Would you be in a hurry to change a world where a drone delivers just the Gatorade you want right to you wherever you are? If you’re a stickler for your drink being at the perfect temperature, you might want to take it up with the manager. Much like Carol does in this very Judgement Day scenario she’s found herself in. No, it wasn’t my intention to go all religious in this space. But it seems Vince Gilligan’s show has chosen majorly biblical allegories to speak through in the 7th episode of Pluribus. We’ve got our Eve in Carol, trying to keep humanity going with her efforts to reverse the alien RNA infection. And we’ve got self-righteous suffering in Manousos’ Adam in the form of his gut-wrenching revolt against the creepy hive-mind. They light a lot of things on fire, alright. But “The Gap” boldly outlines the distance between Carol and Manousos’ respective protests. You have to read between the lines to pick up on what Pluribus wants you to notice about the nature of First World and Third World politics. But more importantly, it wants you to acknowledge the uniqueness of the language of a person’s fight, and maybe even try to see it their way. Especially if you don’t really see eye to eye.
Spoiler Alert
Like 4th of July with no apple pie
Red Gatorade, Fruit Punch, ice cold. How do you fulfill that request from one of the immune in Albuquerque when you’re still taking space from them and that’s why you gotta send a drone to do the job? The drone can only do half the job. Carol gets her Red Gatorade, but there’s nothing cold or icy about it. Sorry! But this won’t fly now that Carol’s gone all Karen after her meeting with Diabate. If most of the people in the world who still have a functional human brain up in their noggins want to break bread with human shells who eat dead people, it ain’t gonna be Carol’s problem! So she decides when she sings her heart out on her road trip to the gorgeous springs in Jemez. You might think that Carol’s having a total meltdown when she’s absolutely killing Nelly’s “Hot in Here” while skinny dipping, but I think she’s finally having the time of her life. Finally! She’s gotten all geared up to live and do whatever the hell her heart desires in the fallen world because, you know what? It’s not Carol’s mess to fix! So now that she feels a little lighter, she can appreciate the gifts of the world she hates oh so much. Golfing in the country club as a giant bison roams the green? Check. Setting fireworks and singing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” like it’s the 4th of July? Also, check. Outside has never looked as beautiful. And Carol’s going all out with a “just married” car she borrows from the Country Club. Humming “Georgia” while checking out the Georgia O’Keeffe museum might be the most relatable thing I’ve seen Carol do so far, other than “Hot in Here” of course. Carol’s just starting to realize that the best thing about her life right now is that she can just pick up the O’Keeffe painting that feels like peace and hope to her and take it home. She’s just starting to relish the fact that even if this is the end of humanity itself, she gets to go out being desperately human. What’s more human than actually living? And I mean calling-up-the-hive-mind-and-planning-a-whole-special-dinner-with-a special-menu-and-arriving-in-your-raddest-outfit-to-celebrate-humanity living? Because that’s what Carol does. And that’s her protest against all the joys that have been lost in the process of the majority of mankind losing their individuality. So if all she can do is live-out-loud, out-howl the wolves, stare right at the tilted firework in a Russian Roulette-esque moment of being okay with the idea of death, and then save the painting from her burning house as if it were the last memory of human gift, that’s her protest. A very American, privileged, yet absolutely genuine protest.
The Yellow Dog Chases the Gray Cat
You know Manousos. Handsome as ever with his perfectly fitted scarf and the can of gas that keeps his car going. It can’t be easy to make a journey from Asuncion to New Mexico without supplies, siphoning fuel from cars, but Manousos doesn’t want easy anyway. He’s the only man in the world, especially in contrast to the smiling face making sure he’s hydrated on his journey. To hell with hydration and kidney stones. Although here’s where that language-gap, found-in-translation, biblical allegory starts to take shape. When the man from the hive-mind asks Manousos to look up at the sky and seek their help, they’re practically saying they’re God. Because what do you mean “look up at the sky and just ask?” I bet that’s why Manousos even notices that Jesus charm in the car that he’s borrowed from somebody. And with Manousos, borrowed doesn’t mean stolen. Not at all. He’s the kind of man who believes in humanity so much that he still leaves money on a car after siphoning gas from it. A real hero. Maybe even “A real human being,” if you catch my drift. Alright alright. It’s a “Drive” reference. How could I do this without bringing up Gosling? We’ve all got imperatives, you see. And they’re found in the vivarium of our birth, our experiences, and our politics in regards to our socio-economical state. In Manousos’ case, there’s no American entitlement to comfort and assistance. There’s only the way he knows how to be a good man from Asuncion. This man doesn’t want water or food if the people giving it are intruders in his home. Because, you see, that’s how Manousos sees the hive-mind. They’ve come uninvited to the planet that’s home to Manousos, and now they want him to adapt to their way of life? Does anybody smell anything Colonial? Just Manousos? Just Carol? Okay. But I doubt that Carol’s even thought of it this way. She’s over there lighting fireworks and standing up for her country’s existence and importance in a world where maps aren’t even a thing anymore. But you’d never catch Manousos taking anything from these people, and that includes sound advice. That’s what they’re eager to give him when they find him just as he’s about to go for a dangerous hike. It can’t be a coincidence that our Adam and Eve’s journeys, though happening far apart, both end in the springs of their Garden of Eden. So how long till hellfire threatens this perfect paradise? And in this case, is hellfire even such a bad thing? Here’s the thing, though. Manousos’ rejection of these “people” doesn’t come about rationally. How can he even make up his mind about them when he doesn’t know anything about them. Trust me. Just the fact that he keeps his hand on his knife when he’s approached by one of them means that he thinks they might attack him or harm him. While Carol knows that they won’t do such a thing, Manousos’ idea of the hive-mind is coming from a place of trauma. Asuncion’s colonial history can’t be too simple a thing to cope with for a man who’s almost paranoid about the black and white. Oh yeah. Manousos is pretty extreme in his views of the right and wrong. Can you really blame him though? The only one he’s harming is himself when he rejects the hive-mind’s concern over him. He’d light a car on fire if that’s what gets these people to understand that he will never accept their help. He will never be able to swallow the water and the food and the care given to him by people who don’t belong here. That’s it for Manousos. You don’t expect him to ever betray a single ideal he believes in and lives by. The Garden is complete with our semi-suicidal Adam protesting the apocalyptic shift in the world at unimaginable cost. The life Manousos comes from has taught him that sacrifice and pain are the language of revolt. That’s quite the antithesis of how Carol’s going about her days. So when the Jesus charm burns with the car, what do you think the fire signifies? If the alien RNA and the radio signal “up in the sky” is God in this scenario, Manousos is fighting just that by asserting that he was here first. Man was here before God. Before the comments get predictable over what I just said, here’s something I keep repeating from time to time. I did not write Pluribus. But hey, here’s to mankind, because that’s where our first loyalties lie, eh?
Does Carol Accept The Hive-Mind?
Throughout Manousos’ excruciating journey, he’s been learning English from a pretty ancient tape. That’s just one of the ways the show’s trying to get you to understand that Manousos is a little anti-technology. I know the theories about his little ham radio are enticing, but if you ask me, I don’t think anything is going to come of it. Hell, Manousos will be lucky if he even survives this terrible hike he’s taken on. I don’t know about you. But I certainly would’ve stayed away from woods so dangerous that there are chunga palms with countless thorns covered in bacteria. To hell with life-threatening infection. He is Manousos. And he is not one of them. That’s what he keeps repeating over and over again as he cuts through the dense forests with his sharp machete. Again, what a hero! He’s learning a whole new language as he’s making his way to Carol through the most treacherous forests. The constant verbal reminder of his humanity is what keeps him going for long enough for you to even think this strange guy might just pull off the impossible. But since existence itself has to be taken, thorns and all, how could he avoid the terrifying slip that lands his back straight on a chunga palm? The scream! Oh, the scream of existence! It really makes you wonder if it was worth it at all. All this pain just to be human? Just to live by your values and try to make it? It also makes you wonder if there wasn’t a whole lot of cynicism masking itself as politics inside that peculiar mind of Manousos. He’s still trying. He’s even gone ahead and made a futile attempt at keeping his deep wounds from getting infected by cauterizing them with a smoldering knife. Was all this worth his values? Or is Carol the smart one to cope by going out there to play golf and break stuff? Depends on what your own politics and notions of the world are. But one thing is for certain. Even at the end of this utterly confusing experience, you can’t say that the hive-mind is the bad guy. They’re the ones swooping down from the sky to pick up Manousos and save him from himself when he passes out. The infection’s got to be bad. But now that Manousos’ life, to his biggest dismay, is in the hands of the hive-mind in the ending of this week’s episode, you know he’ll make it. He might just make it, only to undo the very people who saved him. In that way, could it be a metaphor for cynicism being the root of everything wrong? And in that case, you should be glad that Carol paints her driveway with a huge roller and writes “come back.” I think it was meant for Zosia. So it makes all the sense in the world that Carol goes in for a howling hug when they finally come back to her. When Zosia finally comes back to her. But you never know, though. Because if Gilligan wants to make the hive-mind the villain by the end of the first season of Pluribus, this might just be an Eve-taking-a-bite-of-the-poison-apple scenario. We all know that Manousos only needs to ask for Carol for these people to take him to her. So the meeting’s afoot. And that’ll change things on levels that we can’t even comprehend yet. But that’s why we love the show, right?
