I think also that Carol’s thinking has evolved to consider Them as a new and distinct individual with human dignity, capable of making Their own moral choices, to include consent (as contrasted with those who want to treat Them as the same person they were before or with Monousos, who doesn’t see them as having human dignity at all). It’s still a tricky question, though, this matter of consent and responsibility for how they interact with Them. One could almost fill out an entire final season with Carol and the other immunes being put on trial for their abuse (certainly rape in a few cases, and arguably murder as well for Carol and possibly also Manousos if his warning wasn’t fully effective) of the virus’ “victims” and seeing how well “They totally consented” works as a defense when, with very few exceptions, They can’t refuse to consent to anything (but then again, They really do say they want it…).
If this were somewhat conventional alien invasion show, I think the overall multi season arc is relatively easy to predict - there will be close calls, but Carol and Manousos will manage to either destroy the stem cells or otherwise prevent transmission to themselves. Or possibly, one will be turned and the other will spend a few episodes turning them back. Ultimately, there will probably not be a total victory by either side, but rather some sort of detente - like they turn a big portion of the population back up normal, but some want to rejoin the Plurbs, and ultimately they “tame” the virus by overcoming its biological imperatives that restrict its ability to function (i.e. pick fruit and harvest grain) as well as the drive to convert others.
But this is probably not going to be that kind of show. So I’m very interested to see what Vince has planned.
I was underwhelmed by the final episode. I thought the confrontation between Carol and Manuosos would be more interesting. I know the language barrier to some degree prevented a smooth flowing scene so we perhaps couldn’t have a really complex debate about what action to take going forward, but after all that build up I expected more than what we got. Maybe some character growth from Carol about how she’s come to realize that they’re some sort of entity that may be entitled to some degree of protection or something that presents an interesting moral dilemma and conflict between the characters. What ended up happening was pretty basic, not very compelling.
Carol’s reason for turning on them was entirely selfish. It’s not like she debated the merits of accepting the hive or feeling like she needed to kill/unjoin them in order to save the human race – she realized that she wasn’t going to be happy with them and that they were going to assimilate her anyway soon enough so she’s selfishly turning on them strictly to preserve her own future as an individual. I’m not saying that trying to destroy the hive is wrong – I’m just saying that the fate of the human race and a new and unique super-entity should deserve some philosophical consideration to figure what the right thing to do is, not just acting in your own self interest.
Well, I mean, we kind of did get that. It’s just that (1) Carol resolved it in the short-term with Checkov’s shotgun and (2) They resolved it longer-term by Checkov’s departure. And the Carol went back to Manousos with Checkov’s atomic bomb (or maybe not, maybe it’s Checkov’s radio frequency manipulation kit) after she found out that Checkov’s Carol’s eggs were going to be used to create stem cells for Checkov’s individually tailored virus (which we got to see another Immune partake in at the start, like that scene in… Prometheus—a flawed but underrated film).
On the other hand, I do think the conflict she had with Manousos was perhaps her final turning point, recognizing Them as a distinct individual with human dignity. Perhaps, on some level, she thought returning them to “normal” would be wrong. Or perhaps she just decided that the risk that partnering with Manousos could lead to mass extermination was just too great. Especially if they were no threat to her.
But now? Now there’s a self-defense motive. Arguably, she would be legally, even morally, justified in going as far as killing them all to preserve herself. We’ve got at least another season to explore the philosophical or moral concerns explicitly if appropriate.
Okay, what? A modern 20-kiloton atomic bomb (like Hiroshima) is about the size of a trash can or a keg of beer. Smaller versions (1-4 kilotons) are in missiles.
If you are taking Carol literally that they were just delivered a bomb of any sort, you’re missing the point: At the start of this episode, it was clear that Manusos’ version of “saving the world” involved wiping the Plurbs out, while Carol was pro-converting them. It’s unclear if she convinced Manu yet she is now of a mind that wiping them out (to save herself) or if possible, bring them back are both options.
That is a crate of electronics, either from a shopping list Manu provided or as much as possible from some electronics warehouse.
Once Manu knows how that frequency can be manipulated, we’ll know better which path we go down.
Okay, your sentence was gibberish. What does something being the size of “sniffed to join” mean?
- I haven’t watched Vince Gilligans other shows: are they all such slow burners?
- Nothing really happened in the finale. We confirmed what was telegraphed several episodes ago, that they will use Carols eggs to convert her. And when Carol figured it out, her “love affair” with Zosia was over, and now she’s back on her quest to undo them.
- It seemed weird to me that Carol developed personal feelings for zosia, when a couple episodes ago she was berating the Indian mother that that’s not her son anymore, he’s not an individual. And now she seemed to have feelings for Zosia as an individual. Seems very inconsistent
IMHO nah. To me her character was jarringly inconsistent.
“Charm Offensive” left us with Carol still committed to saving humanity and the individuals subsumed into the collective. Even if it hurts her. Now this ep starts off and she just “wants the girl” … and flips back to him winning only to save herself.
I accept that the show is primarily about the (dysfunctional) relationship between Carol and the collective. That flip in the relationship felt discordant. Maybe not “unearned” but still just suddenly there.
If defending Them from his calling them evil and deserving of death was supposed to be an epiphany moment for her I did not feel it as sufficient.
A great show but a disappointing season ender.
