# Pluribus (New Vince Gilligan show on AppleTV) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, apple\ **Created:** [November 7, 2025, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659 "2025-11-07T12:10:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 53
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1041 "2025-12-29T22:29:58Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > You mean, assuming Carol herself is actually the best chess player in the world? Yeah, this of course. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1042 "2025-12-29T22:37:23Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > You mean, assuming Carol herself is actually the best chess player in the world? > > I think the Others would still crush that person with the combined skill of the 2nd to 100th best chess player in the world… They also have perfect recall. So they’d be able to remember every game state they’ve ever seen and which moves led to victory. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1043 "2025-12-29T23:43:13Z")
I’d like to play against the whole world in a game of RISK. Why not play against the whole world literally _and_ figuratively? ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1044 "2025-12-30T07:55:09Z")
Not sure if it’s been discussed here but: where are all the people? Whenever Carol goes anywhere it seems mostly abandoned, and only sometimes do we see some people. Are all the Plurbs in some kind of underground cave to save power? The show showed how they all sleep together but it didn’t address why in the daytime all places look abandoned. Maybe it’s just a cost saving measure by the producers? Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1045 "2025-12-30T08:57:30Z")
Most of the time when she was travelling, the collective were in “we need space” mode so they would be actively avoiding her. Even without that as the vast majority of jobs have now been rendered obsolete you would also probably not expect many people to be travelling or doing much at any particular place. They’re probably gathered together at whatever the optimal efficient point is and you won’t notice them unless you specifally look. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1046 "2025-12-30T10:57:41Z")
> [@colinfred](#): > > the vast majority of jobs have now been rendered obsolete Did they mention this? I assume many jobs are still needed, eg hairdressers, doctors, dentists, road workers. ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1047 "2025-12-30T11:02:58Z")
Everybody is a doctor, hairdresser and a dentist so no real need to travel to get their service. With less traffic you need less road workers too. The jobs I was thinking of though were anything financial, service based, police, marketing etc. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1048 "2025-12-30T13:46:26Z")
I see what you’re saying but even if everyone is a doctor not everyone has an MRI or Xray machine nearby Even if everyone is a hairdresser, not everyone has all the tools of a hairdresser nearby People also like to swim and ski and ride bikes. Even if part of the hive, does the hive mind lose all desire for sunshine and recreation? (When Zosia was getting a massage she mentioned she liked it) Overall it’s strange that one of the consequences of the hive mind would be empty streets. It would have been good if they at least alluded to this in the show ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1049 "2025-12-30T14:00:46Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > It would have been good if they at least alluded to this in the show They do. The hive is building a giant antenna to distribute the virus in the galaxy, this will require all the energy on earth; presumably most of the hive is working on that project. They will also starve to death in ten years, so any activity that burns calories is right out, no swimming hiking, etc. Others are probably working in food production and distribution which is largely processing corpses. When Carol goes to the hospital, there are members of the hive being treated there for a variety of ailments. Probably because that’s where the medical equipment and drugs are, but everyone is a doctor. Zosia tells Carol that people are being centralized for efficiency, so you won’t see anyone just wandering around unless one of the uninfected request it like that guy in Vegas, or when Carol wants her supermarket back. She also mentions that wildlife is reclaiming the urban space. ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1050 "2025-12-30T14:15:55Z")
I very much doubt anybody who is not getting facetime with the survivors will bother with anything as inefficient as a stylish haircut. I also don’t think the vessel that was Zosia enjoyed the massage or really felt much of anything at all, but used diplomatic language to imply “she” did. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1051 "2025-12-30T14:35:19Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > Even if part of the hive, does the hive mind lose all desire for sunshine and recreation? The opening scene of the last episode should have definitively answered that for you. All vestiges of human interests are a fake front used only in the presence of the unjoined. I don’t know about sunshine, but I’m 100 percent confident that it has no need whatsoever for recreation. It isn’t a group of people, it is a thing that is an emergent property from the merger of the resources of a group of people. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1052 "2025-12-30T14:44:37Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > All vestiges of human interests are a fake front As it would necessarily be for any person who has already had every human experience in every permutation imaginable. If not for the artificial imperatives (and maybe a new chapter from Carol) the hive would all die of boredom. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1053 "2025-12-30T15:21:18Z")
