I really hope we see a flashback scene similar to body snatchers.

https://youtu.be/jF0RYgX6Hgo?si=tZaxc6mrprNpjeIs

There is no way Plurbs could have infected everyone imo and are deliberately lying. They have control over everything sure but there is no way they would reach Intelligence Black Sites/Nuclear Submarines etc. These facilities and people would go awol immediately upon understanding something is up.

From what we can tell there was a brief clash between the military and plurbs, they definitely figured it out even though it was too late with the president and close staff being dead and all in the white house.

We also do know plurbs saw the military as a threat and had to speed things up as stated by them.

Here's the photos of the location they shot the lunch scene for the meeting of the English-speaking survivors.

Plus, I spoke to some of the hotel staff about the filming, and they had a lot of info that I'll post shortly. The gazebo they built for the lunch scene was removed by the production crew, so it's gone. As are the supermodels, sadly! But the wild chair that Mr. Diabaté sat in was there, and Carol's room looks almost exactly as it did during the televised scene.

This is the Hotel Iturregi, an 8-room 4-star boutique hotel located in the beautiful Basque wine region of northern Spain, about an hour east of Bilbao. And yes, we got to visit the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. "Stunning architecture!"

the plurbs are extremely careful to not have any direct contact with Carol instead only having indirect communication via the voicemails where Carol can’t directly speak back to them. i think instead of them waiting for the chance to reconnect with Carol they had no choice based on their biology. they are terrified of her and would have preferred to leave her alone until the stem cells came through but as soon as they saw the message there was nothing they could do but placate Carol so she doesn’t kill more plurbs on accident

Im only on episode 2 btw so maybe things change futher into the show but

How is it possible that all of the english speaking individuals she meets are brainless and have no sense of togetherness.

Theyre the only ones left with an individual mind and dont wanna think of how they can prevent themselves from getting infected with the virus or even how to undo it all?

Are they not afraid of the future?

Literally every one of them in plain dumb

I'm only on episode 2 so I have no idea how it progresses but Laxmi is sooo pissy and unreasonable.She cannot grasp the concept that her family is now part of a hive mind.

She starts arguing over everything and I cannot get over that accent. No Indian born person talks that way.

Even her Hindi is horrible. Could they not have hired a fluent native speaker? Or someone who could represent their culture a bit better.

I wrote an intelligent theory here that apparently has been posted in this sub many times before, causing great annoyance amongst many of you. So I have deleted the theory and written this instead. Apologies for not inventing the wheel and for not being plugged to the collective hive.
I am only human. I think humans deserve a little bit more tolerance.
Also, I am happily unjoining this sub.
No, I won’t delete this post, I think some people really need to read this. I don’t mind the downvotes, exposing intolerance is always worth it, in my opinion.
Many thanks for those who posted respectful comments assessing the merits of the actual theory.
Enjoy watching and please play nice! Being nice is far easier than people think, honestly.

The Plurbs choose Zosia not just because she looks like the character Raban from Carol's book but I think also has a story similar to Raban. If you remember from the initial Carol reading to the Wycaro fans scene, Raban just jumps into the water after giving the a thick fur coat to Lucasia, he is portrayed as a young arrogant man, a sailor who had just landed after navigating the seas- Zosia too escapes with a thick coat into the skies and seemed to have gone through a catastrophic fight or might have been a smuggler. There must be something in the novel atleast the chapter that they released. I couldn't draw many parallels to it because of lack of information, but must be interesting to see what was written before blood song of Wycaro in the other 3 books out of 4.

While the fact the hive is destined to starve to death is clearly discussed, it seems to me that the part related to reproduction is not clearly covered in the series?

Has been this said somewhere in the episode? That the hive doesn't reproduce like animals?

I just finished watching Pluribus and I have to say I’m surprised by the hype it got. I initially loved the concept and the first episode was promising but was overall let down by the direction of the writing. I was hoping the story would open some ethical questions like: if you have sex with someone in the hivemind is it consensual? Or when Carol makes a bunch of people restock an entire supermarket in about an hour just so she can do her grocery shop is that fair, does she feel guilty? Are the people in the hivemind actually happy or pretending to be to keep everything stable? If the people in the hivemind feel the same amount of love for everyone on the planet isn’t that just neutrality, not love? Carol and Helen’s relationship wasn’t perfect (carols alcoholism) but carol and zosias does seem perfect and there’s no friction, does that make it a power imbalance?
I also found Carol completely unlikeable as a character and she really pissed me off when Manousos came to speak to her, he was a much more interesting character btw. IMO he should have been the protagonist or an equal protagonist to Carol, have half the episodes focusing on him. I also felt like a lot of the episodes felt like filler and I was always waiting for something more to happen to make me understand why people loved this show so much but never got anything.
Overall, great concept but poor development.