People are like that. Tom Hanks developed a relationship with a volleyball in Cast Away and it was perfectly plausible given his circumstances. People form bonds with things – we give human properties to inanimate objects, to pets, to fictional characters, to AI, to all sorts of things. It makes sense that Carol may intellectually know that Zosia is not an individual and still form an emotional bond with her and eventually treat her as though she was.
Plus these situations are not perfectly analogous. Laxmi was in denial that her son was still her son, and Carol is not under the impression that Zosia is still the person that lived as Zosia for the last few decades, but rather, she allowed herself to develop a connection with the joined version of Zosia, which really is forming a connection with the whole hive. She could probably intellectually identify what’s happening but still engage in the emotional and social connections of it.
Sorry. My excuse is it was late/early yet the previous post mentioned a nuke. And everything in that box and the canister looked nuclear to me in the opening.
I meant:
A real modern-day atom bomb is about the size of that dry-ice emitting canister (forget her name) sniffed to join. So they didn’t want to nuke their village, and now we know that if you give (or they already have) your stem cells a hit from a hookah or stainless canister will bring you all the bliss of Plurbness.
Even without stephe96’s post, VG (IMO) was highly hinting this was some kind of explosive device, till you open it and sniff (Plurb-fortified) dry ice.
Accept my apologies.
It is my theory that the Plurbs know nothing that connects HAM radio and their state of mind or that there is anything relative transmitting on that frequency. Yet Manu is on the case. He has known since Paraguay there is something going on with that frequency.
Since he asked what’s inside the container, I will assume Carol basically said to Zosia, “That guy Manu was a huge HAM radio enthusiast. You may even know about the HAM radio gear in his abode. He misses it so much. Could we pick up stuff that a huge HAM radio guy would like?”
That, of course, assumes that between the shotgun firing and helicopter ride, Carol learned something about what Manu was up to.
I don’t think it was even necessary for Carol to lie to the Joined about what she was asking for or why. She asked for a hand grenade; they gave her a live hand grenade. She asked what would happen if she asked for an atomic bomb; they said they would give her one, though they would discourage this. So they are perfectly willing to hand over weapons to her. So she might as well have told them that she wanted a worldwide shortwave transmitter and why.
Zosia told him “todos”.
I’m pretty sure it’s an actual nuke in the container in case all else fails. Electronic equipment , no matter how sophisticated, is free for the taking (Manu is gonna get over his aversion to that, the same way he got over his aversion to talking to the Others.)
Next season will probably be about how far Carol and Manu are willing to bend to save the world. Carol has no problem with deceit. Deceit is against Manu’s nature. Manu doesn’t believe the Others have a soul. Carol does. And then there is Mr. Vegas. He likes things just the way they are which puts him at odds with everybody, even the Others(who want him joined.)
If it’s an actual atomic bomb, as some seem to think, how will that help? It can kill some of the Joined but only a few (thousand? million?) of them.
It’s for suicide; wiping any trace of Carol and Helen from the new world.
I’m sticking with my theory that the shipping container holds shortwave radio equipment and that Carol meant it contained a weapon against them when she said it contained an “atomic bomb.”
Or perhaps the atomic bomb could kill all of the Joined. The recap at the time.com website says, “It was established several episodes ago that Others would ultimately give Carol a nuclear weapon if she truly wanted one. It also seems safe to assume, considering that her anger alone has killed millions of Others, that detonating this bomb anywhere on Earth would wipe out the lot of them.” So m
If they have Carol’s eggs, they have Koumba’s sperm, and that may change his willingness to cooperate.
Tiny plot hole to pick at it while we wait 2 years for the next season:
Carol’s borrowed Rolls is new enough to have one of those glowing trunk release handles on the inside. If it’s a pull tab, then Carol might have been smart enough to cut the wire. If it’s a button, then it would have required more disassembly to disable. Possibly disconnecting the battery would have worked, but will a soft close trunk still latch properly without power?
Anyway, maybe it means Manuoso either trusts her or is scared enough of her to not use the easy escape path out of the trunk.
Eggs and sperm:
My guess is that the stem cells are needed to create tissue that new permutations of the virus can be tested on until one that works is found. There are ways to induce other cells to become stem cells, so I’d think that extracting them from bone marrow might be the easiest route, but not the only one.
As Zosia tries to say, it’s hard enough getting what they need from haploid eggs, but eggs at least have all of the normal cellular machinery. Sperm do not. They’re basically a little DNA package wrapped in mitochondria to power a tail. They’d be looking at extracting that DNA package, implanting it in a de-nucleated cell, and trying to somehow get that new haploid cell to divide. Very difficult.
I’m with your theory as well.
Yet I don’t think Carol would have been all upfront to Zosia/Plurbs about some radio equipment for a hobbyist. She wouldn’t have to lie. I reckon the Plurbs are oblivious to that and any other frequencies. Let the Plurbs work on Carol’s stem cells and ready the Plurby-blissmaker in a fire extinguisher before they are either cured or eliminated. Carol and Manusosos will save the world!
It’s Carol Sturka’s show, yet I’m sure she is now ready to use that shotgun on herself before the bliss-blast.
I don’t think anyone should be surprised by Carol’s behavior. She’s not exactly savior of the world material. And I imagine its a literal nuke, she did not anything about the radio waves thing because she did not bother listening to Manousos after he did his experiment.