Pluribus Episode 3 has landed on Apple TV, providing us with more darkly comical moments as Carol (Rhea Seehorn) grapples with the hive mind. It wants to convert her, but a sinister request may have exposed its (their?) biggest weakness.
Severance Season 3 might be a long way off, but Pluribus is proving to be the perfect replacement. The new TV show from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan is Lumon-coded, presenting a dystopian world that feels off kilter.
In the premiere, we meet Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), one of 12 humans who are immune to a virus that transforms humanity into a single consciousness, aka a hive mind. But the biggest problem isn’t that the world is ending… it’s that the hive mind is painfully nice.
Carol continues to push the boundaries in Episode 3, ‘Grenade’, which dropped on Apple TV on November 14. In doing so, she may have inadvertently exposed the secret to her survival. Warning: spoilers ahead!
Carol’s atom bomb request in Pluribus Episode 3 proves hive mind’s weakness
The hive mind has a set of rules it follows for survival, but these rules are at odds when Carol requests weapons of mass destruction. As the DHL delivery guy (the MVP of Pluribus Episode 3) tells her, they would “move heaven and earth” to make her happy.
The hive mind’s main imperative is to spread the virus to every living human, with their scientists currently working on a way to infect the immune – including Carol. But it also will stop at nothing to ensure Carol is happy. So, what if all she has to do is say “no” to being infected?
Or, as said by one Redditor, what if “Carol wanted to slowly wipe the hive out… one F-Bomb at a time”? This comment is in response to a post outlining the hive mind’s “biological imperatives”, which include:
- Spread the virus to every being capable of being infected
- Do not kill or harm any beings
- Serve beings that are not part of the hive to the fullest of their ability
The Reddit user went on to highlight the huge weaknesses in the hive mind. As we learned earlier on in Pluribus, one angry outburst can cause it to go into meltdown – the last time this happened, 11 million humans were inadvertently killed.
In this way, Carol is “an emotional weapon of mass destruction and they have zero defense against it. And she’s not the only one. There are 12 immune people total, and all of them have the same capability.”
“So the hive is stuck. They can’t harm any of the 12 (Rule 2 prevents it). They can’t convert them yet (they’re ‘months away’ from figuring out immunity). And every time one of them gets pissed off, millions die,” they continued.
“The extreme appeasement isn’t because they’re programmed to serve. It’s pure self preservation. It’s the ONLY option of behavior they have… keeping the immune calm is the only strategy available that doesn’t get millions of them killed.”
However, an even bigger issue is presented in Episode 3. Carol sarcastically asks for a hand grenade, and soon enough, Zosia (Karolina Wydra) turns up with one. Carol sets it off, harming (but not killing) Zosia in the process.
At the hospital, an infected DHL driver talks to Carol, explaining that they will do whatever she wants, and Carol questions their line of thinking. “If I asked right now would you give me another hand grenade?” she says, to which he replies, “Yes.”
She takes it a step further, asking whether the hive mind would provide her with a bazooka, a rocket, a tank, and even an atom bomb.
This gives the hive mind pause, but he responds, “If you truly wanted a nuclear weapon, we would weigh the pros and cons with you, we would explain that it would be very destructive… [but] ultimately, yes.”
As said by the Redditor, “‘Serve the uninfected’ and ‘infect everyone’ are at odds right now. They want, deeply, to make Carol happy and they also want, deeply, to infect her. And when she (hypothetically) asks for an atomic bomb, they are torn between serving her and protecting the hive.”
By asking for something that forces those imperatives into direct conflict, Carol accidentally discovers the limits of the hive’s control. It can’t obey her, it can’t refuse her, and most importantly, it can’t harm her.
That moment of hesitation is proof she’s untouchable. Even if they do figure out a way to infect her and the other immune humans, Carol now knows exactly where the programming breaks.
That knowledge might be the only weapon she needs to turn the hive’s own rules against it (or, if all else fails, nuke it).
ChatGPT launches pilot group chats across Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan