Apple TV’s sci-fi hit explores a world where (nearly) everyone shares the same brain.
Vince Gilligan is a noted hater of AI. But he’s been very careful to say that his new show for Apple TV+, Pluribus, shouldn’t be seen as an overt commentary on how AI and large language models like ChatGPT are taking over.
There are certainly parallels to be found in the ordeal that main character Carol (Rhea Seehorn) is going through as (most of) the rest of the world melds into an infuriatingly benevolent hive mind. But as Gilligan recently told Variety, echoing a piece of advice director Michael Mann once gave him, “Just tell a good story; let the audience figure out the theme. That’s their job.”
Reporting for work after this week’s episode of Pluribus, the ominously titled “Grenade,” audiences now have a new theory to append to the “Pluribus is about AI” theory (also the “Pluribus is about the pandemic” theory and whatever else the internet has come up with). How about: Pluribus is about influencers?
It exists perfectly alongside those other theories, which are still totally valid, in keeping with Gilligan’s encouragement to apply your own interpretations to his show. But there’s a lot packed into Carol’s rant to Zosia (Karolina Wyrda) as they’re sitting in Carol’s house drinking together.
Carol’s had an especially emotional past few hours, tacked on to an extremely emotional past few days. “Grenade” opens with a flashback to a vacation taken by Carol and Helen (Miriam Shor) to a Norwegian hotel carved from snow and ice. Helen is excited; Carol is grumpy, not to mention anxious about her latest book release. It’s seemingly a familiar dynamic for them: “This is completely your bag,” Helen teases when Carol points out, repeatedly, that the hotel bed is a block of ice.
