Since you guys left just about no possibility unchecked in the comments last week, how could our hive-mind not figure out that crazy cliffhanger in the ending of the 5th episode Pluribus all by ourselves. Boy am I proud of our very anxious community. We might be just the right observers for Carol’s utterly unique journey through a life that no one on her goddamn planet was prepared for. So how come almost everyone else is faring much better in this new wacky world that Carol doesn’t seem to want anything to do with? Because other than Carol, and Manousos from Asuncion, no one else seems to have a problem with this alien virus making a mockery out of mankind’s gifts and, uh, straight up cannibalism. Oh yeah, we got a lot of freaky things we somehow have to be totally okay with in the 6th episode of Pluribus.
Spoiler Alert
Nobody wants this
Pretty fitting for the 6th episode of Pluribus to start at the end of the gasp. We’ve all been holding our breaths too. But maybe not quite as out of breath as the plastic wrapped head Carol includes in her recording of the hellhole that is Agri Jet. Well, it’s only hell if you’re against the idea of countless human limbs being preserved and stacked in a facility that has a meat grinder the size of a bus. Carol’s words, not mine. We don’t even get to see the meat grinder. But we’ve seen just enough to get the gist about the cannibalistic aspect of this major revelation. And so has Carol. So she’s reluctant to entrust the hive mind with delivering this new, explosive finding to the other immune. Or maybe, she just thought that is the kind of thing that needs to be told face to face. And that brings us to Mr. Diabate again, and delightfully so. How can it ever be anything but a treat to merely observe someone who can balance his narcissistic and hedonistic tendencies with his intensely individualistic, yet true human values? Yeah, Diabate is a remarkable specimen of a human as he lies easy in his Westside penthouse knowing he is in favor of the hive-mind. A classic contradiction. I’m actually kind of relieved that I don’t get how he can be okay with giving roles to a whole bunch of “people” for an old timey theme party, where he can play fake poker with a fake eye-patched bad guy and win. Sounds like I’m describing one of those meaningless dreams. But then comes the matter of the fact that these people do want to do this, and a lot of them want to do much more than that, if you catch my drift. It’s too bad for two of them Diabate likes women, even the older ones. Carol’s arrival at the Westside could’ve clashed with anything, really. But it had to be just at the moment when Diabate was getting ready to make a bunch of happy women a lot happier. Could the universe really conspire more to make Carol feel worse about herself? Yeah, I think it could. I mean, she practically stops an orgy because these people still want their space from her, so they clear out the Westside for Diabate and Carol. What a welcome. And then, just as Carol’s about to blow Diabate’s mind with the news that these people eat humans, he beats her to it. How could he know and be okay with it? Well, that’s all thanks to the person formerly known as John Cena. Since this is now a world where Diabate can ask John Cena out on friend dates, he’s done just that. And that’s how he’s come to learn this very disturbing thing about his new friends. I gotta say though, I think Diabate took it awfully lightly. Much lighter than Carol’s taking it as John Cena breaks things down for her through the TV. Evidently, the hive-mind’s caloric intake relies on all the available resources that they can get without harming any life form whatsoever, animal or plant. And because these resources are scarce, they had to turn to the dead for sustenance. So the amber colored stuff that Carol has found in the milk carton is a caloric drink for the “infected” that contains human derived protein, or HDP, as they call it. Savages, the lot! But I do believe them when they say that they wouldn’t have done it unless they had to. Well, I believe that they believe it. But how’s Carol supposed to just be cool with this? I don’t know about you. But I’d pick an apple sooner than I’d eat a dead body.
Is Carol Safe From Being Turned?
