Copyright Polygon
Pluribus has finally arrived. The first two episodes of Vince Gilligan’s heady new science fiction show (his follow-up to the Breaking Bad franchise he’s devoted the last two decades of his life to) are streaming now on Apple TV. That means we can finally talk about what happens in Pluribus, and whoooo boy, there’s a lot to talk about. [Ed. note: Spoilers below for Pluribus episodes 1 and 2.] Pluribus’ premise is both beautifully simple and painstakingly complicated. In one word: hivemind. In many more words: Scientists at the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico pick up a repeating extraterrestrial frequency, which they eventually decode as an RNA nucleotide sequence (don’t worry if those words mean nothing to you, they won’t matter for long) capable of creating a sort of “psychic glue” that connects all of humanity into a single shared consciousness. This all happens in the opening scenes of Pluribus, before we even meet our protagonist Carol (Rhea Seehorn), a successful but bitter romantasy writer. Carol also happens to be one of a dozen people on Earth who are immune to the “joining,” as humanity’s collective consciousness calls the world-changing event. This puts Carol in a tough spot. She can accept defeat and wait to be absorbed once the hivemind figures out why it didn’t work on her in the first place, or she can fight back and look for a way to reverse the joining. (It doesn’t help that the hivemind seems to adore her and provides for her every need and whim, or that the handful of other immune survivors seem pretty content with their current situation.) But Carol is determined to fix this problem, even if it doesn’t necessarily seem like a problem to anyone else. Pluribus doesn’t offer easy answers. It’s unclear whether Carol is a hero or just a killjoy. (Everyone in the hivemind seems blissfully happy at all times.) And if you’re suspicious about the alien origins of the “psychic glue” formula, well, the show’s creator says not to worry about it. “I don't know that we need to be concerned about it so much,” Gilligan tells Polygon, “but I was tickled when I came up with that.” While Gilligan couldn’t tell us what will happen to Carol next, or what the ultimate goal of humanity’s hivemind might be, he did unpack the ideas and influences that helped shape “the joining.” Polygon spoke to both the creator of Pluribus and one of its stars, Karolina Wydra, who plays Zosia, a key member of the hivemind, to unpack the bizarre sci-fi concepts at the heart of this intriguing new show. How Vince Gilligan came up with Pluribus’ hivemind concept The original seeds for Pluribus came to Gilligan about a decade ago, when he envisioned a story about a man who everyone on Earth adored. At the time, Gilligan was working on Better Call Saul, so he let the idea percolate. Eventually, that man became a woman (played by Better Call Saul’s Seehorn), and the concept of a hivemind began to take form. The final step was figuring out where the hivemind comes from. For Gilligan, the answer seemed obvious: outer space. “I wanted to ground the story as much as possible,” he says. “That seemed possible to me. It seemed legit.” When the signal is discovered, its observers struggle to decode the message and debate its origins. “This might have been going since before mankind even existed,” Gilligan says. “It's this repeating signal that is very precise and very regular and 78 seconds long, and then it starts all over again.” Eventually, as we see in Pluribus episode 1, a scientist realizes that the signal is actually four frequencies broadcast at four different amplitudes. Together, they form a recipe for RNA. Gilligan seems particularly proud of this conceit. “That was a fun invention,” he says. “It seemed legit, or quasi-legit, scientifically.” Karolina Wydra on understanding the joining: “They're just pure goodness” Wydra, best known for roles in House and True Blood, never expected to work with Gilligan. After taking a break from acting to have children, she was shocked to get any offer at all — and that was before she truly understood the nature of her character. Wydra plays Zosia, a seemingly random woman subsumed into the hivemind who’s plucked from obscurity and chosen to be Carol’s “chaperone.” It’s eventually revealed that Zosia was chosen because she looks exactly like a female version of the hunky hero who adorns the covers of Carol’s pulpy novels. Every member of the hivemind in Pluribus essentially speaks as one collective consciousness, leading to some clever scenes where Seehorn carries out a totally fluid conversation with a stream of background actors and extras. Wydra carries the bulk of that work, however, which meant figuring out how to act not like a human being, but like the representative of a seemingly more evolved intelligence. "It's a really tough role to play," Gilligan says, "because you have to be at peace, but you can't act like a robot. And I want to stress, these people really are not aliens." They're constantly in a state of serenity. Wydra had plenty of conversations with Gilligan about the inner workings of her character. “Vince would say that they're just very content, happy, peaceful, serene human beings that are unflappable, and they're just pure goodness in the world,” Wydra tells Polygon. “They don't feel the negative feelings we experience. They don't experience anger. They remember that they felt anger at one point, but they're not angry. They're constantly in a state of serenity. No matter what's thrown at them, they don't have a negative reaction.” This explains the serene nature of Wydra’s character, but it also clarifies why the hivemind is so gung-ho on having Carol and the other immune people join them in collective bliss. “Whatever Carol's going through, they remember that they felt that way, but they don't feel that way today,” Wydra says. “So their biological imperative to share this gift is so strong. They know that once anyone experiences the goodness of this virus, they will know it's worth sharing.” To prepare for the role, Wydra says she did “dream work” to explore her subconscious. She also meditated in an effort to relax her body and dispel the usual “jitters” she’d feel before shooting a scene. “Vince would come up to me and go, ‘There's none of that in their bodies. They're very content and confident and present. They're extremely present in their bodies as well.’” The actress also did research into the behaviour of emotionally intelligent people. “They're all listeners,” she says. “They have nothing to prove.” But one phrase that came up frequently while describing the way the hivemind interacts with Carol was perhaps the most revealing: “Indulgent Mother.” “They don't judge Carol,” Wydra explains. “They just have utter love and adoration for her.” Walk like a hivemind One of the most astonishing things about Pluribus is the way the hivemind’s members move. Throughout the series, we regularly see dozens or hundreds of people working in perfect harmony to do whatever Carol asks them. The result is entrancing and alien, like watching a colony of ants, except they’re humans. Gilligan credits most of this to stunt performer Nito Larioza, who choreographed those scenes in Pluribus, figuring out how a human hivemind would interact with the real world. However, the showrunner also credits an experience he had years ago while on vacation, watching a school of fish move together underwater. “I used to scuba dive a little bit, and I was lucky enough to go down to the Caribbean or whatnot,” he says. It fascinated me: These beautiful fish, they're all in a line, and then the lead fish all of a sudden turns a corner, like those light cycles in Tron. The fish would all be together, and then they go kchh, and then they go kchh. [Ed. note: Gilligan is imitating the sound of a Tron light cycle here.] You can't even see it happen. It's faster than the human eye.” Gilligan admits that, despite everyone’s best effort, it’s virtually impossible to get a group of actors and extras to behave exactly like those tropical fish. “Nito did a great job training them,” he says, “but you're never going to get people moving like fish.” Pluribus episodes 1 and 2 are streaming now on Apple TV. New episodes air weekly each Friday.
