The plurbs did not punish Carol. They’re acting logically to do what they can to please her with a rather extreme set of rules and values. They absolutely do want her happiness as they claim, and they do not want to abandon her, but she has the power to harm their entire collective and kill millions of people with her outbursts.
By analogy, it’s like if you gave a 5 year old a knife that they’re willing to swing around randomly and they’re so careless that they don’t care that they cut you. Your personal philosophy says at no point can you take the knife away from the child, that you must always let them do what they want. But you love this child and feel compelled to meet all their needs as best you can.
So when the child has a tantrum and cuts you up, what can you do? You can’t take away their knife, and they’ve shown no willingness to change their behavior. So you get away from them so they can’t hurt you anymore. You still let them send you notes through a tube about what they want, and you still deliver anything they want or need, but you can’t risk being directly exposed to them anymore or you’re probably going to get sliced up by their knife.
It’s only when the child finally realizes they have to put away the knives that you can come back to them.
Even if it is an atom bomb, it is still a metaphor. It’s like Carol burning (or sinking) her ships on arriving in the Americas. Victory or death. No quarter to be given; no quarter to be requested. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a cigar is also a cigar.
Consider the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) created by an atomic explosion.
“For modern warfare, weapons delivering a high energy EMP are designed to disrupt[3] communications equipment, computers needed to operate modern warplanes, or even put the entire electrical network of a target country out of commission.[4]Nuclear weapons may also produce nuclear electromagnetic pulses.”
In order for it to affect a wide area the explosion would have to occur high up in the atmosphere. The box is large enough to contain the means for that to happen- perhaps a weather balloon.
Even so, with this extended wilderness expedition (and show opening), I was not expecting the guy to be delivering a “cure” in a plastic box, inside of which is a canister. And nuke was on my mind as the only spoiler I had read.
So kudos to ASL and others who knew what the long opening was going to result in. Of course, it makes sense that some vapor tailored to one person’s stem cells would be the conversion. It is unlikely to happen till a last episode (if ever), yet the Plurbs will likely have to spray it at Carol, who will not be willing to take a whiff of the plurb-laced dry ice out of a canister.
Oh, one ETA: I assume if Carol any of the others wanted to join, they could just allow some procedure to get stem cells and it won’t take 1-3 months? They’ve got sciencey stuff to do with her eggs as she is not at all willing.
Yeah, they could turn the others by simply extracting stem cells directly from them. They simply needed permission as it was an invasive procedure and they can’t harm them that way.
Not necessarily. We’ve seen the infection spread by bodily fluids as well (the mouse bite and the “free donuts” from episode 1 come to mind). So presumably they could spike the water, her alcohol, or just inject her.
The real question is, can they also disperse it from high altitude, as they did with the bulk of the population? If they can, then Carol might have to engage Manousos in her suicide plan (ie: he shoots her, and then sets off the bomb on a timer out of spite towards We, of course).
I thought is was a great ending to the season, I dunno, maybe I’m a Gilligan fanboy or something.
Don’t forget that we are the omniscient, all-seeing audience. Carol is still the same basket-case, unhappy fantasy author that she was before the ‘event’ happened. Manousus is still the same paranoid loner he was until all of his chemtrail fantasies came true. Or maybe he is more than that, but we don’t know yet, for certain. They don’t respond to what is happening around them in ways we, all seeing, expect. And that is how it should be.
It’s fun storytelling, and it will take some time to unfold. I have no idea where it’s headed, but I like the ride so far.
I really liked the finale as well. I’m 99.99% positive there’s a literal nuke in that container. It’s a very Breakimg Bad-esque move. Whenever Walter White was cornered, he’d always go as big as he could to counter whatever was threatening him. Very Vince Gilligan / Breaking Bad style story telling. And at first I was really intrigued what could possibly be in the box, until just before Manousos asked her, it hit me. Loved it.
