News Pluribus

Pluribus: What That Ursula K. Le Guin Book Suggests About the Series

Just some light reading for Carol as she sits by the pool

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on January 5, 2026

Credit: Apple TV

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This post contains one spoiler from the Pluribus finale, specifically about Carol reading a certain book.

The finale of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus came out on December 26, and while the episode certainly included a lot, there was one moment that surely had sci-fi fans doing a double take and pointing eagerly at the screen.

The scene in question had Carol (Rhea Seehorn) lounging at a pool while Zosia (Karolina Wydra) swims some laps. It’s the end of humanity, and for the moment Carol has accepted it. And what could be a better way to accept that the Joining isn’t going anywhere than to read Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness?

“We talked about who Carol might read in general, especially for leisure,” Seehorn said in an interview with Mashable. “Not that Le Guin’s books are easy, passive reading, but they definitely seem like books and a voice and a literary level that Carol would admire.”

The nod is a deft one: Le Guin, of course, is a literary legend, with The Left Hand of Darkness remaining one of her best-known works. The premise of the 1969 novel also has some parallels to Pluribus. In it, a man named Genly travels to the planet Gethen as an emissary of the Ekumen, a confederation of planets. The Ekumen wants the people of Gethen to join their organization, a mirror image of what the alien-virus thing in Pluribus has done to most of humanity, and what it seeks to do elsewhere in the universe.

Genly is also like Carol, a human effectively surrounded by an alien species. Yes, I know there are other non-Joined in Pluribus, but Carol is isolated from most of them as well… she’s not even invited to their Zoom meetups!

There are differences, of course. On Gethen, for example, people are ambisexual and only grow sex organs once a month (50/50 on whether they grow a vagina or a penis) and then have those organs disappear unless they’ve become pregnant. That’s a leap from what’s going on in Pluribus… or is it? How do the Joined consider gender? My initial guess is they consider themselves every gender and also none? Please discuss.

Perhaps Carol is considering these questions while reading (or rereading… probably rereading) The Left Hand of Darkness by the poolside. Le Guin’s novel is also a great option for us to read while we wait for Pluribus season two, and we’ve got a list of other books to check out before then as well. [end-mark]

The post <i>Pluribus</i>: What That Ursula K. Le Guin Book Suggests About the Series appeared first on Reactor.

Books Pluribus

What to Read After You Watch Pluribus

Hi Carol, we have some book recommendations for you

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on December 29, 2025

Photo: Apple TV

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Photo: Apple TV

Life after Pluribus feels pretty lonely. Expectations were high for Vince Gilligan’s next show, and Pluribus has quickly proven to be one of the best new sci-fi series since Severance. Yes, Pluribus was heavily inspired by numerous genre works that came before (most notably Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but the show’s vision of a post-apocalyptic landscape run by an intergalactic hivemind has rarely been exactly what you think it’s going to be. The twists, the dark humor, the quiet moments of reflection, absolutely everything that Rhea Seehorn does… there really is nothing quite like Pluribus.

If you are struggling to fill that Pluribus-shaped hole in your life, though, then your best option may be to pick up a book. It’s not only appropriate given that Pluribus protagonist Carol Sturka is a romantasy writer (more on that in a bit), but there are some tremendous novels that present their own fascinating visions of unusual doomsday scenarios while offering at least an element of what makes Pluribus so special (as well as their own charms).

Severance by Ling Ma (2018)

A mysterious illness is tearing through the United States. The infected continue to live their lives, but only as a shell of their former selves. With no cure in sight, a young woman named Candace and other immune survivors navigate an uncertain future. Like Pluribus, Severance imagines a different kind of apocalypse in which the world continues to spin and efforts are made to retain “normalcy” even as such a concept begins to feel increasingly absurd. 

The Seep by Chana Porter (2020)

Earth is upended by the arrival of an alien force known as the Seep. Their takeover is swift, but proves to be oddly peaceful. Much of Earth becomes an unlikely kind of utopia in which the Seep connect people and gift them with the knowledge that anything is possible. In that world, a trans woman named Trina Goldberg-Oneka and her wife Deeba embark upon a mind-bending journey of self-discovery. There’s a fever dream quality to The Seep we haven’t seen in Pluribus yet, but it too raises incredible questions about what is lost and gained when our identities are blurred. 

All Better Now by Neal Shusterman (2025)

Stop me when you’ve heard this before, but All Better Now imagines what would happen if humanity were suddenly infected by a virus that washes away all negative feelings and leaves everyone feeling entirely happy. Yes, Pluribus drew connections to All Better Now before its release, and both certainly deal with the downsides of what initially appears to be a utopian (if disturbing) scenario. Spoiler alert, but it turns out a little conflict can go a long way. 

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (1963)

Many post-apocalyptic stories (including Pluribus) deal with the pain of isolation. Few address that theme as overtly and effectively as Marlen Haushofer does in The Wall. It follows a woman who suddenly finds herself cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible wall that mysteriously appears one day. Her time is then spent trying to find a way out, making the most of the world around her, and, gradually, trying to accept her circumstances. It’s a powerful examination of our relationship with other humans, nature, and the sheer will to survive at the heart of it all. 

The Host by Stephenie Meyer (2008)

Imagine, if you will, what may happen if we were all taken over by an invading force of parasitic beings known as “souls.” Most of the world is essentially hijacked by these creatures, but your invader has a harder time taking over your body. Instead, you and your invader engage in a prolonged battle of wills that ends up impacting both of your fates as well as the rest of the world. That core premise drives Stephenie Meyer’s The Host: a novel that overtly deals with the relationship between the body and soul while emphasizing the value and scarcity of a true home. 

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (2012)

The Age of Miracles is one of those fascinating sci-fi novels that explores the effects of a quieter kind of extinction. Here, the inciting event is an unexplained phenomenon that causes the world to spin more slowly than before. The immediate results are fairly trivial things like slightly longer days. As the effect continues and escalates, though, people begin to react to it in drastic (though not altogether shocking) ways. Much like The Leftovers, the hooks in this page-turner come not from its biggest moments but rather by watching how the people caught at the center of it all gradually reshape their lives as well as the world around them. 

The Bees by Laline Paull (2014)

There are many sci-fi stories that deal with the concept of a hive mind, but there are few such stories quite like The Bees. That’s because its protagonist is an actual bee living in a literal hive. It sounds gimmicky, but it’s so much more than that. Often compared to Watership Down, The Bees is an adventurous exploration of both the intricate inner workings of a collective (which often reads like palace intrigue) and the power of an individual life within that environment. 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)

Station Eleven is a story about what keeps us going. Not just the instinct to survive, but the idea that life (much less civilization) must include things that are finer and greater than our primal needs and urges. The “present day” chapters of Station Eleven largely focus on a group of traveling performers trying to bring hope and joy to the world through art and entertainment. Their adventures are juxtaposed with flashbacks of the terrifying early days of the deadly flu that wiped out much of society, which underscore both how much was lost and the importance of finding it again. As a bonus, Station Eleven received an exceptional HBO adaptation that remains tragically underrated, partially due to its proximity to our own global pandemic. 

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (1957)

A classic of the genre that was later adapted into the Village of the Damned movies (one of which was great, one of which was… well, we still love John Carpenter), The Midwich Cuckoos is often described as a cozy kind of catastrophe. Granted, that’s an odd way to describe a story featuring villainous children inexplicably born across the world in droves following the appearance of a mysterious object in the sky. Yet, there is something darkly quaint about this story of a powerful group that nefariously works its way into our world which recalls some of Pluribus’ more quiet and menacing moments.

