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\n The Pluribus star explains her understanding \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 of the season finale: \u201cI\u2019ve gone through a lot of possibilities.\u201d
\n Photo: Apple TV+\n <\/p>\n
This season of Pluribus ended with nearly as much mystery for its star as its audience. Rhea Seehorn<\/a>, who plays Carol Sturka in Vince Gilligan\u2019s Apple TV series, has no idea what will happen after the season ends on a massive cliffhanger. In the show\u2019s ninth episode<\/a>, Carol embarks on a relationship with Karolina Wydra\u2019s Zosia<\/a>, a representative of the hive that has united nearly all of humanity, but then discovers the hive has taken the eggs she had frozen prior to the beginning of the series, back when she was (not entirely) happily married to Miriam Shor\u2019s Helen<\/a>. They\u2019re planning to use the genetic material in those eggs to find a way to join Carol with them, seemingly whether she wants to or not. Zosia estimates that they\u2019ll have a solution ready in about a month. Carol reacts to the betrayal with shock, disappointment, and some very Carol rage<\/a>. \u201cThat scene is brutal,\u201d Seehorn told me. \u201cWhen I read that, I called Karolina. I was like, \u2018Man, that is low.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the end of the episode: Once Carol learns about the hive\u2019s plans, we cut to a scene with Manousos back at the cul-de-sac where Carol lives. He\u2019s studying English and writing in his notebook about the hive. He looks up and sees a helicopter, piloted by Zosia with Carol in the passenger seat, carrying a large shipping container. Zosia drops off both Carol and the package and leaves. \u201cYou win,\u201d she tells Manousos. \u201cWe save the world.\u201d What\u2019s in the container?, you might wonder. It\u2019s an atom bomb.<\/p>\n \u201dAnd I don\u2019t know what she does with it, because I asked!\u201d Seehorn said. According to her, show creator Vince Gilligan, who was fond of writing himself into corners on Breaking Bad<\/a> and Better Call Saul<\/a>, said he wasn\u2019t sure where Pluribus would head next either. But Seehorn is both baffled and excited about what Carol might do with that bomb. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through a lot of possibilities,\u201d she said. \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t kill everybody \u2014 that would be opposite to her point. Is she going to threaten them with it? And threaten them how?\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the question of how Carol will work with Manousos on her plan. Seehorn doesn\u2019t have an answer there, either, but she enjoyed the process of working with Carlos Manuel Vesga<\/a> on the characters\u2019 long-awaited meetup. For much of the season, Carol has seen herself as stepping, reluctantly or just spitefully, into the position of a lone individual holding out against the hive. But when she meets Manousos, she discovers a person who has an even more radical position than her own. \u201cIt was a really interesting question to bring up for Carol: Oh, you think you\u2019re an extremist? What about this guy?\u201d Seehorn said. \u201cCarol\u2019s in a place where she is reminded that, however altered, these are still humans. He keeps saying, No, they\u2019re not even human. That\u2019s closer to what Carol was telling Laxmi when she said her son wasn\u2019t her son. But Manousos\u2019s extremism could be violent and without care. Carol cared from the beginning that she killed people by screaming and yelling.\u201d<\/p>\n The conversations between Carol and Manousos presented a tricky and exciting technical challenge, because the characters are speaking to each other through a handheld automatic translator, and the actors had to determine when exactly their characters might understand each other. \u201cCarlos Manuel speaks perfect English. I do not speak Spanish, but I\u2019ve rehearsed the scene enough times to know what he\u2019s saying,\u201d Seehorn says. \u201cWe both had to stop each other from picking up the cue, to not let your face react before we listened to the translator. But of course, they\u2019re both intelligent people, so there\u2019s still a few words they would understand.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to those insights into the finale, Seehorn discussed some of the details Pluribus fans have fixated on throughout the first season. For one, she thinks Carol\u2019s dismissal of the readers of her sci-fi romance books, seen when Carol\u2019s introduced in that first episode<\/a>, has more to do with Carol\u2019s own self-destructive psychology than anything else. \u201cI find that most people that are writers have had no problem figuring out that she\u2019s not actually mocking her fans,\u201d Seehorn told me. \u201cI think she thinks she\u2019s very good at her work. She wouldn\u2019t frame her stuff all over the house and have copies of her books everywhere. But it is that idea of, I\u2019ll be successful when, I\u2019ll be happy when, I\u2019m an actual writer when. It\u2019s also being terrified of believing the hype, of beating everyone to the punch.\u201d<\/p>\n