From Carol’s perspective, Diabate is questionable for being all cozy with his anthropophagite friends. But that may be too one dimensional a way to think. I don’t think Diabate is okay with it at all. I just think that he gets the hive-mind’s biological imperatives. They don’t actually seem to have the urge to sustain themselves if they have to take something from a living thing without its permission. That’s why they won’t harvest grain or kill animals, because neither plants, nor animals, can consent to having something taken from them. In that way, the hive-mind isn’t self-destructive. What they are is existentially humble on a level that isn’t quite in tune with how mankind usually functions. You see, the hive-mind is a state of humanity that doesn’t think it’s entitled to life more than other living things. That’s why, even though they know very well that they’ll run out of sustenance in about 10 years, they still can’t make the choice to take what’s not given to them. In that way, dead people are a far more ethical source of protein than a living being that will have to lose itself, or parts of itself, to sustain mankind. I don’t know how you morally oppose that. But Carol can. Because this is just another reminder of just how far from human these “people” are. Carol isn’t being this way just to be this way. I doubt that she wants to be and feel this lonely and unwanted. She’s kept out of the immune people’s zoom meetings, the hive-mind still won’t enter her vicinity, and there’s basically no one in the world who wants anything to do with her. How do you deal with that? You drown yourself in tears and champagne and you pass out in the bathroom. Anything to be in that gorgeous Westside penthouse bathroom, really. At this stage of her life, Carol’s loneliness is no less than a train crashing into her spirit. Even Diabate can see just how miserable she is. I think he wants the hive-mind to reconsider making up with her because of that. That’s why it’s so important that you notice Carol’s spirit shine brighter than all the bling in Diabate’s beyond extravagant abode. Nice of her to show him how to stack avo, eggs, and bacon over a toast so fat that you’ll hurt your jaw trying to take a bite. And it’s just as nice of Diabate to find subtle ways to support Carol’s endeavors, even though he doesn’t always agree with them. Of course, he gets that Carol could be nicer. But to hell with nice considering what she’s going through. So the fact that Diabate goes ahead and reveals a massive new thing about the hive-mind to Carol means that on some level, he is an ally. It’s been 12 days since the infection, and just a single day since the hive has figured out how to spread it to the immune. What do you know? It doesn’t seem that simple after all, even for people as advanced as the hive-mind. To bring the 13 immune people into their culty way of life, they would have to customize the alien RNA to each of their specific stem cells. Hooray for Carol. Because if they won’t pick a fruit from a tree, they certainly won’t come at her to stick a giant needle in her hip and extract her stem cells. Consent saves the day. If the immune people don’t allow it, the hive mind can’t turn them. I’m not surprised that Diabate has turned down their offer. Of course he wants to be himself and do everything that his heart desires. As for Carol, it’s got to be a major load off her mind to be able to make it clear that she does not consent to being turned into one of them. So she’s basically just safe, huh? I would’ve partied hard.
Is Manousos coming to meet Carol?
Be honest. I know you want to switch lives with Diabate a little bit after seeing that he’s got different Lamborghinis for each day of the week, maybe just for a week or so. But Carol doesn’t. And that’s why we love her oh so much. If only she could feel that through the screen. But because she can’t, she has to feel like a complete crank getting into her humble police car and driving off. It wasn’t too nice of her to keep the non-English-speakers off the guest list when she met the other immune. But I think she is more than eager to meet Manousos Oviedo. He sounds like the only person who’d get her. And boy does she need to be understood by at least one darn person in the whole goddamn planet!
The final act takes us a few days back to meet the most enigmatic man on the show, Manousos Oviedo. I’m not too keen on figuring out what he’s been trying to do with the radio and the notes he keeps of the frequencies. Maybe he’s trying to do the same thing that the scientists were doing on the first episode of Pluribus? But that doesn’t matter too much as of yet. What matters, as it usually does, is hope. That’s what Manousos finds in the envelope that gets dropped off for his eyes and ears. Carol’s videos. Things are looking up for Manousos! I don’t think he knew anything about the hive-mind and what’s happened to everyone in the world until he watched Carol’s video. He doesn’t have a TV as far as his office goes, which is where he mostly is. And he doesn’t speak to the infected. So this has to be the first time that he’s learned something about the practically-apocalyptic event and the new people that came out of it. He now knows that they don’t lie. I wish he stayed around to get to know further. But Manousos’ patience has run as thin as it possibly can, and so has the fat reserves that his starving body can live off of. So he goes straight out for the first time because he has nothing to fear from these people. Awfully nice of one of his neighbors to have a stocked up fridge. Manousos has a full belly for his trip to America to meet Carol. Come on, he’s got to want to meet her now that he knows that she knows that they know that there’s a cure. That was intentional. Speaking of intentions, I bet the creepy woman who calls him “son” has only good ones. But she’s creepy alright. So it’s totally justified of Manousos to scoff at the hive mind’s pretentious (although, not really) affection. He wants none of it. Hell, he doesn’t even like his real mom. I can’t be the only one who’s terribly impatient to watch the pair of Carol and Manousos take on the hive-mind. Couple of grumps against a bunch of toxic-positive sheep-like people? Sign me up!