Bloodsong of Wycaro by Carol Sturka (2025)

Finally, this list would feel incomplete without mentioning Bloodsong of Wycaro: the third entry in the Winds of Wycaro series. Yes, Apple released a real section from Carol’s fictional romantasy book series in the Pluribus universe. While the section’s real author remains a mystery I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of, it is a remarkably entertaining standalone work that also adds a little context to the Pluribus universe. And hey, maybe it’ll be your gateway into the exciting world of pirate romantasy.[end-mark]

The post What to Read After You Watch <i>Pluribus</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Pluribus

Interview: Pluribus Costume Designer Studied Specific Authors for Carol’s Look

In an interview with Reactor, Pluribus costume designer Jennifer Bryan dishes on the fashion sense of the hive mind

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on December 12, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Credit: Apple TV

Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus raises a lot of questions. A lot. Those questions can vary from existential to more practical, such as how does a hive person decide what to wear when they wake up in the morning.

Luckily for you, there’s a concrete answer to the latter question: “At that point, clothing simply becomes protective: a top, a bottom, a pair of shoes. And also there’s no need to think about color coordination or whether stripes go with polka dots,” Pluribus costume designer Jennifer Bryan told Reactor in an interview. Bryan also said that show creator Vince Gilligan “wanted the show, from a costume perspective, not to look like anything else that had been seen on TV in the in a sci-fi genre, he didn’t want them looking like zombies.” Mission accomplished!

Bryan also revealed details on Carol Sturka’s author look, her inspiration for Diabaté’s garb, as well as some cameos that may make you want to rewatch a certain scene. Read on for our full discussion, though be warned that this interview contains very mild spoilers from the first two episodes (and frankly, you’ll get more out of it if you’ve seen those two episodes before reading below).

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

This must have been such a fun project. I would love to hear how it was pitched to you.

When we wrapped on Better Call Saul, there was crew gossip, but nothing could be verified, just like when we wrapped on Breaking Bad, there was crew gossip, but nothing could be verified. So it first started off with crew members gossiping on set. We went on hiatus, and then I got a call. By that time, it was becoming clear that [show creator Vince Gilligan] was up to something. So he called me, and he goes, “Hey, Jen, so I got this thing, and Rhea [Seehorn] is gonna be our lead.”

From there, we got a little bit more formal with it. We went to a meeting, and he basically pitched the draft of the project; that it was sci-fi, Rhea was going to be our lead, and it was going to have a global aspect to it. He was going to use actors from different parts of the world.

At that time, the working title was Wycaro, which was named after the books that [Seehorn’s character, Carol,] wrote. It was going to be set in Albuquerque, but then it would go to other parts of the world. And I thought, “Vince is never going to leave Albuquerque. Maybe we go to another part of New Mexico that looks like another part of the world.” Well, to my surprise and delight, we ended up in the Canary Islands, and we ended up in northern Spain. He wanted the show, from a costume perspective, not to look like anything else that had been seen on TV in the in a sci-fi genre, he didn’t want them looking like zombies.

You mentioned Vince said he didn’t want them to look like zombies, which makes sense having seen the show. Did he give you get any direction about what the hive was like? Or did you create a story for yourself about a hive person who wakes up in the morning, and sometimes they put on a TGI Friday’s outfit, sometimes they put on cycling gear?

Vince gave me some movies to watch—there was a Kurosawa, and there was I Am Legend. And then, of course, because he said he didn’t want to be looking like zombies, I also wanted to watch what he didn’t want. So Walking Dead fell into that category.

I decided that they were of hive mind; they did not have the luxury of personalizing their clothing. So what I pitched to [Gilligan] is that I reduced clothing to something that was surely not decorative, no adornment. It’s not going to show where you lived, globally. It’s not going to show your religion. It’s not going to show your status, whether you’re rich or middle class, a shoe shine guy or a CEO. It’s not going to show any of that. All of those messages that clothing transmits to people around you I’m going to strip away. And at that point, clothing simply becomes protective: a top, a bottom, a pair of shoes. And also there’s no need to think about color coordination or whether stripes go with polka dots. They don’t care.

Now why do you see different occupations represented, different walks of life? They got zapped in a moment when they were doing a thing: when they were waitressing at TGI Fridays, when they were delivering that package for DHL, when they were in the lab and doing night cleaning of the lab. It had to look real in that in that moment when they were frozen and made that transition. If they were a surgeon in a hospital, they would have had on scrubs and a surgical cap. And then in with all of that, then you get the more ordinary, nondescript clothing that we all know, and also clothing might be coming from another part of the world, so it could be a Scottish kilt that might be worn with a Hawaiian shirt. They don’t recognize those boundaries. They’re gone.

Can you talk about deciding what Carol would wear for the pilot? I’m sure the yellow leather jacket has come up in conversations.

The first look that I had for her was on her book tour. So she had to have that middle-aged romance novelist, kind of a vibe. Vince had suggested that I look at some of the well-known romance, pulp fiction novelists, like Jackie Collins and Barbara Cartland, those women going back who were really prolific in that genre of writing. I remember pitching to Vince that it should look relatable to her book-signing audience, her fans, but slightly elevated so they could still relate to her, but look up to her. So she wasn’t over the top, but just in that sweet spot where [the fans] could think, if they had a little money, they could probably buy a suit like that. Or maybe they’ll go to the hairdresser next time and go, can I get my hair cut like that?

Then, when she sheds that facade and is now her real self… I knew that she was going to have a lot of action, and we needed to add a jacket, and so I decided it needed to be a leather jacket, and it needed to be a bit cropped so that she could do all of those moves. So I came up with the idea of a hybrid cropped jacket that I designed. It was hybrid of a motor jacket, but not quite. And I decided on the color because I knew those scenes were going to be shot in the dead of night, very dark, and I needed her to pop. And also, the yellow is the color of caution. So I would like to think that subliminally, it might have sent a message to the viewers that something is slightly unsettling.

I’d also love to talk about the other characters who haven’t joined. Diabaté [played by Samba Schutte] must have been a fun one.

He was one of my faves. Samba Schutte is from Mauritania. And I realized that he was quite a dandy, and that was a perfect opening for me to use one of my favorite groups of people in clothing and costume. In the Congo, which they still do this in Brazzaville, there is a group of men called Sapuers; they are modern day dandies that dress to the nines in top designers. They may be a plumber and live in a little tiny house, but when he steps out of his little house in his not-so-affluent neighborhood, these dudes are off the chain. And I told Vince about these guys, and I said, it’s perfect, because it is African modern-day culture. It goes back to the colonial times when they would copy the French colonialists in their garb and make fun of them. And then it got elevated. So when he gets off the plane, what else would I put him in but an African-print tuxedo?

And what about Zosia [played by Karolina Wydra]?

Zosia was very interesting. She was, for me, the most transformative within her storyline. At first, we’re not sure where she comes from, except we figured out that is seems to be North Africa, which it is, Tangier, Morocco. And so we see her in traditional Northern African clothing, and she has that on, and it’s like a symphony, she just moves from one environment into the other, but her clothing has to fit into each one. So she flies that plane. And that was Karolina taxiing. I mean, the pilot was off camera in case, but that was her on the runway.

And then she lands in Albuquerque, and strips off because she knows she’s now on the real mission, which is to meet this woman, and have her feel comfortable so that [Carol] Sturka doesn’t immediately kick her out her backyard. So she walks into the shower, and the three people that attend to her to shower are me, Cheri Montesanto, our makeup artist, and Trish Almeida, our hair stylist. And I think that was very considerate of Vince, because he wanted this to be real, but he wanted Karolina to feel very comfortable with the people around. So we got our little cameos.

New episodes of Pluribus premiere on Apple TV on Fridays.[end-mark]

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News Pluribus

Pluribus Episode 6 Had a Vince Gilligan Cameo You Probably Missed

The moment is the first time Gilligan has appeared on-screen in one of his shows

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on December 8, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Credit: Apple TV

Warning! This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of Pluribus, “HDP.”

One of the big reveals in the sixth episode of Pluribus comes when Carol discovers that the hive mind is, among other things, eating human-derived protein (aka, human bodies smashed up into a slurry then put into milk cartons). Later on in “HDP,” the individual formerly called John Cena explains to Carol, the necessity behind it—they don’t like doing it, but if they don’t, they’ll starve because they can’t even pick apples from a tree for food, since that hurts the tree.

