Pluribus arrives on Apple TV this week, and due to the talent involved, as well as the weird subject matter concerned, the high-concept show is set to become appointment television.
Apple TV is home to some of the best shows around at the moment. Severance is the streamer’s biggest title, and that goes from strength-to-strength.
Slow Horses has been a slow-burning hit, and though Season 5 concluded last week, Seasons 6 and 7 have already been green-lit. And while Seth Rogen’s The Studio received all the plaudits this year, his Apple comedy Platonic is the funnier of the two shows.
But a new series with a weird name is about to launch, and early word suggests it’s something pretty special, so here’s why we’re excited for Pluribus.
Pluribus is Vince Gilligan’s first show since Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul
Vince Gilligan was the genius behind Breaking Bad, while he was also co-creator of spinoff series Better Call Saul. Pluribus is his first show since that knock-out one-two punch, and he serves as both creator and showrunner, meaning we’re anticipating quality TV.
But it’s not a case of more of the same, with Gilligan stating that Pluribus is very different to those two crime shows.
“Pluribus is not Breaking Bad of Better Call Saul” Gilligan tells NME. “Even though – and I know it’s confusing – it’s shot in Albuquerque. Even though it stars a very important actor from the Breaking Bad universe… it is not in any way, shape or form either of those shows.”
Though Gilligan is anticipating some confusion, adding that “There will be plenty of people who tune into Pluribus out of curiosity. ‘Oh, it’s that Breaking Bad guy.’ And they’ll watch 20 minutes of it maybe and say, ‘Ah, nobody’s getting killed. Nobody’s getting their throat cut with a box-cutter. This is not for me. I hate this!’ So be it. That’ll make me sad but it just means the show wasn’t for them.”
Rhea Seehorn stars as Carol Sturka
That “important actor from the Breaking Bad universe” is Rhea Seehorn, and she’s another reason that we’re eagerly anticipating Pluribus, as while Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill was the centre around which Better Call Saul was built, Seehorn’s Kim Wexler was the beating heart of the show.
Here she plays Carol Sturka, a novelist who one day wakes up to a world where almost everyone knows who she is, and wants her to be happy. Gilligan originally envisioned the lead being a man, but working with Seehorn changed his mind.
“I am pretty unimaginative, sometimes, certainly in terms of [how] I was going to write yet another male protagonist,” he tells the Radio Times. “When I started to come up with the inklings, the first threads of this story, I thought, ‘Oh, it’ll be another guy, because that’s what I know. I’m a guy, so I’ll write about guys.’
“About the same time, I was getting to know Rhea Seehorn, because she had only been on Better Call Saul for maybe a year or so. Maybe it was even before that. And I just thought, ‘This actor is wonderful. She is so talented, and she is so sweet and kind.’
“She can make you cry. She can make you laugh. She can do it all. She has all the skills, and she’s wonderful to work with. So I said to myself, ‘This new show, let me make it about a woman instead of a guy. I’ve done enough of that, and I’m going to build it for Rhea.'”
Pluribus holds a mirror up to society
Pluribus concerns a world where peace, kindness, and solidarity become the norm, which is Gilligan’s way of calling out what’s currently happening in the US.
“I’m living in a country, the United States Of America, that feels very divided,” he tells NME. “There’s one side and there’s the other side. But I really believe nobody wants it that way, whether you’re red or blue, whether you’re left or right… nobody wants it this way. This is not the way for a civilisation to grow, prosper, and be healthy.”
He adds that “the world has gotten scarier and feels like it’s more on the edge of something very bad,” and Pluribus is Gilligan’s way of examining that feeling of unease through his art.
Apple has already green-lit Season 2
Vince Gilligan shopped Pluribus around Hollywood in 2022, and a bidding war followed, one that Apple TV ultimately won.
They agreed to what Deadline reported as budgets of $13.5 million-$15 million per episode, making Pluribus pretty pricey.
But such was their confidence in the concept that they ordered two seasons of the show, meaning that if you like Season 1 of Pluribus, Season 2 will be just around the corner, and we here at Dexerto cannot wait.
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