Pluribus Recap: Flying Solo

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The clock is ticking – actually counting up – and we’re now just three days, three hours, eleven minutes, and fourteen seconds away from returning to the present, after a disorienting jump back to a time nearly seven years in the past. A quiet but important detail about Carol’s new reality is that she hasn’t been able to grieve, despite clearly needing to. Remember how crucial it was for her to properly bury her partner, Helen, and how quickly she was sent on a worldwide journey to find others in the same strange situation? She wants to be alone for many reasons, including her resistance to the forced mental connection being offered. But this difficult path she’s chosen has kept her from dealing with not only Helen’s death, but also the loss of everything else, and her own eventual fate.

To cope with this difficult time and maintain her sense of self, Carol demands a fabricated reality. She especially wants to control her memories of Helen, even though Helen’s memories are now part of a shared, global network. The intimate experiences she and Helen shared are now public knowledge, and the Others believe they can use this information to create a version of Helen that will comfort Carol. They hope that by recreating aspects of Helen based on what they know, they can alleviate Carol’s pain and make Helen feel present to her, even if only in a limited, lasting way.

Zosia respected Carol’s need for space, but still delivered her accumulated mail – a pile that had built up before everything changed. With a cheerful smile, Zosia pointed to a priority mail package, saying she thought Carol would really enjoy it. If Zosia hadn’t said anything about what was inside, she might have been right. The package contained a Theragun massager, a final gift from Helen, intended as a surprise at the end of their book tour. But when Carol called Zosia and learned Helen had remembered her mentioning it – “You tried one at the Atlanta airport, but thought it was too expensive, so Helen bought it online” – she was deeply disturbed. Helen had been a person, and now this private conversation was public, being used to predict and supposedly fulfill Carol’s desires.

While the collective consciousness appears to offer a system where everyone contributes and receives what they need, this doesn’t appeal to people like Carol and others who don’t fit in. The idea is that simply giving people everything they desire – things like travel, perfect meals, exclusive access, and even extravagant gifts – will be enough to appease them and bring them under control. This kind of luxury is certainly attractive, but it’s also deeply insulting to assume humanity is so easily bought. Does everyone have a price? Why would aliens even need weapons when they can recreate a perfect memory, like a delicious sandwich enjoyed on a sunny afternoon in Paris?

It’s understandable why the others targeted Carol. She appeared to prioritize commercial success over artistic ambition, having shifted from writing serious literature to continuing a popular, but less substantial, space-pirate series. The story opens with her obsessively checking her book’s sales rank even while on a luxurious Arctic vacation – a clear sign she values money and possessions. However, a brief moment of genuine wonder as she watches the Northern Lights suggests there’s more to her than meets the eye. Though she might be difficult and even enjoy being unhappy, as Helen observes, her emotional complexity shouldn’t be dismissed.

In Pluribus, Carol is pretending to be independent, even though she’s still controlled by the collective. She tries to act like she’s in charge – telling Zosia to forget about Helen, for example – but it’s an illusion. Her attempt to go grocery shopping is just for show, especially since the collective controls all the resources. In fact, the entire Sprouts market is being restocked just for her, and her power relies entirely on the grid being restored to her neighborhood. All she can really do is passively resist by rejecting the comforts offered to her: she’ll pour out good water, throw away breakfast, and insist on making wasteful trips to the store instead of accepting help.

Despite her struggles, she manages to get a hand grenade, telling Zosia, “A hand grenade would fix everything.” While everyone suspects she’s joking, they can’t be certain. This leads to a surprisingly honest conversation with Zosia, who is unusually direct. Instead of the usual dismissals like “Your life is your own,” Zosia admits the Others have plans for Carol and the other anomalies, explaining they have a biological need to act. She offers only a weak reassurance that the changes will ultimately be for the best, comparing humanity to someone desperately needing rescue.

When Carol unexpectedly throws a real grenade at the end of her conversation with Zosia, it dramatically changes things for Pluribus. Suddenly, violence is an option, and they seem willing to give Carol anything she wants – even something as extreme as a rocket launcher or an atom bomb. A seemingly helpful person, dressed as a DHL delivery driver, even offers her an atom bomb, explaining they’ll do anything to please her. While Carol doesn’t seem inclined to start a violent uprising on her own, she wonders why she should refuse if they’re offering her the means to fight for humanity.

Mizzenmasts:

• There’s been some consternation here over what to call the hive mind on the show. Thinking of them as “aliens” doesn’t quite work because the phenomenon happened more through a virus than a typical invasion, and I erred in using the term “Celtiberian,” which was a reference to an ancient language used here on Earth. So for now we’ll stick to the official term for them used in Apple TV’s promotional materials, the “Others.”

There’s a quietly devastating line early on – Carol, with a touch of bitterness, remarks she could’ve saved a fortune on fertility treatments and just frozen her eggs right then and there. It’s a small moment, but it really hits you because it subtly reveals a core heartbreak: Carol and Helen desperately wanted a family, and life just didn’t allow it. It’s a beautifully understated way of showing a deep, unspoken pain.

Carol was so unnerved by her last pilot—who reminded her of a waitress from TGI Friday’s—that she’s now requested two new pilots with a combined 51,619 hours of flying experience. She admitted the change was due to being frightened by the previous pilot.

Carol is deeply dedicated to helping others, which is why she’s strangely preoccupied with an icy hotel bed from a past memory. At the same time, she consistently chooses to fly coach, even when she has access to the luxury of first class.

I’m looking forward to meeting Manousos, who appears to be Carol’s somewhat troublesome partner from Paraguay. I suspect Carol’s venting about him (including strong language like “¡Chinga tu madre, cabrón!”) will be a relief, as the rest of us wouldn’t dare speak to him that way.

Does anyone else feel like rewatching The Golden Girls? This episode has some really funny lines, like, “It must have been just the excitement of the moment, but they said the only way to prevent the eruption was for me to crawl through their legs, up the volcano, while they gave me my birthday whacks…”

As a movie lover, one of my favorite little details was this really funny, down-to-earth moment where they list everything in Carol’s fridge. It’s just so specific and relatable – things like only having tonic water, some oat milk, and three different kinds of olives! It felt so real and instantly made her character more human, you know?

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2025-11-14 09:55