Brief aside: Does it, though? Doesn’t the apple tree want animals to eat the apples, so their seeds spread and create more apple trees? Shouldn’t the hive mind see that and eagerly pick and eat the apples, since that would make the tree happy? But I digress…

Carol discovers the hive is eating people by investigating a warehouse-sized freezer, where various body parts are wrapped in plastic for future slurry consumption. We get a glimpse of some of these body parts, specifically a decapitated head with its mouth open in (what Carol likely presumes) horror.

That head is none other than show creator Vince Gilligan’s. In a conversation with Carol herself, Rhea Seehorn, he explained how the moment came to be. “I had never done the Hitchcockian cameo until episode six of Pluribus, where my severed frozen head appears on the show,” he said.

Gilligan described the process of making that head “wonderfully noninvasive.” Special effects expert Joe Ulibarri simply captured his head using a LiDAR scanner to capture Gilligan’s likeness and then 3D printed it. Gilligan also got a smaller bust of the image for his own enjoyment. Fun!

See if you can catch other Easter eggs when new episodes of Pluribus premiere on Apple TV on Fridays. In the meantime, check out Seehorn’s interview with Gilligan about his frozen head cameo below. [end-mark]

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News Pluribus

Pluribus Episode 6’s Surprise Cameo Star Had No Idea What Their Shocking Scene Was About

Drink HDP, it’s good for you

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on December 5, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Warning! This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of Pluribus, “HDP.”

If you’re caught up with Apple TV’s Pluribus, you know that Carol (Rhea Seehorn) has been on a journey. That journey became literal this week when she drove to Las Vegas to talk with Diabaté (Samba Schutte) about her discovery that the hive collective have been slurrying up human body parts for nutrients.

Diabaté, however, already knew this. While he found it unfortunate, he accepted it as a necessity. Carol was less convinced, which the hive anticipated, so they put together a video featuring John Cena explaining why they’ve turned to becoming cannibals.

The John Cena cameo was equal parts informative and entertaining, and Gilligan has explained how it came to be. “He’s cool,” he told Men’s Health. “And he said yes, thank goodness. We just thought, ‘Who is, simultaneously, the most random person to explain the eating of human flesh to Carol Sturka and the most interesting?’”

For his part, Cena was very much on board, even though he wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about. Gilligan also recounted that when Cena left, he said, “I can’t wait to find out what the hell it was I just said.”

Cena and Seehorn also never met. They shot Cena’s video in Tampa, while Seehorn’s scene of watching the tape took place in Las Vegas. “I didn’t see [Cena] until the first time I saw that videotape [when] we were filming me watching it,” Seehorn told TVLine. “That was really fun. Not that I’d be surprised, but it’s just we don’t think of him as somebody that delivers news coverage about eating people. And yet there he was doing a great job at it.”

The Cena cameo was fun, and something I was waiting for on the show—the opportunity to see someone famous in our world as part of the hive. Pluribus nailed that scenario with Cena, making it one of the many, many things that make this show well worth a watch.

New episodes of Pluribus premiere on Apple TV on Fridays. [end-mark]

The post <i>Pluribus</i> Episode 6’s Surprise Cameo Star Had No Idea What Their Shocking Scene Was About appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Pluribus

Pluribus and Romantasy: Art at the End of the World

What is culture in an apocalypse like this one?

By Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

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Published on November 20, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Credit: Apple TV

Pluribus offers us a fascinatingly egocentric view of the apocalypse.

In her previous life, before an alien virus turns most of humankind into a benevolent hivemind, protagonist Carol Sturka is already miserable. She has an unerring instinct for dissatisfaction, whether she’s bemoaning her successful career, or griping about minor discomforts during a luxury vacation. Then, once the virus takes hold, those problems become a moot point. Happiness is now beyond her grasp, not just thanks to her negative attitude, but because she’s lost the things that gave her life meaning. Her partner Helen is dead, and so is human society as we know it. Carol no longer has any way to confront the things she hated about her original life—including her conflicted identity as a bestselling novelist.

We meet Carol at a publicity event for her latest book, a doorstop tome titled Bloodsong of Wycaro. Welcomed with spellbound enthusiasm by a crowd of fans, it’s the fourth volume in her fantasy romance series The Winds of Wycaro, whose most popular character is a sexy pirate named Raban.

Shelved beside Diana Gabaldon at the airport bookstore, Carol’s books reflect a very familiar type of romantasy fiction, a genre that’s already provoked plenty of discourse about the literary merits of romance, tying into age-old criticisms of anything with a predominantly female audience. So when Pluribus began to poke fun at Wycaro’s readers, I felt a smidge of trepidation. Carol’s book-signing scene, where dorky fans show off their homemade costumes and demand spoilers about Raban’s return, seemed to echo a tired trend of using fandom as an easy punchline. But as we get to know Carol a little better, this scene takes on a different slant. Really, these Wycaro fans are just enjoying a fun night out with their favorite author. The real focus is on Carol herself; a misanthrope trapped in a hell of her own making.

We soon learn that Carol sees her fanbase as a gaggle of frivolous rubes. In private, she dismisses her books as “mindless crap.” Sipping cocktails to celebrate the end of her publicity tour, she and her partner Helen make fun of a fan who posts misspelled compliments online, prompting Carol to remark, “You think Houston Mom’s off her meds again?” So yes, Carol is kind of an asshole, and her miserable outlook is inextricably linked with her success as an author.

Unknown to her Winds of Wycaro readers, Carol has spent the past five years drafting a “serious” novel. Helen gently encourages her to publish it, but Carol is reluctant for reasons we can easily infer. She may hate the Wycaro books, but they’re a guaranteed money-spinner. Her secret magnum opus represents a more personal kind of risk. If she publishes it and it flops (or worse, if it gets bad reviews from respectable critics), then she won’t be able to hide behind self-deprecating jokes. Carol is deeply averse to that level of public exposure, a trait that extends to her sexuality.

As an author of romance novels aimed squarely at straight women, Carol has chosen to stay in the closet. Helen acts as her manager in public and her wife in private, and their shared career relies upon the sex appeal of a fictional man. When a fan asks about the real-life inspiration behind Raban, Carol suggests George Clooney, the safest possible option for a middle-aged straight woman. The truth, which she’s never admitted to anyone but Helen, is that Raban was originally meant to be female, and Carol recast him as a man for what we can only assume were commercial reasons.

Would Carol’s career meaningfully suffer if she came out as gay in 2025? Maybe, maybe not. In fact, Helen literally asks her, “What do you have to lose?” Most Wycaro fans surely care more about Raban than they do about the person writing him. Yet coming out still feels too risky for Carol, and the possibility of losing book sales is only part of the equation. She’d rather soldier on through a job she hates than open herself up to public vulnerability.

Episode one hints at two ways in which Carol might, at some point in the future, make choices that lead to a happier life. But in the wake of the hivemind virus, those choices are snatched away—along with Carol’s much-valued privacy, because the hivemind now includes all of Helen’s memories. Their relationship has been dragged out of the closet in a uniquely invasive manner, compounding the trauma of Helen’s death.

One of the many intriguing threads in Pluribus is the way the hivemind repeatedly fails to understand Carol’s emotional state. After all, this entity includes every psychoanalyst on the planet, along with everyone Carol has ever met. It should understand that Carol’s current problems are unsolvable. Instead, it compulsively tries to make her happy by acting like an omnipotent concierge service. 

The hivemind’s most jarring mistake is Zosia, a representative who is selected to communicate with Carol because she resembles a female version of Raban. By using Zosia as its ambassador, the hivemind isn’t actually giving Carol something she wants or needs: It’s unintentionally reminding her that it knows all of her intimate secrets, extracted from the mind of her dead wife. For a person as prickly and private as Carol, this outcome is hell on earth.