I also loved the cold open (another very Breaking Bad / Vince Gilligan thing). I knew almost immediately the village was about to convert the girl. What I loved most, in a sad way, was how colorful and beautiful their community and culture was being shown… all right up until she’s converted. Then they just all shut off the act, because it was only for the girl’s benefit. A way to offer her normalcy and comfort before her joining. Like a ceremony. But it was really only pretense. A ruse. They all just scatter and unceremoniously fold it all up right after. It really highlights the humanity that’s lost. Just wonderful.
Another thing: That nuke container could make for a really good faraday cage someday…
I think that was a nod by Carol to herself about the fact that she, at least deep down, understood her relationship with Zosia was just a fantasy. Like after 40 days in isolation and taking a last stab at some happiness, she desperately wanted to believe that she could make things work with Zosia so she gave her an easy out with the “they/them” pronouns in order to keep the fantasy going.
Regarding the atom bomb vs. metaphorical atom bomb question, there is this interview with Gilligan and Tatlock where he explicitly points out a similar moment in Breaking Bad.
I’ll spoiler the relevant part for anyone who hasn’t seen Breaking Bad yet.
“I’m not as worried about paying off the atom bomb as I was the M60.”
He also says that when it comes to mystery-box type shows, “Sometimes, the best twist is no twist.” So the way Gilligan and Tatlock describe it, it definitely sounds like there really is an atom bomb in that box. Which is probably why a twist is coming. Or not.
Also from the interview, I was kind of shocked that the idea for the atom bomb ending came from an executive note and not the writers themselves, because you’re right about how Gilliganianesque that ending is.
They actually toned it down a bit. As a Peruvian I loved the representation of Quechua culture and language. Apparently the voice talking to Manousos on the phone was Tony Dalton.
I also initially thought it was a case of Carol being facetious to Manousos.
But it does make some sense for it to be a real, literal atomic bomb. C & M have changed places since early on in the episode; Carol is now the eliminationist, thanks to what she sees as betrayal by the Others (and Zosia, “personally”), and Manousos now is the one who wants to save the individuals from their joining, even though he doesn’t seem to really know how (freaking them out and then calling to them was a good experiment, but it doesn’t work).
I suspect that the two most misanthropic people in the world will have to get someone else on their side - perhaps Koumba, who seems to be #3 on the misanthrope list. But considering that the Others seem to have decided that they need some serious space from the ones who are actively trying to disjoin them, there’ll have to be someone to help accomplish this, and now that they’re down to 12 immunes (and likely more soon) the prospects are looking dimmer.
I thought the Potemkin village that the Others had created for the immune girl in Peru was very interesting - all kinds of activity, talking, keeping animals - all for her benefit - then as soon as she became an Other, they all packed up and left. It feels like they were violating their expressed morals - I mean, an animal was kept unfree, and the girl may have wanted to eat meat! - but I didn’t notice on first viewing any explicit rules being broken. Might be worthwhile for a rewatch. (Ah, ninjaed - shouldn’t have left this post pending overnight)
Also, a whole Other-world’s worth of production of electronic and antenna equipment is currently going toward the production of a massive transmitter. Is it possible the Others will take a harder line against giving the immune the things that they would need to exploit or jam the 8.613 MHz frequency, on the basis of unavailability (and, unexpressed, the desire to protect themselves and their project)?
If the nuke is a suicidal fail-safe (fail-deadly) I can see how it could make the Others hesitate sending cropdusting drones or spiking the water to infect Carol. She wouldn’t just be killing Manousos and herself; she’d be killing alot of animal & plant life along with destroying an entire city’s worth of resources. Of couse that’s assuming it accured to Carol to have them give her away to actually detonate the nuke in the first place.
They said that they won’t kill an animal but they’d offer to cook one up if Diabete killed one, so they’re willing to allow the processes and benefits around the kill at the request of one of the unjoined even if they’re not able to do it themselves. I figured they probably let the girl enclose the animals in a fence and just worked with it. It’s possible that keeping animals fenced in also isn’t a hard moral line for them – they prefer not to or see no reason to ordinarily, but if it’s for the benefit of one of the unassimilated people they can tolerate it.
The animals were pretty clearly the girl’s domain. I don’t think the hive’s morals extend to actively preventing harm. They have effectively condemned millions of animals that depend on humans for their survival.
