This article contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Pluribus.
It’s one thing to lose your partner. It’s another thing entirely when said partner is killed when a virus infects just about everyone else on the planet and makes them … collectively happy? Welcome to Carol’s (Rhea Seehorn) world.
In the first two episodes of Pluribus, the new Apple TV drama from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, Carol loses the woman she loves only to discover that something has afflicted the people of Earth and given them a shared mind. For some unknown reason, Carol is one of a dozen or so people who are immune. And that’s pretty much all we know at this point.
“There’s no secret that we’re not letting you in on as far as I know, but I can tell you I felt very relieved that I was playing a character that had no idea what was going on because I, Rhea, have no idea what’s going on,” Seehorn tells Entertainment Weekly. “Carol’s very smart. She’s doing the best she can as you see as the series progresses to try to unravel what is going on and get some real answers. But I don’t know, and I must admit that I was perfectly happy to say, ‘Oh, that’s not my job.'”
Sharon Gee, Darinka Arones, Rhea Seehorn, Amarburen Sanjid and Menik Gooneratne on ‘Pluribus’.
Apple TV+
Carol, however, is less keen on the not knowing. When asked if we’ll see the other immune people again, Seehorn says, “Carol’s definitely not gonna give up on trying to do something about this. We’ll see her try to figure out another way to get through to the people that she believes are still real humans. And whether or not she’s successful I will leave to the viewers to go on the ride with me. But I definitely think she’s going to try to find other approaches to convince people of what she feels.”
Seehorn admits the mystery is part of what drew her to the project, which Gilligan wrote for her following the pair working together on Better Call Saul. “We had finished shooting Better Call Saul, I was wrapped, but they were still doing some work in post, and that’s when Vince said that he wrote something for me. He did say it had a sci-fi element, but that he didn’t wanna tell me anything about it,” she recalls. “It was about a month later that I got the script. And I knew nothing, which was actually really fun because I went on the journey that you do when you’re watching it. It felt so exciting and so thrilling. My first thought was, ‘Oh my God I would watch this show.’ And then my second thought was, ‘Oh my God I get to do this.’ And then I think the third one was, ‘Oh my God I need to figure out how to do this.'”
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And she did figure out how to do it. But that doesn’t mean she figured out the mystery. “Vince does a great job of taking us on this rollercoaster ride,” she continues. “He’s always said that he loves that you’re sitting there waiting for the others to be these zombies that have this mask that they pull off. They’re like, ‘Ah, I was secretly like a lizard man’ or something. And that moment isn’t what’s coming. There are more nuanced, smarter, and stranger things to grapple with.”
For Seehorn, she’s just excited people can finally join her on this crazy ride. “My own family knows nothing about the show, so I can’t wait to talk to people about it.”
The first two episodes of Pluribus are available on Apple TV now with new episodes dropping every Friday.
–Reporting by Jessica Wang