I’m taking that last episode is that Carol **will** be plurbed. The bomb is a back-off but the Plurbs **have** to do it, and will do it whatever way works. How can she to protect from detect gas deployed? The Plurbs will kills millions to get her in the mind. It’s a biological imperative, as they say, and can’t really stop. If they’ve got your stem-cells you’re gone. The males and females who haven’t had a reason to store eggs for IVF are the only ones currently safe. Until they work out how to do that. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1054 "2025-12-30T15:40:29Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > > [@Polerius](#): > > > > It would have been good if they at least alluded to this in the show > > They do. The hive is building a giant antenna to distribute the virus in the galaxy, this will require all the energy on earth; presumably most of the hive is working on that project. They will also starve to death in ten years, so any activity that burns calories is right out, no swimming hiking, etc. Others are probably working in food production and distribution which is largely processing corpses. I think this is likely correct and as such there are effectively five remaining industries on the planet: 1. Food production 2. Antenna production 3. Logistics (distribution of food, antennae materials and components, etc) 4. Self-care (performing necessary maintenance on the infected, roughly equivalent to getting a pedicure as far as Pluribus is concerned—treating a hip broken in a slip and fall might as well be trimming finger nails or, to use someone else’s example above, getting a haircut) 5. A boutique hospitality and service industry catering to the whims of the twelve remaining immunes. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I don’t know about sunshine They’ll need some for Vitamin D production if nothing else. > [@Smid](#): > > I’m taking that last episode is that Carol **will** be plurbed. The bomb is a back-off but the Plurbs **have** to do it, and will do it whatever way works. How can she to protect from detect gas deployed? Even if it is a real nuke, it’s possible that its purpose is, ironically, entirely symbolic. For example, to remind Carol how crazy/inhuman We is. That We would give her a nuke just because she asked. That they cannot help themselves and any kindness they might show her is as much a product of their illness, this infection, as giving her a nuclear weapon. As I said above. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (ie: not some Freudian psychoanalytical phallic symbol). Sometimes a cigar is _also_ a cigar (and a “cigar” in this context carries its own symbolic weight and meaning unique to the individual, such as if the individual was horrifically abused by having a lit cigar put out on their arm, and now seeing a cigar is triggering to them). ETA: Think of that motivational sign alteration Homer makes after Maggie is born and he has to go back to work at the power plant: _Do it for Her_. Or, in this case, _Do it because whatever romantic feelings you might have towards them are the product of delusion. Whatever romantic feelings they might express towards you are the product of a devastating illness that they must be cured from or else they will inevitably infect you as well and the world will end_. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1055 "2025-12-30T15:56:54Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Even if it is a real nuke, it’s possible that its purpose is, ironically, entirely symbolic. For example, to remind Carol how crazy/inhuman We is. That We would give her a nuke just because she asked. That they cannot help themselves and any kindness they might show her is as much a product of their illness, this infection, as giving her a nuclear weapon. She also might plan to use it to destroy the giant antennae they are building. If she can’t save earth, maybe she’ll save some other civilization. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1056 "2025-12-30T18:17:25Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > People also like to swim and ski and ride bikes. Even if part of the hive, does the hive mind lose all desire for sunshine and recreation? (When Zosia was getting a massage she mentioned she liked it) The hive has a biological imperative that over rides any personal desires. Cater to the uninfected and spread the virus. They also don’t have enough food to survive, so I assume all their energy goes entirely into those two goals. The excitement over new wycaro material seemed genuine enough to me to believe they still enjoy entertainment, but they can’t really create it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1057 "2025-12-30T18:20:15Z")
I wonder if Vince ever read [Green Patches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Patches)? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1058 "2025-12-31T21:28:42Z")
Just caught up with the last episode (was traveling for the holidays). > [@madmonk28](#): > > She also might plan to use it to destroy the giant antennae they are building. This was my first thought. My second thought was that she’d drive it straight to the lab or whatever facility is working on her eggs, and nuke that. I’m very surprised to read in this thread the wide belief that she acquired it as a failsafe, a dead man’s switch, etc, to keep the Entity at bay. That’s a passive purpose which doesn’t serve a story function or drive narrative. I can’t believe that’s the intent. A big thing like this is introduced to be _used._ (Nice laugh at Carol reading Le Guin by the pool.) ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1059 "2025-12-31T21:31:32Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I can’t believe that’s the intent. A big thing like this is introduced to be _used._ Chekov’s nuke. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659/1060 "2025-12-31T22:24:37Z")
A nuke to destroy her eggs seems like overkill. And destroying an antenna dish doesn’t accomplish much. So? They build a new one. Slows them down maybe a little. Doesn’t stop it. Regarding her eggs - how would they respond to a direct request for them to give her all of her eggs, any related biological products that may exist, and any of Diabete’s sperm they may have collected for good measure? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659.md?page=52) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pluribus-new-vince-gilligan-show-on-appletv/1024659.md?page=54)