Pluribus (TV series)

• 1. Introduction

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  Pluribus is a television series about a world that has become gloriously happy, and one woman who wants no part of it. Only 13 people on Earth are immune to the change. One of them is Carol Sturka, played by Rhea Seehorn. Everyone else has been transformed, and by every outward measure they are better off. Vince Gilligan created the series for Apple TV. What exactly happened to humanity, and what does a perfectly agreeable world want from the few people it cannot absorb? Where did the idea come from, and how did a show this strange get made at this scale? And why did critics argue so fiercely over its pace?

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• 2. The Joining

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  The series calls the event the Joining. An extraterrestrial virus caused it, and it turned the rest of humanity into a single hive mind known as the Others. The Others are peaceful and satisfied, and they gladly accommodate the wishes of anyone left unaffected. They are also candid about their limits. When they learn how, they will try to assimilate the immune people as well. Carol is adamantly against this, and she sets out to find a way to reverse the Joining.

  Carol lives in Albuquerque and writes romantasy novels. Her closest contact with the hive is Zosia, played by Karolina Wydra. Zosia is a Polish member of the Others who acts as Carol's chaperone. Carlos-Manuel Vesga plays Manousos Oviedo, a Colombian immune person living in Paraguay who refuses all contact with the Others.

  Miriam Shor plays Helen L. Umstead, who is both Carol's manager and her wife. Samba Schutte plays Koumba Diabaté, a Mauritanian survivor who has embraced a hedonistic lifestyle since the outbreak. Menik Gooneratne plays Laxmi, an Indian survivor who is hostile to Carol. Not every survivor shares Carol's resolve, though. Darinka Arones plays Kusimayu, a Peruvian villager who is open to joining the Others.

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• 3. Weary of Bad Guys

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  Vince Gilligan has said he became "weary of writing bad guys" after a decade working on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. While making Better Call Saul, he imagined a man whom everyone in the world suddenly adored after some cataclysmic event. Over time he reshaped the idea. The lead became a woman, written with Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn in mind, and he added the notion of a hive mind. Gilligan wanted the story grounded, so he decided the hive mind would spread from a signal sent from space. That signal carried code for RNA that would transform humanity. He crafted Carol as a "flawed good guy" who tries to save the world.

  Gilligan told Seehorn he was working on something written for her. She agreed to take part before she had seen a single draft.

  Better Call Saul ended in August 2022. Gilligan then pitched a new series that he would develop with Sony Pictures Television. The pitch set off the first bidding war over any of his projects. Apple TV won the rights in September 2022 and gave the show a two-season order. Gilligan became showrunner and executive producer, with Seehorn cast as Carol.

  Gilligan says he has about four seasons' worth of ideas. He does not expect demand for more than that. He also doubts he would have the energy, given how long each episode takes to produce.

  The title was chosen from a list of more than 100 names. Gilligan called it "a tip of the hat to the unofficial motto of America". That motto is e pluribus unum, a Latin phrase meaning "out of many, one".

  Gilligan planned the long arc of Pluribus further ahead than he did on his earlier shows. That helped him avoid a problem from Breaking Bad. The first episode of that show's final season, "Live Free or Die", included a machine gun. Gilligan did not know how to resolve it until a breakthrough came at the writers' table.

  The first season of Pluribus ends with the delivery of an atom bomb to Carol. The writers know it will matter across the planned four-season run. Their original ending did not include it. Notes from Apple and Sony executives prompted the change, which Gilligan says produced a "better ending". He adds that he would drop the plan if a better idea came along.

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• 4. Built on the Mesa

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  The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike interrupted the writing of the first season. In October 2023, Gilligan and his writers regrouped to finish the last two episodes. The strike also pushed back the start of shooting, possibly into early 2024. Gordon Smith, an executive producer and screenwriter on the show, had to direct at least one episode because the planned director had scheduling conflicts.

  Filming ran from February to September 2024, in Albuquerque, under the working title Wycaro 339. Each episode had a reported budget of $15 million. Karolina Wydra was cast in the lead role of Zosia in March 2024.

  Gilligan was reluctant to shoot in Albuquerque again. He feared viewers would confuse Seehorn's Carol with her Better Call Saul character, Kim Wexler. The city won out anyway. He had worked there on both earlier shows, and the soundstages from those productions already existed. He also cited local production talent and state financial incentives. In his words: "I love shooting in New Mexico...But also, frankly, as a business person, I love this rebate." To avoid confusion with his earlier shows, he steered clear of locations he had used before.

  Carol's cul-de-sac was built from scratch on the West Mesa outside Albuquerque. The set included her home, inside and out, along with six surrounding houses, a park and roadways. Gilligan wanted fake residences so tourists would not flock to a real address, as happened with the house used as Walter White's home in Breaking Bad. Smith added that shooting around real homes would often have meant shutting down roads and businesses. Denise Pizzini served as production designer.

  The crew also shot in Spain, at places including Oviedo, Bilbao and Gipuzkoa. They filmed several locations on Gran Canaria and La Palma in the Canary Islands.

  Dave Porter, who composed music for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, scored the series. Milan Records released Volume 1 of the soundtrack digitally on the 21st of November 2025. Volume 2 followed on the 26th of December 2025. The label had already released the main title theme as a single on the 7th of November 2025, the day the series premiered.

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• 5. A Quiet Launch

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  In July 2025, Apple announced the official title of the series and its planned release in November. Very little else was shared. Even the full trailer, released in late October 2025, revealed few details. Gilligan separated the show from his earlier work by saying that "the world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different."