Pluribus flips the script for apocalyptic fiction, putting its protagonist in a scenario where all of her physical needs are met. By focusing on identity issues and emotional conflict over survivalist drama, the show invites us to wonder what the future of its world might look like.

Carol’s own experiences may be terrifying and traumatic, but the hivemind isn’t a villain, or even necessarily an antagonist. And it certainly isn’t infallible. The first three episodes are full of moments where the hivemind makes stupid choices, in part because it’s guided by a set of contradictory impulses, and in part because it’s basically a baby. Even if it contains all the wisdom and expertise of humankind, it’s still only three days old. Its collective personality will surely evolve over the coming episodes. As will Carol, cast adrift with none of her previous motivators to anchor her. 

If you asked Carol Sturka whether art gave her life meaning, she’d undoubtedly scoff. However, the Winds of Wycaro books still shaped her day-to-day existence, and (in a mostly negative way) impacted her emotional state. She spent her career making commercial art catering to other people’s desires, and in a world without readers or a financial incentive to write, what does that mean for her sense of self? Is Carol the kind of person who can find satisfaction in creating art for art’s sake? Or would it seem pointless to finish her unpublished magnum opus, now there’s no audience left to read it?

In some ways Pluribus sets out an opposing scenario to Station Eleven, the best post-apocalyptic drama in recent memory. Taking place in the wake of a devastating pandemic, Station Eleven tells a story about how art persists after the collapse of civilization, following a group of survivors who form a traveling theater troupe. These characters take their art incredibly seriously, finding a sense of fulfillment and community in their collaborative work. Carol Sturka, however, does not seem equipped to collaborate with anyone. Her attempts to interact with other survivors end in disaster, and so far, she and the hivemind are just coexisting in a state of mutual incomprehension.

Three episodes in, Pluribus hasn’t yet faced up to the devastating extent of its conceit. From the hivemind’s perspective, this is the prologue to a utopian future, but if Carol and the other outliers are successfully assimilated, then this also marks the end of human culture.

Judging by what we’ve seen so far, the hivemind’s defining purpose is to propagate itself as widely as possible. It’s already figuring out how to infect Carol and the other individual humans, but once that mission is complete, what will it do next? Will it prioritize spreading itself to other planets? Will it focus on nurturing Earth’s ecosystem? Beyond that, you have to wonder: Do collective virus entities have hobbies? Can it theoretically develop its own culture? To us, art exists for the purposes of communication, entertainment and self-expression, but those concepts don’t seem to align with the hivemind’s nature. By replacing the chaos of humankind with a singular, goal-oriented entity, Pluribus becomes an apocalypse story about the meaning of life itself. Which in turn makes Carol a brilliant choice of protagonist: An antisocial pessimist, entirely unqualified to become humanity’s champion.[end-mark]

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News Pluribus

Pluribus: You Can Now Read an Excerpt From Carol’s Winds of Wycaro Romantasy Series

It includes a steamy passage with Raban, in case you were wondering…

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on November 17, 2025

Courtesy of Apple TV

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Courtesy of Apple TV

Vince Gilligan’s new show, Pluribus, is deservedly getting a lot of attention. It’s a fantastic series that will make you ask all sorts of questions… to say more would spoil it, but in my opinion, it’s well worth a watch.

One thing we did know going into the show’s premiere is that the lead, Carol Sturka (played by Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn) is a romantasy author. We get a bit more detail about her writing in the first episode, where she’s on a book tour for the latest novel in her Winds of Wycaro series, which centers on Lucasia, the captain of a boat that sails on slipsand.

Lucasia is a ruthless leader apparently, though she can’t help but get entangled with the roguish Raban. The fans of the books (aka Wycarians) who we meet in the Pluribus’ premiere are excited for the next installment in the series, but are also upset that Raban isn’t on the cover. Lucasia ordered Raban to walk the plank at the end of the last book, you see, and as such must be presumed dead… unless he isn’t?! Carol, who holds some (a lot of?) disdain for her fans, grins and bears it during signings.

Winds of Wycaro comes up intermittently throughout Pluribus, and perhaps one of the many, many thoughts you might have while watching is, “I wonder what those books are all about.” Reader, I have good news for you: Apple has put out an excerpt from the latest Winds of Wycaro book, which is called Bloodsong of Wycaro. It includes a foreword from “Carol” herself, and shows Lucasia finding out that sexy Raban is, indeed, alive.

The text is an enjoyable read; it includes in-world terms like cyclocane and moonsburn, and also includes passages such as: “She would know that voice anywhere. As smooth as wyld bourbon and deep as the Robrionian Trench.”

You can read the full excerpt here, and watch Pluribus on Apple TV. [end-mark]

The post <i>Pluribus</i>: You Can Now Read an Excerpt From Carol’s Winds of Wycaro Romantasy Series appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Pluribus

How Pluribus Reimagines 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers for a Generation With Nothing Left to Sell Out

Philip Kaufman’s Body Snatchers asked what happens when you trade your identity away. Pluribus lives in the world that bargain resulted in.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on November 25, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Credit: Apple TV

Comparing Pluribus to Invasion of the Body Snatchers is hardly a revelatory thought. Many, including Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan, have cited the classic sci-fi story when identifying Pluribus’ biggest genre influences. As the story of an alien… something that comes to Earth and turns humans into vessels, it’s difficult to watch Gilligan’s brilliant new series without thinking of Body Snatchers.

It’s somewhat ironic that people often stop short of saying which version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to compare Pluribus to. They are not, after all, vessels for the same consciousness but unique interpretations of a core concept that reveal something about the times they were made in. The original 1954 sci-fi novel is a pulpy tale of heroism, complete with a happy ending. The 1956 movie more overtly explored the idea that we are the pod people. Director Abel Ferrara’s 1993 adaptation was more about the military, fascism, and new normals.

Sadly, there is little doubt that the Body Snatchers story Pluribus draws deepest from is director Philip Kaufman’s 1978 movie. Both deal with a generation’s fears of giving in and selling out. Their horror comes not just from losing ourselves, but realizing how easily we may surrender our identities en masse for comfort. For all their similarities, though, it is the differences between the ‘78 movie’s characters and Pluribus’ protagonist Carol that reveals what has changed about the world and how we view it during that time.

Many of the main characters in the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie are well-to-do thirty and forty-somethings living in San Francisco. There’s a scientist, a psychiatrist, a writer, and other featured players of the upper-middle-class and above. Not exactly the white picket fence types featured in the 1956 movie, but people of comfort and prominence nonetheless.

Look harder, and you’ll find something about them that the movie never directly addresses. There is the lingering idea that each of these people were, at one point, counterculturalists, hippies, or simply idealists. Some still are, in a “come to my loft to celebrate my book about philosophy” way. Something about them changed along the way, though. They may be more progressive, but it’s telling that the movie makes it difficult to tell who is an invader and who is simply being themselves. Some are so far removed from the real world that they may as well be aliens. Maybe you know the type.

They represent a class that feels as if they lost something coming out of the 1960s. That time was overly romanticized even back then, but there was still the powerful shared idea that something important had been lost. Perhaps some of those characters were never really into the causes of free love and new thinking, and maybe some simply fell into the system when, as Hunter S. Thompson said, “the wave finally broke, and rolled back.” It was still a group that feared they had compromised too much, given too much, and, to use a phrase that was popularized during that era, had “sold out.”

When a group of parasitic creatures invade the Earth and turn former individuals into vessels, they think, “We sold out once to make things easier… what’s one more time?” They have a primal urge to resist, but they are tired. Not just because the invaders get you while you’re sleeping, but because they are burdened with the belief that the outcome is inevitable. They’ve fought this battle before, and they lost. Besides, they are told that being taken over will lead to a life “free of anxiety, fear, and hate.” How bad could that be?

