Carol has been through a lot in 70 days.
Honestly, I’m not keen on the fact that, a mere 60 days after her wife died, along with the rest of the world, she felt she couldn’t exist without sex and love, but that’s just me, I suppose.
Carol needed to get something out of her system to really shake herself out of the reverie, and she certainly did that on Pluribus Season 1 Episode 9.
After Pluribus Season 1 Episode 8, it was pretty clear that the Carol 60 days after the joining would not put up with Manousos like I would have expected ten-day-later Carol to do.
She had already reached her breaking point once, and in doing so, she formed a bond with Zosia, which is precisely what they wanted.
They let Carol carry on as if she were forming something unique with Zosia. But she never was. As they are now, she can’t.
They may be human, and the people who once inhabited the world are still providing information to the hive, but they have very little understanding of humans. It’s as if the alien formula hypnotized them.
They no longer understand human motivations. What human do you know who would struggle to understand some of the things Carol asks? Why would it be difficult for anyone who has been human to understand jealousy, for example?
Yet once joined, that concept is gone. That’s more than joining. That’s erasure.
If there is one thing I know about humanity, it’s that, whether you’re left or right or smack dab in the center, you are proud of cultural influences in some way. Whether it’s religion, the way a group of people homesteads, or how they dress, everyone has some part of humanity they cherish.
No cultural appropriation. Don’t dishonor Jesus’ name. There is always something we don’t want to be erased.
But when the girl in Peru succumbed (after an entire village nagged her, egging her on), we saw the effects of joining. It was the end of that village. There is no point in such places when you’re all one. They no longer need individuality, the very things that make us unique.
So they put out the fire, folded the blankets, and off they went, leaving everything that made them who they were behind.
The little goat running after her broke my heart. One minute, she was cuddling and stroking it, showing it love. The next minute, she turned her back on it without a second thought.
Who wants that life?
But the fact is, it took the hive only 60 days to figure out how to join those who remained behind, and they’re working every day to bring the others on board.
All of the other stuff — the “dates,” the little boy living with his mother, the people in the village, those catering to Diabate in Vegas — is just noise. It’s not the hive’s reality.
Carol seemed to think she had broken some sort of code. Somehow, she genuinely allowed herself to believe that she had a special connection with Zosia. When Manousos arrived, the early signs about how wrong she was were evident.
But in her desire to attach, to love, and to experience human pleasure, she pushed them aside. And when the hive spurned her and Manousos after his experiment, she chose to engage Zosia in a fantasy life that was never going to last.
Manousos, bless him, had studied for his meeting with Carol. Her videos gave the impression she wanted to change the world, and that’s how he introduced himself. I am Manousos. I am not one of them. I want to change the world.
Thirty days ago, she would have been all in. On this day, she was under Zosia’s manipulative spell.
So it’s entirely unsurprising that Carol met Manousos with a chip on her shoulder, or that Manousos was still very unprepared to interact in a world where the “weirdos” might have had a way to spy on them.
He didn’t have the same experiences as Carol because he’s not as open as she is. He kept himself from giving in to loneliness by simply trying to find a solution.
We had seen him previously working with radio signals, and by experimenting with a chaperone, he discovered the missing link. He believes he has a way to reverse what has been done.
How many layers of supposition that reversal will go through before he does that remains to be seen. But at least Carol is back on board.
But damn, it sure was touch-and-go for a while.
As mentioned earlier, Carol was in the gotcha phase of manipulation. The hive may not be able to lie, but they have no problem cajoling someone into giving up. They’re bullies. They will pretend to be exactly who you need them to be, but it’s an act.
They don’t experience pleasure. They won’t swim in a pool or eat in a restaurant or get a massage without a human requesting it.
Once the 11 remaining humans join, the hive’s sole purpose will be to survive long enough to connect with their home planet. They’ve said as much. They want to join all of existence. Wonderful.
Carol, fully under Zosia’s spell and believing she was making a dent in Zosia by learning about who she was before the joining and her use of “I” chose to leave Manousos and embark on a grand, romantic adventure.
I almost cried for her when she told Zosia she was so happy that every neuron must be firing oxytocin. She was shaking with pleasure just being with Zosia. Did she forget that Zosia was everyone?
Is this how cults lure unsuspecting people into their orbit? I assume so. I looked up “what do cults use to recruit members,” and these are the four steps I got in the first link I clicked:
Finding the right target. This one is easy. “Research has shown that the people who are the most susceptible to recruitment are stressed, emotionally vulnerable, have tenuous or no family connections, or are living in adverse socioeconomic conditions.”
Love bombing. “Having identified a stressed, emotionally vulnerable target, cults flood that person with affection, flattery, and validation.” Hi Carol! We love you, Carol.
Isolation. “Once they’ve enticed a recruit with approval or the promise of some fulfilling understanding of the universe, cultists then work to isolate the recruit.” This plays out differently in cults, but it certainly fits here. Not only from the initial joining, but the repeated urban withdrawals when a human misbehaves.
