moment, as long as it’s truthful. Her vulnerability when she finds out that the other English speakers are all hanging out without her on weekly Zooms — that’s so human. We’ve all been there. I have been excluded from certain lunch tables in the cafeteria. That hurts, even when the big picture is much bigger.
I also find her suppression of rage very interesting to explore. I know she’s impulsive. I know she shouldn’t be screaming or saying some of the things she says. But I also know that in my real life, many women I know should not be suppressing their anger and rage as much as they are. They should not be lowering their voices or trying so hard to be palatable. Those are flaws, too.