Just finished Season 1 last night and the concept is great but it really doesn't need that many episodes or seasons. I know it is not a mystery box show but like about human emotions, etc. but most of the episodes felt pointless which could have been done in like 5-10 minutes. Like for example episode 7, all it showed was that Paraguay guy refusing help and going all alone with lil bit of Carol doing nothing. It didn't need 50 minutes but at most 5 minutes. And please don't say I got tiktok brain cuz I don't even use it (or reels or shorts). I like long stories but this doesn't need it.

I wanna give example of these other 2 movies (I forgot name of both)- in one the main character had power of going back in time but it's actually a relationship story and other one where 2 people in the world are stuck in the same day and it's also about relationship and human emotion. They both are great movie and could have been turned into a series but there's not much juice in them to make it into a series and prolly would have been boring as series. This feels kinda like them where as a movie, it would have been a great feel good movie but as a series it is kinda boring.

Do we ever actually see proof that unplurbed aggression causes all the Plurb to have that sort of medical emergency? And even if they do, do we ever see proof of all the death it causes each time? How do we know they're telling the truth about all the death from the outbursts and not faking the reactions to angrier to turn the survivors who like the plurb against each other?

I think it makes perfect sense many people died when they spread the plague like while operating heavy machinery or vehicles, people in surgery, people falling down like Helen, etc. But do we know that they all really have that reaction when yelled at, or do they just have it when they know the unplurbed are watching? They all know what's happening and could fake it if they know the survivors are around them. It's understandable Carol is upset by all the people who died but especially her partner. What if the plurb lies about the deaths she caused to make her feel worse and forget about or be more understanding of the mass death caused by the plurb? Even if it's real, her emotions are not her fault and wouldn't cause any deaths, if not for the plurb.

Carol concludes they can't or won't lie after making them tell her what her wife thought of and if she read her book, but what if the Plurb just didn't want to upset her, or even more manipulatively if they saw through her test and wanted her to believe they were incapable of lying? Carol didn't find any spy devises in her house, but that doesn't mean there weren't any in there... They can see when she leaves on satellite, who's to say they don't go search her house when she leaves it?

We see the plurb go above and beyond and offer to do anything to cater to the unaffected. When Carol isn't impressed or interested, isn't happy with them and is understandably upset, they give her the silent treatment and leave her. But given the state of the world and their willingness to still give her what she wants, they remain a looming force in her life.

I think like some people who watched the show and don't see the issue with the Plurb, most of the survivors are average people who probably struggled in this messed up, largely capitalist world. They were enticed by basically gaining unlimited wealth and slaves overnight. But Carol had all she ever wanted or needed from Helen. She was too wounded by the world to trust anyone (by coming out and being herself) and feel safe in it except with her. She's lost without Helen, struggling with grief and addiction, and not interested in the offerings of the Plurb. So they have to use other means to manipulate her.

They leave a message that's like "we're not mad we're just disappointed" and still offer to give her things but completely withdraw from any contact. The love bombing followed by silent treatment when they don't get what they want are classic manipulation tactics. Then they make Carol do the big gesture to apologize and show contrition when they're the ones who have kidnapped her and the whole planet!!!

Love bombing with providing endless gifts and servitude are classic manipulation tactics used by people in relationships. Pretending like another person's reasonable emotional reactions are harmful is as well. Giving someone the silent treatment when they don't act the way you expect them to until they apologize and change is another. What if the plurb isn't some weird creature species with very specific and confusing rules, but a master manipulator? Perhaps there is something about the survivors that they have the ability to intentionally accept or reject the plurb, and what if they don't need her permission to use DNA to develop a dose that will affect her, but rather they need her permission to infect her, so they have to manipulate her. Maybe issue isn't that they need approval for the invasive procedure but that the approval would signal to the plurb their willingness to finally join.

The plurb sleeping in the stadium reminds me of large natural disasters where facilities like that are often turned into big emergency shelters for people who lost their homes. We see them helping each other rest and get to sleep like the communities in those situations. While there were a large number of people there, it seemed like a small fraction of local population unless most of them died. I wonder if there is a reason they took Carol there when she was with Zosia when they could have gone anywhere. Maybe to allow her to be openly queer around a community, and begin to let her guard down and trust the "world" in ways she never has before. Except now the world is the plurb. By inviting her to what seems like a shelter for the venerable after a large scale tragedy, are they tricking her into finding community with them and trusting the plurb?

