I might as well join the hive mind, because I'm obsessed with Pluribus and I cannot stop thinking about it. This is the kind of series that gets under your skin in the best possible way. It is beautiful, eerie, funny in a dark and unsettling way, and packed with emotional weight that lingers long after an episode ends. If you enjoy ambitious television that takes big ideas seriously while still delivering rich characters and immersive world building, Pluribus feels like a rare achievement.
The premise is instantly gripping. A mysterious radio signal arrives from space and scientists decode it only to discover that the message encodes a viral sequence. Once recreated, the virus escapes into the world and rapidly transforms nearly all of humanity into a collective consciousness. The result is an apocalypse without fire or destruction. Streets are quiet. People are calm and oddly cheerful. Society appears strangely harmonious, yet something essential about humanity has been erased. A handful of individuals are immune, and the series follows one of them, Carol Sturka, played by the brilliant Rhea Seehorn.
Carol is a cynical romance novelist who returns to Albuquerque just as the world begins to change. Immune to the Joining, she finds herself surrounded by a population that smiles too easily and speaks with a serene confidence that feels more like possession than peace. Even worse, Carol suffers the devastating loss of her wife, Helen, during the outbreak. Her grief becomes one of the only authentic emotions left in a world that now sees sadness as unnecessary and individuality as an unfortunate burden.
Seehorn’s performance deserves every word of acclaim. Carol is prickly, wounded, sarcastic, and deeply human. Watching her push back against the hive mind as they offer cheerful favors and gentle persuasion is both heartbreaking and darkly funny. The smallest moments between her and the collective feel electric because she is fighting, at every second, not only for survival but for the right to feel anything at all.
The supporting cast is equally compelling. Karolina Wydra plays Zosia, a member of the collective who becomes Carol’s main point of contact. She is courteous and helpful on the surface, yet her calm feels like a mask that never comes off. Carlos Manuel Vesga plays Manousos Oviedo, another immune individual who avoids both the collective and other immune survivors. Their contrasting reactions refuse easy interpretation. The show never tells you what the correct response to this new world should be. It simply presents a landscape where the usual moral categories have evaporated.
What gives Pluribus its singular power is the atmosphere it creates. This is not a world of explosions or dramatic chases. The horror comes from the stillness. Scenes that should feel safe carry a strange, buzzing tension. People smile a little too much. Streets are too empty. The hive members speak with kindness that feels like a trap. It is uncanny in a way that makes your stomach tighten even when nothing overtly frightening is happening.
The show blends science fiction, psychological suspense, philosophical drama, and a sharp sense of dark humor. The tone is thoughtful and slow, inviting you to sit with ideas long after an episode ends. It asks what happiness means when it is offered without choice and what individuality is worth when the alternative is a world without conflict. These questions are handled with unusual care and the series never goes for easy answers.
This show is inventive, emotionally complex, daring, and one of the most original shows in recent memory. Seehorn’s performance and Vince Gilligan’s writing are particular standouts. Pluribus is quickly becoming one of the most talked about series of the year.
For fans of Gilligan’s previous work, Pluribus feels both familiar and radically new. The careful pacing, moral tension, and character-driven storytelling are unmistakable. What is different is the thematic focus. Instead of crime and moral decay, the threat in Pluribus is an unsettling utopia. It is a bold creative shift that pays off with some of the most thought provoking television he has ever made.
Pluribus is powerful, unnerving, and beautifully crafted. It is rare to see a show that combines emotional depth, philosophical ambition, and entertainment so effortlessly. This is television that does not just entertain. It haunts. It makes you consider what you would cling to if the world around you suddenly insisted on perfect happiness. It asks whether individuality is worth preserving even when the cost is pain. And it does all this while delivering characters you believe in and a world that feels frighteningly possible.
Pluribus is one of the best new shows of the year and I cannot wait to see where it goes next!
New episodes of Pluribus drop Fridays on AppleTV.