  The marketing leaned on mystery. Teaser trailers included a phone number, and dialing it played a recorded message. Text messages followed, with alerts for new teasers and an invitation to an advance screening. Every message addressed the recipient as "Carol", and the texts continued through the premiere.

  That screening was held in New York City on the 10th of October 2025, by invitation only, and showed the first two episodes. The official premiere event took place at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles on the 4th of November. Entertainment Weekly then released an exclusive preview of the first four minutes, one day before the Apple TV debut.

  On the 7th of November 2025, Pluribus premiered its first two episodes exclusively on Apple TV. Episodes were promoted as arriving on Fridays worldwide, though viewers in Eastern time zones got them on the preceding Thursday evening. Two holidays moved the schedule. The fifth episode arrived two days early because of Thanksgiving in the United States, and the season finale came two days early because of Christmas.

  On the 14th of November 2025, Apple Books released an 11-page excerpt from Bloodsong of Wycaro, the fourth book in Carol's Winds of Wycaro series, which appears in the first episode. The excerpt included a "Letter from the Author", Chapter 16 of the fictional novel and an "About the Author" page.

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• 6. Acclaim and Dissent

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  On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of Pluribus holds a 99% approval rating based on 185 critic reviews. Metacritic gave it a score of 87 out of 100 from 38 critics, which it labels "universal acclaim". Critics praised Seehorn's performance, Gilligan's writing and direction, and the show's originality, tone and stylistic influences.

  Nicholas Quah of Vulture called the series "an entrancing piece of television" and Seehorn's work "remarkable". He described the pace as "deliberate and meandering, both thrilling and confounding in its refusal to yield payoff, immediate or otherwise". Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com called it "one of this year's most complicated and thrilling television series" and a "bewildering mix of science fiction and noir".

  Linda Holmes of NPR admired the way Gilligan mixes brutality, humanity and humor so that each keeps its punch. She also praised the show's "crushingly sad" portrait of existential loneliness. James Poniewozik of The New York Times called Gilligan "a master of disorientation" and called the series "its own mystifying thing".

  Not every admirer loved the rhythm. Ben Travers of IndieWire gave the show a B+ but felt Gilligan's devotion to process as a director "throws off the pacing". Alison Herman of Variety offered a verdict that critics of both camps could quote: "Pluribus may be slow, but it was never boring."

  The harshest reviews targeted the same slowness. Erik Kain of Forbes complained that the story is "like too little butter spread over too much bread". Nick Hilton of The Independent found the show "a bit listless". James Delingpole of The Spectator called it "ponderous". Hannah Brown of The Jerusalem Post thought the dialogue made its points over and over.

  Inkoo Kang of The New Yorker raised a different complaint. She saw the show's A.I. analogy giving way to a horror story about what living in harmony would really involve.

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• 7. Echoes and Allegories

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  Gilligan drew on science fiction history when imagining the assimilated humans. He cited the anthology series The Twilight Zone and the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Critics spotted more. Sean T. Collins of Decider heard echoes of Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days Later in the premiere. He also called the series "a big-budget reimagining" of The Prisoner.

  James Poniewozik set Pluribus beside The Leftovers and The Last Man on Earth. He noted that Gilligan wrote for The X-Files and was one of the showrunners of its spin-off The Lone Gunmen, and he saw the series returning to that universe's themes. Others compared it to Apple TV's own Severance, since both are complex mysteries about "transforming human consciousness". Michael Ahr of Den of Geek argued that Pluribus pushed the hive mind takeover further than Star Trek or The Expanse had.

  Many critics read the story as a comment on artificial intelligence. Poniewozik saw a parallel with the modern lure of AI, which promises progress and plenty in exchange for smooshing all human intelligence into one obsequious collective mind. Josh Rosenberg of Esquire called it a meaningful story about our connection to AI that is not simply about whether to fall in love with it or kill it.

  Gilligan has voiced his own disdain for AI, and the end credits carry a disclaimer that "this show was made by humans". He points out, however, that he was not thinking about AI while writing, since the story was conceived more than eight years before.

  Other readings stretch further. The show makes a direct comparison between the hive's attempts to assimilate the immune and conversion therapy. Some viewers drew parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic. The scholar Hollis Robbins studies the show's tracking shots and cites Lacan in a reading of its focus on language.

  Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya of Autostraddle noted that the series touches on settler colonialism. In her view, the hive is an extreme form of assimilation in which "all cultural differences are replaced with a homogenous monoculture".

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• 8. Records and Awards

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  According to Apple TV, the first two episodes of Pluribus broke its record for a drama series launch. They surpassed the premiere of the second season of Severance. For the week ending the 16th of November 2025, Pluribus was the most-streamed original series in the United States. Before the season finale, Apple TV announced that it had become the most watched series in the platform's history, ahead of both Severance and Ted Lasso.

  The awards season brought two Golden Globe nominations and two Critics' Choice nominations. Seehorn won Best Actress in a Drama Series at both ceremonies.

  The wider list is long. The American Film Institute Awards listed the show under Television Program of the Year in 2025. Its name also turns up among the Peabody Awards, the Writers Guild of America Awards, the British Academy Television Awards, the Gotham Awards, the Saturn Awards and the Hugo Awards. The Hugo entry names Gilligan for the episode "We Is Us". Karolina Wydra and Samba Schutte appear in Saturn Awards categories, and Dave Porter appears for his score and title sequence.

  A second season of Pluribus has been ordered.

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