Keeping control. “After convincing you that they’re the best friends you’ve ever had and bombarding you with the cult’s ideology, the cultists’ next job is to make sure they hang on to you.
“There’s a variety of techniques they can use to accomplish this, but these usually involve iteratively subjecting the cult recruit to terror and love.”
Now, I know there will be those in the audience who want to tell me how lovely it might be to be in a cult, but honey, I ain’t buying it. None of this is OK.
People successfully recruited into a cult struggle to fight back. Once you relinquish control, once you’re isolated, it would be an uphill climb.
What this particular cult, the Pluribus, cannot do is force a human to do anything. So, overall, they’ve been pretty docile to the last remaining free agents.
Given what we know of how this went down at the beginning, that wasn’t always the case. Surely, someone somewhere would have raised the alarm if they understood what was about to happen, how they were about to be erased. They didn’t.
But what we did learn, right along with Carol, is that they don’t need permission to use what they have available to reel them in. In fact, any chance Carol had of using her stored eggs for a future birth has been lost.
I’m surprised they kept the egg-donation storage facility powered, keeping her eggs viable. But they did, and they have them, and they are actively trying to use what they have to make stem cells.
I have to wonder if, while caring for Manousos, they took what they needed from him to make stem cells, as well.
He didn’t give permission, but they seem to bend rules, even if they can’t break them. And being in their care at the hospital would have been a perfect time to take what they needed without his approval.
Carol’s happiness quickly soured when she realized she wasn’t special. She was just one of the 11 dangling pieces they needed to join so they could carry on as intended.
Carol was being love-bombed. She was not in control. They were actively working against her while keeping her preoccupied so that she couldn’t figure it out.
Even Manousos’s visit felt like a setup. The way Zosia rubbed Carol’s back while reminding her she didn’t have to meet with him was icky. She was emulating physical love to steer Carol away from a connection with the only person left on earth who would work with her to reverse the joining.
Even Manousos could see what was happening. “Do you want to get the girl or save the world?”
They came down hard on Carol just before his arrival, knowing how it would change the outcome of the visit. Yet they struggle with the concepts of ownership and jealousy in a relationship? Make it make sense!
In the end, Carol got the girl. But this girl was more of a groomer, not a love interest. Surely, the hive is sick of playing human games. They want to get on with their mission.
Once Carol wrapped her head around it, she chose the nuclear option. Literally.
I don’t think the bomb was symbolic. This time, I think she was making a statement. Would they care if Carol used nuke rather than be joined? It seems unlikely. If the remaining humans all offed themselves, it would give them less to worry about.
But it sure as hell wouldn’t be any fun for us.
I have no idea what to expect from Pluribus Season 2, but one thing I can’t stop thinking about is that maybe Carol will not let Zosia go. What she learned about Zosia before the joining could keep her hooked.
Is there a future where, one by one, beginning with Zosia, people start to snap out of it by way of breaking the transmission?
They may have joined in one fell swoop, but where’s the fun in the reversal being that easy? Although, as I mentioned earlier during Pluribus Season 1, coming out of it could present its own problems.
Could it be as easy as stepping back into your life?
I guess there’s no need for me to ponder it alone. Tell me what you think.
Did the series end on a positive note? Do you feel differently about the Pluribus now? Would you join if you had the chance, or would you go down fighting?
Once again, Merry Christmas. I’ll see those of you who watch Landman again this Sunday. Until then, ho, ho, ho!!!
Rhea Seehorn on Carol’s Fear of Losing Herself — and Why the Hive’s Hunger for Art Says Everything
Rhea Seehorn talks about Carol’s fear of losing herself, the cost of isolation, and why the hive’s hunger for Waycaro reveals what Pluribus is really saying about humanity.
Pluribus Season 1 Episode 8 Review: Carol Is Subjected to a “Charm Offensive,” but Does It Work?
The hive goes the distance with Carol on Pluribus Season 1 Episode 7. Does the “Charm Offensive” work as they hoped?
9 Quiet TV Shows with a Lot to Say About Being Alive
These quiet TV shows don’t chase spectacle — they ask big questions about grief, love, belief, and identity, and trust viewers to sit with them.
Best of 2025: 13 New Shows That Got Our Adrenaline Pumping
TV got fun again. Check out 13 new shows that put entertainment first — from thrillers to crime dramas to pulpy chaos — no homework required.
Pluribus Season 1 Episode 7 Tests Carol’s Reserve as “The Gap” Briskly Moves Time
Can Carol’s defiance be measured by time? Pluribus Season 1 Episode 7 tests that theory, as we learn more about Manousos, too.
The post Pluribus Season 1 Ends As Carol Gets the Girl, Comes to Her Senses, and Takes the Nuclear Option appeared first on TV Fanatic.