- Starring
- Rhea Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga
- Creator
- Vince Gilligan
- Rating
- TV-MA
- Genre
- Comedy, Drama, Science Fiction
- Release date
- Nov 7, 2025
- Where to watch
- Apple TV
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Story/Plot/Script
Visuals/Cinematography
Perfromance
Direction
Non-Wokeness
Rating Summary
Pluribus’s high-concept sci-fi premise is intriguing enough—for now—to blunt the sting of the show’s shortcomings, including the feeling that it could have been pared down to a four-episode miniseries. Yet unresolved story elements leave it teetering on a tightrope: brilliance on one side, a pit of stupidity waiting below. That so many questions remain unanswered after nine episodes and nearly eight hours of storytelling should not be overlooked.
In the wake of a silent, inexplicable cataclysm, the world awakens transformed—bound together in an eerie, effortless harmony that erases conflict yet whispers of something vital lost. Pluribus follows the few who remain untouched by this seductive unity, as they navigate a reality where personal desire has become alien. The price of perfect peace might be the soul itself.
Pluribus Review (season 1)
COMING SOON
WOKE REPORT
What it Gets Right, Despite Itself
- It’s hard to believe that anyone in Hollywood would intentionally make a show that so clearly illustrates what is wrong with the idea of trading freedom for the erasure of racism and gun violence, but Pluribus makes the point multiple times.
- In fact, every argument that the small group of hive-mind apologists make in favor of subjection is one that you’ve heard some idiot liberal make in a Libs of TikTok video, and these characters are not portrayed positively.
Tiktokers are now praising Communist leader Mao Zedong for kiIIing millions of his own citizens, specifically the elderly. pic.twitter.com/wZSXqmzaJl
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 5, 2024
- In fact, every argument that the small group of hive-mind apologists make in favor of subjection is one that you’ve heard some idiot liberal make in a Libs of TikTok video, and these characters are not portrayed positively.
- Sometimes it seems as though the show is actively targeting liberals for ridicule. However, the main character is almost certainly a liberal, so who knows?SpoilerThe hive mind has taken vegetarianism and veganism to their most radical extreme; they won’t even pluck an apple to feed themselves because they don’t want to kill anything. It’s to the point that they’re all going to die within a decade because of it. Ridiculous, right?
Happy as Clams
- The main character is a lesbian, which is certainly progressive, but doesn’t automatically make it woke. After all, there’s no overt LGTBQ+%$#9er politics being preached or overt sexual orientation persecution. It’s far more subtle than that.
- What makes it woke in this case is that Carol’s sapphic appetites are quietly made clear to be what separates her from the rest in her pursuit to save the human race.
- She opts to make the main characters in her popular fantasy series straight to appeal to mainstream consumers, and her semi-closeted professional life becomes a metaphor for her fight against the hive-mind and conformity.
- She has a conversation with a representative of the hive-mind in which she discusses being sent to “conversion” camp. It being the “most horrible experience” of her life is what spurs her to skepticism and the need to resist. Not the fact that the entire human race is the victim of Nope. It’s that Christians once tried to pray away her gay.Spoileralien viral warfare and has been de facto enslaved.
- She has a conversation with a representative of the hive-mind in which she discusses being sent to “conversion” camp. It being the “most horrible experience” of her life is what spurs her to skepticism and the need to resist. Not the fact that the entire human race is the victim of
- So, why isn’t the Woke-O-Meter marked down more? The Woke-O-Meter measures how much a program is affected by wokeness. In this case, the approximately four brief woke moments that had anything to do with sexuality are so irrelevant to the story (despite the writers’ and director’s intentions) that each could have been thoroughly edited or easily modified without changing anything else about the show whatsoever.
- Ex: Carol’s anger at her loss motivates a lot of her behavior. Any close loss could have been substituted, or there could have been no loss at all. What happens to the world is utter madness, and no sane person would be happy about it. No viewer would have been confused about her motivation, depression, etc. if Carol were a middle-aged spinster who was just as angry about what had happened to humanity, without tying it to a close personal loss. Furthermore, a much wider audience could have connected more deeply had her relationship reflected that of the vast majority of potential viewers.
- She opts to make the main characters in her popular fantasy series straight to appeal to mainstream consumers, and her semi-closeted professional life becomes a metaphor for her fight against the hive-mind and conformity.
- Of course, the straight humans who remain unaffected by the hive-mind are horrible and/or moronic. The one exception remains an unknown quantity throughout the season. He will undoubtedly play a bigger part in season 2, but right now, I don’t know enough about him to form an opinion or determine his orientation.
- What makes it woke in this case is that Carol’s sapphic appetites are quietly made clear to be what separates her from the rest in her pursuit to save the human race.
Shemale
- As I mentioned above, the main characters in Carol’s novel series are straight, and the male character is by far the most popular of the Fantasy/Romance series. We find out pretty early on that it was her original intention to make the character a lesbian woman, but she caved to societal pressure. Towards the end of this season, she decides to write the next novel in the series and to use fantasy tropes/mechanics to magically transition him into a woman.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
Great review.
This ‘sleep walking’ to destruction premise is a great metaphor for what is happening in The West. The liberal approach to mass illegal migration, the profound societal and cultural threat of Islam, the spread of natural and culture self-loathing, the march of the new Marxists, the total infusion of Post Modernism in academia, and so on. It is very much like this. I have many liberal friends who are committing treason against their nation — and civilisation itself — because they have been taken over by suicidal empathy (especially the women) and a fear of loss of social status and respectability (the men). It all reminds me of the pious fake Christians I grew up with in the 80’s – they are now ‘liberals’.
I was deeply disappointed to see Vince Gilligan taking the knee on several occasions in this first season — given growing ‘woke fatigue’ – he’s very late to the party, considering the even-handedness and objectivity of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad.
It reminds me a little of George Lucas and Star Wars — I was shocked at how he was captured; I thought he would be immune, given the depth of symbolism and originality of his first trilogy (although some attribute that to his close ties with Joseph Campbell).
This is a very fair and even-handed review, I would not have been so fair. I agree that there is mockery of progressives, but it still has the taint of all the liberal shibboleths on it, even though, as you say, right now, they don’t intrude.
Also fair point on the length. I love a slow burn, but this is not that — it is tedious, empty.
Given his legacy, we give Vince Gilligan massive latitude — and assume this is all going to turn out to be another stroke of genius. That said, I’m very sceptical,
There’s an even higher level self own here, which is that Carol’s position is exactly the one taken by religious people when addressing the “problem of suffering” argument against the existence of God. The argument goes that a loving God would not have created a world with so much suffering. The rebuttal is that a world with freedom necessitates the freedom to choose to do bad as well as good. If God forced a world without suffering (the idyllic society the hive mind creates in the show) there would be no freedom (exactly how we see the infected people living in the show), a consequence that Carol finds so obvious that she has a hard time believing all the other immune people don’t automatically agree with her. Do the show runners know this? I doubt it.
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