I kept thinking of those words as Pluribus revealed its true form. The show’s first episode plays out like The Last of Us pilot and countless other apocalyptic romps. Fire, chaos, and death surround Carol as she survives the chemical attack that makes everyone around her convulse and races to get her partner Helen to the hospital. When the smoke settles, though, we learn that the “invaders” that have infected much of humanity are not quite as hostile as their takeover suggested. Much like the body snatchers, they claim that they really just want to make the world a better place. They don’t exactly promise one free of “anxiety, fear, and hate,” but they make it clear that they’d rather have everyone peacefully assimilate rather than resist a scenario that is careening towards inevitable. In both stories, the invaders are more interested in a merger and acquisition of humanity than a hostile takeover.

Generally speaking, Pluribus has, thus far, not really told us much about its invaders. They’re a kind of collective that has absorbed the entirety of their hosts’ knowledge, they insist they’re not actually aliens in the traditional sense, and they refuse to commit direct violence (aside from the millions that died during their biological takeover, of course). Most importantly, they too say they only want people to be happy, especially as it concerns Carol and the rest of the humans who were immune to the chemical “takeover.”

For now, that means getting them anything they want to reduce the chance of hostile emotions (which the collective is incredibly sensitive to). Ultimately, though, they want a cure. Something that will let them absorb the immune into the hive mind. What’s it like to be part of the hive mind? We don’t know because Carol has never asked. The other survivors are shocked that Carol never asked before she decided to become aggressively indignant at the prospect of joining the collective.

Is that because Carol is a bastion of humanity and morality who simply refuses to give up, give in, and sell out? Hardly. She’s bitter, depressive, and, based on what we’ve seen of Carol’s life before the incident, more than willing to give up on her beliefs for an easier life.

Carol didn’t want to be a romantasy writer, but it paid the bills. She wanted her book’s love interest to be a woman, but having it be a man was just easier. Cruelly, Carol doesn’t seem to have derived much joy from such compromises. She even frets over how high the book she never wanted to write sits on the bestseller list, but she resents those who enjoy her work and feels incapable of finding pleasure in the joy she brought them. Yet, she fights harder against what has happened than those in 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers do, despite the fact that the “others” just want her to be happy and despite the fact that she doesn’t really seem to have enjoyed much of the world or the people in it prior to these events.

There’s a key difference between the protagonists, though. The characters in the 1978 Body Snatchers movie were there for the cultural revolution. They remember when the atmosphere was so electric that the spark of an idea could start a fire. There was at least the idea that they had the world in the palm of their hands before they let it slip away. And when they sold out, there was a transaction. Give up on some of your ideas in exchange for a good job and a comfortable life. Look, we’ve even offered your favorite directors, authors, writers, and artists a seat at the table. It’s all going to work out fine. The world is still very much yours.

Carol doesn’t live in that world at that time. She lives in our world during this time. Selling out has gone from a transaction to a vague cultural concept. Many would gladly compromise for a decent job, a few niceties, and the feeling they belong in something they can understand. For many, the offer is simply no longer on the table. The deal went from “give up on your pursuit of a better world in exchange for a better place in this one” to simply “give up.” We’re told, again and again, to expect less.

Even those like Carol who can take a version of the deal find that there isn’t much left to claim. It’s not just about going for the money; it’s about finding use for the money in a world where art, literature, design, and even the material things in life that may bring you joy have been so thoroughly corrupted by concessions that you need to be able to shed your sense of self like skin to find joy in it all.

So when Carol is told she’s now living in a utopia run by glorified chatbots that exist to make her happy, she’s suspicious. Wouldn’t you be? There are reasons to believe that the collective has a sinister secondary purpose we haven’t yet learned. Even if that wasn’t the case, who got to decide that paradise is an all-inclusive resort? What if Carol wants anger, conflict, art, and all the beauty and horror that comes from individuality? The only thing the collective can take is the desire for such things, and Carol is livid at the idea of succumbing to another force that wants to take that desire from her.

Pluribus sometimes suggests that Carol is just bitter, and… yes, she is. But who says she is entirely wrong? Her bitterness seemingly stems from living in the kind of world the invaders are trying to perpetuate. A world where efficiency and finding the things that will satisfy the most while truly thrilling few has become the rule. She can’t accept the idea of a one-size-fits-all utopia because she fundamentally rejects that concept based on her previous experiences. Maybe it took this incident for Carol to realize what she wants out of life, or maybe she’s just once again looking at the world and asking, “What the hell is wrong with all of you?”

Nearly 50 years later, the fears in 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers still resonate. But its “we’re all pods now” nihilism feels less like prophecy and more like resignation. The sins of the ’60s generation are well documented; their compromises have already calcified into the world we inherited. Are we really doomed to treat those compromises as law?

Pluribus argues otherwise. The miracle of the show is that it doesn’t ignore the sins of the past nor the parts of ourselves that may make them again. Yet, it is a show that finds optimism about the future in the most cynical person in the world. It’s that cynicism that gives Carol the perspective needed to look at the world and say, “This is not ok. None of this is ok.” She’s not tired, and she’s not ready to give up. She’s fucking angry.

With her righteous indignation, Carol embodies the battle cry of a new generation. They may not always know what a better world looks like, but they know we won’t reach it by giving away more of ourselves. What’s the value of being pampered in a world where everything that brings you joy has been taken from you?[end-mark]

The post How <i>Pluribus</i> Reimagines 1978’s <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> for a Generation With Nothing Left to Sell Out appeared first on Reactor.

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Vince Gilligan Breaks Down the Meaning Behind Pluribus’ Strange Title

Though the show’s title has roots in American history, Gilligan insists Pluribus isn’t entirely about the United States.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on November 10, 2025

Photo: Apple TV

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Photo: Apple TV

Thankfully, it seems like people are starting to realize that Vince Gilligan’s new Apple TV series Pluribus is one of the best new shows of the year (and possibly quite a few other years). It’s odd that a new Vince Gilligan show wasn’t automatically the most anticipated new series of 2025, but Pluribus’ somewhat slow rollout can partially be attributed to the desire to keep as many details about the series secret for as long as possible. The fact is that we knew very little about the show ahead of its release date. It’s a strategy that’s good for maintaining the purity of the actual viewing experience, though it arguably ensured Pluribus would become something of a word of mouth sensation.

The mysteries of Pluribus extended to the meaning of the show’s title. It’s an unusual name to say the least and one that prompted many theories leading to the series’ debut. It’s also a title that gave Gilligan quite a few headaches.

“This was the single hardest thing I’ve ever created, to title,” Gilligan said in an interview with Techradar. “It took years to come up with this title. Breaking Bad came easily, Better Call Saul came even quicker, and El Camino, that wasn’t hard either.”

According to Gilligan, the writing team started kicking around the title Pluribus “pretty early on.” Gilligan at least softly rejected the name each time until he relented a couple of years in and decided to embrace the odd title. “Now that it’s out in the world,” says Gilligan, “It seems to me like, yeah, ‘Why was that so hard?'”

That’s fine, but what the hell does Pluribus actually mean?

“It’s a tip of the hat to the unofficial motto of America, ‘E pluribus unum’,” Gilligan explains. “It means ‘Out of many, one’.”

To be fair, that has long been the most popular theory about the show’s name. Not only is it the most literal translation of Pluribus’ meaning, but it makes sense within the thematic context of the sci-fi series. In Pluribus, Carol is one of only a handful of humans in the world unaffected by a bizarre event that has turned most other people into mere parts of a collective consciousness.

However, Gilligan says you really shouldn’t read too much into the United States’ historical association with that phrase.

“But the show is not intended to be just American,” Gillgan clarifies. “I really want this to be a show for the whole world, and I liked the idea of out of many, one, in reference to the democracy of the United States, but also out of many people from all around the world, one.”

Without getting into spoilers, Pluribus certainly explores the idea that Carol is… unique in her views on the world, even among those who lived through the global event without losing their individuality (such as it is).

