Pluribus: Us and Those We Cannot Make Uniform

Pluribus, which premiered on Apple TV in November 2025 and concluded its first season finale in recent weeks, tells the story of events unfolding around a system that aims to integrate thirteen people who have not undergone the transformation, after a global virus outbreak turns humanity into a society that is constantly happy and satisfied to the point of having its nerves removed. Since its release, dozens of theories have been written about it, and with its philosophical inquiries and metaphors, Pluribus has been examined in detail by cinema professionals. The head writer and producer of the series is Vince Gilligan, a creator with a refined intelligence and pen. The character Carol is portrayed by Rhea Seehorn, who turns the role into a fully real character even through micro expressions and won the Best Actress award at the Golden Globe 2026 for this performance.

Carol Sturka, one of those who have not undergone the transformation, is an antihero who stands in complete opposition to the mindset of this new system that radiates constant smiles, tries to erase negativity from the reality of life, and pushes everyone into a regime of being one. She stands out through her nonconformity and irritability. In the first episode, when we look at her normal life before what happened to humanity, we see that Carol earns her living as a writer. However, she is not happy with her readership, does not truly like them, and looks down on them inwardly. She keeps the book she considers her true artistic work to herself, believing that this audience would not be able to understand it. She has a life that is happy in its own way with her partner, yet even in this relationship, in some moments shown through flashbacks, we see how dissatisfied and critical she actually is in situations that could easily be enjoyed. The fact that this highly individual character, who struggles to empathize with others, becomes the only person who wants to restore a world filled with many things she dislikes but has had to tolerate, and who must fight for this, can be read as an ironic situation.

After a long period of resisting the system and searching for ways to return to the old world following the outbreak, Carol is punished by the system for her actions and abandoned. Left alone for a while, she eventually cannot cope with loneliness and is forced to call back the others she once challenged. Similar to the relationship between a writer and a reader, this effort to reconnect even in a relationship not based on direct benefit is handled by the script as a very natural and human choice. At this point, the writer does not push the boundaries of the antihero, nor does he steer her toward unnecessary alternative solutions.

Another aspect that has drawn criticism but offers realistic parallels carefully designed beneath the surface is the way Carol’s love with Zosia is handled in the final two episodes. Many viewers interpret Carol’s abandonment of her main goal of restoring the world to its former state and her sudden pursuit of Zosia as an extreme transition in the script, because this relationship is not a real one and one of the parties is no longer a human being with emotions of their own. Yet the love here is portrayed in a way that is highly consistent with the reality of the person who is in love, just as in real life. At this point, the writer also nods to debates suggesting that in the future, falling in love may not be an emotion experienced only with real humans. The disappearance of control mechanisms in love and Carol’s pursuit of love despite reality continue until she learns that the others have used her frozen eggs from the past in order to integrate her into the collective consciousness system. Even though she already knows the programming mechanisms of the others, Carol questions Zosia’s equal affection toward everyone and experiences emotions intense enough to set even this aside. Once she learns of this deception, she quickly returns to reality and resumes her efforts to restore the world with Manousos, one of the thirteen people unaffected by the transformation who has joined her. Although the pace drops at times in some episodes, up until the final two episodes the script generally continues to feed us new information about this new order in every episode.

Finally, if we read the series from the perspective of the others, who are part of a collective consciousness affected by the outbreak, yes, it is certainly a major critique of artificial intelligence. The others respond calmly even to irritating questions, and instead of ending a sentence where it normally should end, they complete it and then offer attentive suggestions in the spirit of would you also like this, reminiscent of the kind of responses we are accustomed to in today’s world of GPT systems. However, reading this critique in a single dimension would be insufficient. Beyond the comparisons made through the standardized and formulaic communication style of artificial intelligence, which can be easily identified by us detective like consumers, it is also appropriate to put on the table our tendencies toward uniformity in many areas, from fashion to aesthetics, from popular culture to trends, even to what is considered lame. This opens the door to questioning the approach of a system that constantly tries to keep us within those who are considered one of us. The fact that the others cannot deliberately kill any living being and therefore cannot produce enough food, and instead feed on protein obtained from dead humans, pushes us toward multilayered reflections that can be read through various analogies involving power, ethics, consumption, and human nature.

After a first season that leaves its flavor lingering on the palate, it is not difficult to predict that a creative second season awaits us, one that will pull us out of routine and lead us to new questions once again. Following 2025, which was a productive year in terms of satisfying films and series, the hope is that 2026 will also be a fertile year for series and films, with more productions whose implications we may discuss among ourselves for days, perhaps even ones not consciously designed by their own writers.