The Pluribus Season Finale Cemented This Shows Existential Brilliance

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Pluribus, “La Chica o El Mundo.”]

The most haunting image from the season finale of Apple TV’s Pluribus comes early in the episode, and in some ways it’s relatively innocuous: A baby goat, crying out after being released from its pen. Earlier, the goat had been receiving cuddles from young Kusimayu (Darinka Arones), one of the few remaining humans unconnected with the Joining. But once Kusimayu becomes part of the great hive mind, she walks away from the goat as if it means nothing to her. So transported is she, by the promised joy of belonging.

Over the course of its first brilliant season, Pluribus has been so packed with huge ideas about society and the individual. When the show premiered, all we really knew about the premise was that Carol (Rhea Seehorn) was the most miserable woman in the world, and she was going to “save the world from happiness.” Now, with nine episodes’ worth of hindsight, we know how accurate that description really is — while also truly understanding its existential threat.

“La Chica o El Mundo” features the long-awaited meeting of Carol and Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga), with no shortage of hilarity ensuing from two of the world’s prickliest people negotiating their way to an actual conversation. Over the course of the episode, Manousos notably makes significant progress in understanding the frequency which might be keeping the hive mind connected (8.613 MHz, doncha know), but Carol doesn’t offer to help. Instead, after Manousos disrupted the Joining harshly enough to trigger their flight instincts, Carol chooses to go on a romantic vacation with Zosia (Karolina Wydra), her Joined of choice.

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The trip is lovely — inspiring memories of Carol’s exotic travels with Helen (Miriam Shor) — until it isn’t. While visiting Montana (the “last best place on Earth,” per its unofficial motto), Carol ends up asking Zosia directly about the meaning of happiness on a biological level, and with the help of the world’s collective knowledge Zosia cheerily talks to her about chemicals and zebrafish. The science behind the magic of a smile is real, but that doesn’t make it less magic in the way it connects us. The Joining is similar, in a way: The contentment it’s brought to almost the entirety of the world’s population a beautiful promise.

However, strip away that magic and those warm feelings, and what is the Joining? A virus. That’s all it’s ever been. Viruses are organisms so determined to populate and spread that they will kill their hosts in the process, and it’s that determination to spread which shatters the bliss that Carol’s been experiencing with Zosia on their international journey. While she’s been reading Ursula K. Le Guin poolside and hitting the slopes, the Joining has remained committed to its ultimate biological imperative: complete assimilation.

The science behind transforming harvested ova into viable stem cells doesn’t really matter. The fact that the Joined is pursuing the necessary science to force Carol to join them — against her explicit wishes — exposes their true intentions. The reality behind the smiles.

And for Carol, the betrayal is even worse considering her past: In Episode 4, “Please, Carol,” she opened up to Zosia about being sent to a conversion camp for gay teenagers when she was 16. The counselors there were “some of the worst people I have ever known. And they smiled all the time. Just like you.” Her fierce individuality has always been a core part of her character, tied not just to her sexuality but to her fundamental nature as a person. No wonder she’s ready to go literally nuclear, by the end.

Pluribus is not a show that could be accused of rushing through plot: Creator Vince Gilligan has kept up a very deliberate pace over these nine episodes, unafraid to keep the scope tiny as he explores so many of this strange narrative’s details. It hasn’t been a Surf Dracula situation though, because the whole point of this show has been this journey into understanding the depths of the threat Carol, Manousos, and every other human on this planet is facing.

It’s not just the eminent threat of starvation that looms: Much is made of the values the Joined express, chief among them their inability to willfully harm anything living, even the proverbial apple from a tree. Yet that inability to harm doesn’t translate into appreciating the unique and special moments of being alive — the moments worth living.

By sacrificing individuality for the happiness offered by the Joining, the Joined seem to lose the ability to appreciate the smallest things. Meanwhile, there’s an abandoned pet goat, missing its pet human. One little life out of billions. But no less alone.

Pluribus Season 1 is streaming now on Apple TV. Season 2 is currently in the works.