Interestingly, Gilligan has had to clarify a few things during his extended press tour regarding what Pluribus is and isn’t. He told The Ringer its timing with the COVID-19 pandemic is merely a production delay coincidence, and he’s insisted that it’s not entirely a show about how the adoption of generative AI technology will affect culture (though he’s made it clear he is not a fan of said technology). Instead, Gilligan sees Pluribus as a different kind of apocalyptic show that tries to find a ray of hope at the end of everything. So… ok, it’s a little about America, but not entirely, you know? [end-mark]

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So You’ve Watched the Premiere of Pluribus and Have Some Questions

Reactor has got you.

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on November 7, 2025

Credit: Apple TV

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Credit: Apple TV

Warning! This post contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Apple TV’s Pluribus! You are doing yourselves a disservice if you read more without watching. Go watch a great show and then come back here for more.

Apple TV didn’t reveal much in the lead-up to the premiere of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus. One of the trailers did hint that something… not great would happen to the world, especially from the point of view of Carol, played by Rhea Seehorn.

And much like Carol, you might be asking what she asks at the end of the trailer linked above: What the fuck is going on?

The talk Carol has with the Secretary of Agriculture (or whatever) on C-SPAN at the end of the first episode explains a lot (and also evokes a similar scene from Jurassic Park), but there are likely more than a few moments you may still be wondering about. Here’s our take on some questions you may have after watching episode one.

So, what the fuck happened to everyone?

As C-SPAN guy explained, the lab researchers fabricated the RNA sequence that was being transmitted in space. They infected rats with the sequence, a rat bit a person, and then the doughnut-licking ensued. The virus (or whatever) didn’t just take control of a person—it erased a person’s sense of individuality and connected every member of humanity into a hive mind that wants all living things, including Carol, to be happy. That hive mind also houses every person’s memories, skills, and experience, meaning, for example, that a TGI Friday’s server can fly a plane, no problem. It’s also why they all knew Carol’s name right after the turning.

How did everyone suddenly turn so quickly?

Remember those infected licking all those swabs for those petri dishes? And remember those planes flying overhead in a row as Carol and Helen talked outside the bar? Those planes were crop-dusting humanity—apparently it doesn’t take much alien virus to turn someone—leaving Carol as the only uninfected in the U.S.

How did Helen die?

Helen, Carol’s partner, was infected like everyone else. It’s clear though that many people didn’t survive the transition—if you were on the freeway, for example, when you got crop-dusted, odds are good that you’d died when your car crashed. Helen fell down and smacked her head pretty hard on the pavement when she was turning, so the head trauma likely caused her death (though perhaps some people just don’t survive the infection, full stop).

What’s Carol gonna do now?

We’ll have to watch and see! One thing that’s clear is that she’s far from safe: the infected want her to join them, after all. All they want is for Carol to be happy! “Come join us, Carol!” they think. “Why wouldn’t you want to join us? We’re living the dream!” In the meantime, however, they’ll do anything and everything they can to make Carol happy. How that plays out, I’d venture to say, will be a major consideration of the season. [end-mark]

The post So You’ve Watched the Premiere of <i>Pluribus</i> and Have Some Questions appeared first on Reactor.

News What to Watch

What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Nobody Can be Told What Pluribus Is

Plus: Underrated noir movies, Predator: Badlands, and art thieves.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on November 6, 2025

Photo: Apple TV+

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Photo: Apple TV+

As the calendar turns to November, we begin to shake our fists at the 5 p.m. darkness, battle the duelling forces of anticipation and dread about the upcoming holidays, and, most importantly, enjoy a series of new releases vying for your attention and eventual awards consideration.

And what a weekend it is for new releases. Molly will be back next week (I promise), but for now, here’s a rundown of some of the things you should be watching and reading as you wonder how much work you really have to do this close to the end of the year. And as always, be sure to find some time to call your reps. You’d be surprised by what a difference people can make.

Pluribus

There are few things I love more than an established creator using their previous success as an excuse to get weird with it. And after finding said success with the totally relatable story of an American who turns to crime to pay his medical bills, I can’t wait to see Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s return to the sci-fi genre with Pluribus.

Vince Gilligan wants you to know as little as possible about Pluribus before you watch it, and I do not intend to betray his wishes here. It helps that I also know very little about the show. What I do know is that the prospect of watching the great Rhea Seehorn save the world from a sudden epidemic of constant joy sounds like just the thing to make my cynical heart grow three sizes this day. Am I at all concerned that watching Gilligan return to his genre roots could itself cause an epidemic of joy? Yes, though in that scenario, I may get to meet Rhea Seehorn. A win is a win, one supposes.

Pluribus premieres on Apple TV on November 7.

Death By Lightning

Those of you whose ears perk up at the mention of a political drama filled with period-accurate costumes (there are dozens of us) will not need to be sold on Netflix’s new series Death by Lightning. Based on the Candice Millard book “Destiny of the Republic,” Death by Lightning follows the presidency of James A. Garfield all the way up to his assassination at the hands of the ultimate historical fanboy, Charles J. Guiteau. Is this the place to begin a discussion about how The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is one of our great pieces of incel hero worship criticism? My editors are telling me it is not.

For everyone else, allow me to inform you that this show’s cast is simply insane. Michael Shannon, Matthew Macfadyen, Betty Gilpin, Shea Whigham, Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman… one of you has been reading my diary, and I’m beginning to suspect it is Death by Lightning showrunner Mike Makowsky.

And for some of you, it is very much worth noting that this is indeed one of the major historical assassinations covered in Stephen Sondheim’s incredible 1990 musical, Assassins. Is this the place to begin a discussion about the need for an Assassins revival? My editors are yelling that it is not.

Death by Lightning premieres on Netflix on November 6.

Predator: Badlands

You could certainly argue that Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey is the best movie prequel ever. Various creators spent years trying to throw every idea at the Predator franchise (“Put a Shane Black on it,” they said) to… let’s go with “mixed” results. Then Trachtenberg came along and reminded us that the thrill of the franchise is in watching the ultimate action hero fight what is essentially the universe’s final boss. The fact that the movie starred the brilliant Amber Midthunder and was set in the 1700s against the backdrop of the colonization of America only made it so much the better.

With Badlands, Trachtenberg isn’t necessarily trying to prove he isn’t a one-trick pony (Predator: Killer of Killers arguably already did that). Instead, he’s trying to show that he is the one who can take this franchise into a truly bold new direction. As the PG-13 sdtory of a predator who encounters a Weyland-Yutani synth (yes, from the Alien universe) as it struggles to hunt the ultimate prey, Predator: Badlands is about as far removed from most of the other Predator movies as it could possibly be. Yet, it’s hard to look at this movie and not see both a compelling standalone story and the set-up for so much more to come. For what is a sequel if not a franchise persevering?

Predator: Badlands releases in theaters on November 7.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

Between the Louvre heist (the year’s feel-good story) and the release of Kelly Reichardt’s new movie The Mastermind, I’ve understandably seen a lot of people recommending books, movies, and shows about museum heists. And while there’s no shortage of incredible works within that genre, one story that can never get enough love is Michael Finkel’s 2023 book The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession.

The Art Thief tells the story of Stéphane Bréitwieser: perhaps the most successful art thief of all time. Never heard of him? Well, there are reasons for that which I will not spoil here, but the biggest reason why is that Bréitwieser wasn’t actually interested in selling his stolen works. As recounted in one of the breeziest books you’ll read this year, Bréitwieser was instead something of an enthusiast who wished to surround himself with beautiful things.

Observations about what it means to “own” art and the people who are driven to possess it certainly elevate the telling of this incredible true story. However, The Art Thief often works best when it is describing exactly how Bréitwieser got away with some of the most incredible (yet often strangely mundane) heists you will ever have the pleasure of knowing about. You will never look at a poorly secured museum the same way again.

5 Times The Animatronic Fox On Splash Mountain Addressed Me By Name And Told Me He Was Going To Marry My Dad

Is there any particular reason I’m recommending the 2016 Clickhole article “5 Times The Animatronic Fox On Splash Mountain Addressed Me By Name And Told Me He Was Going To Marry My Dad?” Not really. There’s no anniversary related to the piece, and I can’t say it’s relevant to any modern global events. However, I firmly believe everyone should have that one article they always read whenever they need a good laugh. If you don’t already have one, allow me to share mine.

This article explores the question we’ve all asked ourselves in the darkness among the comfort of our own thoughts: “What if the animatronic fox on Splash Mountain kept threatening to marry my father?” However you envisioned that scenario playing out, allow me to assure you that nothing can prepare you for the truth. If you’re not cry laughing by the time said fox threatens to marry the subject’s “religious dad” in a wedding “without refreshments,” I’m not sure what to do for you.

Underrated Noir Movies For Noirvember

One of the best decisions in recent years has been the growing agreement that November is actually “Noirvember” in the film fan community. This is the month we celebrate private detectives, dangerous dames, and rooms full of truly astonishing amounts of second-hand smoke. There’s no shortage of incredible noir films out there, but here are a few slightly lesser-known noir movies to check out if you haven’t already.

• The Sweet Smell of Success (1957): “Underrated” may be a stretch, but The Sweet Smell of Success really does deserve to be considered one of the great American films. Anchored by some of the best dialog in movie history, this film follows a sweaty press agent as he desperately tries to fulfill a powerful entertainment journalist’s personal request before his career (and possibly life) is ended. Hey, remember when one of the most powerful people in NYC was a theater critic?

• Gun Crazy (1950): This movie’s initial title (Deadly Is the Female) actually says quite a bit more about what makes it so brilliant. Gun Crazy follows young lovers Bart and Laurie as circumstances and fascinations send them on a cross-country crime spree. It’s the inspiration for a series of far lesser films and the definition of couple goals.

• Kiss Me Deadly (1955): Perhaps the noirest noir ever, Kiss Me Deadly offers an intoxicating blend of absurd machismo, mystery, and generally seedy material. Yet, what initially appears to be some of the most immaculate genre vibes you’ll ever lay eyes on gradually morphs into one of the most shocking films of the 1950s. Seriously, this one may boast one of the absolute wildest endings in movie history.

• Cover Up (1949): I love a Christmas crime movie, and Cover Up is absolutely one of the most underrated examples of that subgenre. It offers the compelling story of an insurance investigator who heads to a small town to tie up some loose ends about a recent murder and wraps the whole thing up in a warm blanket of Christmastime atmosphere.

• Body Double (1984): Body Double is not Brian De Palma’s best Hitchcockian thriller. That would be Blow Out. However, Body Double remains the director’s most misunderstood masterpiece. At the time of its release, some critics blasted this film as a bewildering blend of sex, violence, and cinematic style that seemed to have been made for an audience of one (De Palma). Now it’s easier to appreciate it as one of the most striking examinations of the inherent voyeurism of the filmmaking (and film-watching) process. [end-mark]

The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Nobody Can be Told What <i>Pluribus</i> Is appeared first on Reactor.

News Pluribus

Vince Gilligan Explains Why His New Sci-Fi Show Pluribus Stars a Frustrated Romantasy Author

In Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s observations on the modern world include a Romantasy author who has had enough.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on October 28, 2025

Photo: Apple TV

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Photo: Apple TV

We still don’t know a lot about Vince Gilligan’s upcoming sci-fi show Pluribus, which is exactly the way the Breaking Bad creator likes it. Gilligan is cashing in his blank check on a big, weird genre series, and he’s made it clear that you’re better off knowing as little as possible going into this show about its protagonist Carol: a woman who is mysteriously immune to a virus that makes nearly everyone else in the world eternally happy.

However, in a recent interview with AV Club, Gilligan did drop one fascinating new tidbit about Pluribus: Carol is actually a frustrated romantasy author. When asked why he decided to give Carol such a specific profession, Gilligan offered a surprisingly self-reflective answer.

“I just liked the idea of a writer trying to save the world a lot,” Gilligan explains. “I was thinking about different professions, like what if she were a florist or something instead? When you think of someone who saves the world, you’d want a Liam Neeson or a Tom Cruise. You don’t want a writer. That’s about the last person in the world you want tasked with saving humanity because we’re all a bunch of inept idiots.”

Gilligan doesn’t need to go out there and start spilling our secrets, but that’s a more than fair observation. Still, writers have been unlikely protagonists for quite some time. Just look at the foundation of Stephen King’s empire. Why did Gilligan choose a romantasy author specifically?

“I started thinking about what kind of writer Carol should be,” Gilligan says. “I can say from 30-plus years of experience that screenwriters are boring. And romance authors just seem more colorful, fun, and interesting.”

Again, fair, though for what it’s worth, Gilligan suggests elsewhere that Carol is a frustrated and somewhat self-loathing romantasy writer. It’s a detail that not only supports Gilligan’s other thoughts on writer protagonists, but his professed love for protagonists that are frustrated outsiders.

“Sometimes I walk into a restaurant, and I get this feeling that everybody knows each other, and I’m the only one who’s a stranger,” Gilligan muses. “So I like a hero who is not fully equipped for the task. Carol Sturka wants to save the world, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be done by her. She doesn’t need the credit. She just assumes someone else will take the reins of this thing… those are the kind of stories I like, where the audience can say, ‘You know, I don’t know if she’s even doing the right thing. I know her heart’s in the right place, but is she even doing the right thing?’”

We’ll see if Carol does the right thing when Pluribus starts streaming on Apple TV on November 7. [end-mark]

The post Vince Gilligan Explains Why His New Sci-Fi Show <i>Pluribus</i> Stars a Frustrated Romantasy Author appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Watchlist

Here Are All the Genre TV Premieres Airing in November!

This month features a new series from Critical Role, a domesticated take on Batman, and the beginning of the end for Stranger Things…

By Petrana Radulovic

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Published on October 29, 2025

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There is a lot of entertainment out there these days, and a lot of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror titles to parse through. So we’re rounding up the genre shows coming out each month. 

November brings some exciting new animated shows to Amazon Prime, including the long-awaited Mighty Nein adaptation, and a Batman series all about the family life. Additionally, the first part of the last season of Stranger Things slides in at the end of the month. 

Pluribus — Apple TV+ (November 7) 

A romance author learns that for some reason, she’s randomly immune to a new virus that’s making all of humanity insufferably cheerful. The rest of society is determined to “fix” her, so that she can join their blind optimism, but she’s not so sure that she wants to join the happiness horde. 

Bat-Fam — Amazon Prime (November 10)

This new Batman animated series puts a spin on the caped crusader. This time, he’s a family man, raising his son Damian—and also opening his house to rehabilitate some former villains. Alfred Pennyworth’s grandniece Alicia is spearheading the efforts to help turn around these bad guys. The show is a spinoff from the Merry Little Batman Christmas special, also available on Amazon Prime.

The Mighty Nein  — Amazon Prime (November 19)

The Mighty Nein is based off the much beloved second campaign from Dungeons & Dragons live-play web series Critical Role. The new show follows a group of chaotic misfits drawn together to save their world. It takes place 20 years after the first campaign—which was also adapted into Amazon Prime animated show, The Legend of Vox Machina—in the same world. The original web series cast reprises the roles of their player characters, with a bunch of exciting guest stars like Ming-Na Wen, Alan Cumming, and Lucy Liu joining. 

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory — Netflix (November 20)

(Season 4) Netflix’s animated Jurassic Park spinoff comes to a close in its fourth and final season. The show is a direct sequel to Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, which originally followed a group of teenagers stranded on a dinosaur-infested island. (Y’know, the typical Jurassic Park schtick). Chaos Theory sees the original gang in their college years, as they unravel a global conspiracy theory and discover one of their friends might still be alive.  

WondLa  — Apple TV+ (November 26)

(Season 3) WondLa is based off Tony DiTerlizzi’s children’s trilogy. A girl named Eva has been raised in an isolated bunker by a robot caretaker for her whole life. But after an attack on her bunker, she’s forced to enter the outside world. She teams up with a group of aliens to figure out what to do next. This third season wraps up the show. 

Stranger Things — Netflix (November 26)

(Season 5, Part 1) At long last, the Stranger Things finale is here. Well, part one of three anyway. The fifth and final season takes place a year after the fourth one. The core cast wants to team up and finally kill Vecna, especially after Rifts into the Upside Down open up all over Hawkins. But things grow complicated when the United States Military busts into town, on the hunt for Eleven. 

[end-mark]

The post Here Are All the Genre TV Premieres Airing in November! appeared first on Reactor.

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Rhea Seehorn Is Perfectly Happy Not Being Happy in the Trailer for Pluribus

Relatable. Extremely relatable.

By Molly Templeton

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Published on October 22, 2025

Image: Apple TV

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Image: Apple TV

For a minute there, we were wondering if Apple TV would just straight-up skip releasing trailers for Pluribus, coasting instead on the fact that it’s a new show from the creator of Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan) that stars an actor from Better Call Saul (Rhea Seehorn). But then they went and released one teaser trailer, and now a second, full one.

Said trailer remains cheerfully vague, though. I say “cheerfully” purposefully, because the premise of Pluribus is that everybody in the world is happy. Except Carol (Seehorn).

The only thing Apple TV will say about the series is this: “Picked up in a two-season order, Pluribus is a genre-bending original in which the most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.” The trailers so far have also made it clear that not only is everyone else on Earth happy, but they want Carol to join them. And they tend to talk in the royal “we” about it. Are the rest of the people in the world just plain old run-of-the-mill happy (terrifying), or is something else going on here?

Honestly, I’m not sure it matters. Pluribus has the same sort of chaotic odd-woman-out vibe that Mrs. Davis did. In that show, Betty Gilpin played Simone, a nun going up against an extremely powerful artificial intelligence called Mrs. Davis. I feel like Simone and Carol would be friends.

Because this series is set in New Mexico and stars a Better Call Saul vet, it feels necessary to mention that it is not at all part of Gilligan’s previous TV universe. Gilligan himself has said, “no crime, and no methamphetamine.”

Along with Seehorn, Pluribus stars Karolina Wydra (Sneaky Pete) and Carlos-Manuel Vesga (The Hijacking of Flight 601), and has as guest stars Miriam Shor (American Fiction) and Samba Schutte (Our Flag Means Death’s Roach). Its first season premieres on Apple TV on November 7th. But… will it make you happy?[end-mark]

The post Rhea Seehorn Is Perfectly Happy Not Being Happy in the Trailer for <i>Pluribus</i> appeared first on Reactor.

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Pluribus Trailer Finally Reveals What Vince Gilligan’s Mysterious Apple TV+ Sci-Fi Show Is About

Pluribus’ story continues to draw comparisons to the Neal Shusterman novel, All Better Now.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on October 9, 2025

Credit: Apple TV+

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Credit: Apple TV+

This writer was working on a roundup of those bizarre teaser clips for Vince Gilligan’s Apple TV+ Show Pluribus when the Apple TV YouTube channel went ahead and finally released a surprise trailer for the highly anticipated show. So it goes.

This teaser trailer confirms much of what we already knew or suspected about the series. It stars a woman named Carol (played by Better Call Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn) who is described as a perpetually miserable author. As fate would have it, though, Carol’s misery proves to be an unlikely asset when a virus that causes people to experience eternal happiness seemingly infects everyone else on Earth. Soon, Carol becomes convinced that the only way to save the world is to spread her own brand of suffering, however and whenever she can. The name of the show is even seemingly a reference to the Latin phrase “E pluribus unum,” which translates to “Out of many, one.”

The big reveal in this new teaser is the fact that the rest of the world (or perhaps just the people of the United States) are not only aware of Carol’s condition but are actively seeking to “cure” her immunity. Previous teasers portrayed Carol as a lone operative in largely isolated spaces, so it’s fascinating to see that she actually seems to be the target of what appears to be an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-esque collective. Based on what Gilligan has said, though, we’re likely only scratching the surface of what he has described as an incredibly weird concept that may not quite be what fans of his previous shows expect (despite also taking place in New Mexico and starring some familiar faces).

Oh, and there is one more potentially fascinating wrinkle to consider. When that first Pluribus teaser dropped, fans were quick to point out that the show may actually be an adaptation of the Neal Shusterman novel All Better Now. Like Pluribus, All Better Now deals with a virus that causes happiness and even uses the same smiley face design motif we’ve seen throughout Pluribus‘ promotions. Interestingly, Shusterman actually used to write books based on The X-Files, including 1999’s Dark Matter which was adapted from a Vince Gilligan-penned episode of the show called “Soft Light.” While there has been no official indication that Pluribus is directly or indirectly based on All Better Now, the similarities are noteworthy and intriguing. If the show is based on the book’s narrative in any way, then you should indeed prepare yourself for a truly wild ride that takes a hard look at the state of the world and how happiness interferes with the mechanisms that keep the whole thing churning.

As for Pluribus, it’s still scheduled to debut on Apple TV+ on November 7. The first season will only run for nine episodes, but Apple has already ordered a second season of the series. [end-mark]

The post <i>Pluribus</i> Trailer Finally Reveals What Vince Gilligan’s Mysterious Apple TV+ Sci-Fi Show Is About appeared first on Reactor.

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Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus Will Save the World From Happiness One Licked Donut at a Time

The release date teaser for Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus promises free donuts and weird vibes.

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on July 25, 2025

Screenshot: Apple TV+

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Screenshot: Apple TV+

*Note: This article refers to the person in the Pluribus trailer as Carol, but we have since learned it is a different character. This text is presented as originally written, and we apologize for the error.

A lengthy countdown tease on Apple TV’s YouTube channel recently ended and gifted patient viewers with a 30-second teaser trailer that largely consists of Rhea Seehorn methodically licking donuts. Thus, the world was introduced to Vince Gilligan’s next series, Pluribus.

Yes, Vince Gilligan has escaped the Breaking Bad universe and brought Rhea Seehorn with him for something entirely different. How different? There’s little information available about Pluribus at this time beyond what the release date teaser offers (the aforementioned donut licking, mostly), but new details are slowly rolling in.

Pluribus follows Carol (Seehorn) who is described as “the most miserable person on Earth.” Quite the claim given current circumstances, but Carol’s misery will seemingly come in handy as she soon discovers that she must “save the world from happiness.” You would think that would take roughly 30 seconds, but Pluribus will reportedly receive a nine-episode first season and has already been renewed for a second season.

Seehorn will be joined by recently confirmed Pluribus cast members Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga, Miriam Shor, and Samba Schutte. There’s no word yet on their characters at this time, and Shor and Schutte are currently being identified as guest stars.

Speaking with Variety in 2023, Gilligan described Pluribus as “mild science fiction” and a series in which “the world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different.” It’s not entirely clear at this time where the more sci-fi elements of the series come from, though it’s interesting to hear Gilligan say he is “nervous” to see how people are going to react to this entire concept. His nerves can seemingly be partially attributed to the fact that Pluribus is set in Albuquerque and stars a Better Call Saul player, but is completely removed from the universe of the Breaking Bad shows. Gilligan even goes so far as to clarify that Pluribus contains “no crime, and no methamphetamine.”

Personally, licking free donuts feels like some kind of crime, but Gilligan really seems to want people to know that he is about to take a big, weird swing that may not hit with those used to his recent ways. Of course, those who came to know Vince Gilligan through his work on The X-Files also know that he is not afraid to try some fascinating things within this genre space.

Besides, if creating two of the most acclaimed dramatic series of the last 15+ years doesn’t earn you the right to get weird with funding from a major streaming service, then we are forced to ask if the world is really worth saving from happiness and all other destructive forces.

Pluribus is set to debut on Apple TV on November 7.[end-mark]

The post Vince Gilligan’s <i>Pluribus</i> Will Save the World From Happiness One Licked Donut at a Time appeared first on Reactor.