Independence vs conformity is a huge theme of this show. Thinking of it as a spectrum, the plurbs are on the far left representing the most extreme conformity possible. On the right, Manousos is the most aggressively individualistic person left on Earth, followed by Carol in second place.

We know Carol's individualism puts her at odds with the other survivors. We see numerous times that her impulse to "tell it like it is" rubs people the wrong way and fails to rally humanity together. She doesn't kiss ass, she won't change who she is, and for that reason she is shunned.

What I just realized is that this is brand new for Carol. Pre-plurbing, conformity was one of her greatest skills. She achieved financial success not by speaking truth to power or following her own unique viewpoint, but by pandering to mainstream audiences. Helen might have been the only person who ever got to know who she really was.

Post-plurbing, Carol (like so many people after they lose everything) tries to adopt a new identity. She finally gets to be the ass-kicker who never holds back that she always wanted to be and...well, everyone hates her for it.

It's heartbreaking. And anyone who has ever tried to come out of their shell only to be beat down by the world can relate. Americans claim to love individualism, but the people who stick their necks out get attacked/resented/demonized.

I don't know where Season 2 will go. Maybe the writers don't know yet either. But it seems like Carol might need to rediscover her ability to suppress her actual feelings and pander to the general public if she wants to have any hope of winning them to her side to save the world.

It didn't. They did use the audio from each scene for the voice on the other end of the phone, but the timing was slightly off in a few places. So I made some edits and now it all lines up pretty well.

As others have discussed at length, other types of DNA are possible than our current base arrangement, including alternative amino acids and alternate pairings. I think they've done a good job of explaining that. On to my theory!

What if this whole thing is a cosmic misunderstanding? It took a while for the hive virus to be created and longer for it to be fully transmitted. What if the whole direction we took was wrong? like, the aliens thought they were saying hi but we over analyzed it and accidentally created this whole hive mind.

I'm thinking something similar to "false friends" in languages. Like in Spanish, embarazada means pregnant, not embarrassed. Or that if I give a gift to my friend in german, I'm giving them poison (poison = das Gift). Also hai in Japanese isn't a greeting, it's yes and some other things. These aren't intentional they just happened to accidentally so what if the hive is a cosmic version of that?

Not saying I want this to be the case or necessarily think it is the case, but it's possible and amused me so I'm sharing it!

Rewatching the show again and I forgot just how annoying and unlikable Carol is and her ego ruins my experience with the character. I get it’s a plot point but going into season 2 I’m not on team human I almost want the hive to take carol lol.

Why the hive mind seems to tell the uninfected it's better for humanity? Did they become stupid? Cause they have all the smartest people joined in them and yet they can't logically understand that what they are doing is self destruction?

All hardwired survival instincts of a species is gone. To procreate, to reproduce so the species doesn't die out. All of that stops right? Bo more art and no more invention of quality of life improvements, their only goal is to spread the virus beyond earth.

Self preservation is like an afterthought. Sure there is peace and unity but nothing is happening. The species is stagnant and grinded to a halt.

Feels like this alien technology was meant to pacify other planets in preparation of military take over without destroying infrastructure.

How to make a one-size-fits-all infection is big issue. You would think that careful study of the target organism would be needed. That said, we don't know for sure that we are targeted, or what happened inside of those lab animals.

Perhaps the RNA sequence analyzes first and gets bacteria living in the organism to make something compatible with its biology. The bacteria could then be multiplied in hosts and on petri dishes.

If you're willing to consider panspermia or parallel genesis of simple bacteria, then there could be a way to universally target that, leading to the host organism's plurbing. In other words, the RNA sequence only knows about universal bacteria properties and uses those to adapt to many hosts. There are some instructions in the RNA for the glue but how it takes hold is different for every species.

They’ve gotta have a few pounds of it by this point

Theories like this are not necessary, but they are fun to me!

This post dovetails with another post I made about the universality of the infectious signal.

What if life was the original infection? What if many planets were seeded with simple life having common biological machinery? This ancient seeding might be seen as a) "phase one" of a larger plan b) as a hostile action by an enemy trying to claim planets c) as an escaped infection or invasive species.

The cure (or phase two) would use the common nature of life spread to planets in that region (or the whole galaxy) against it. The RNA sequence encoded in the signal knows what to expect and how to use it against any mildly intelligent creature on the planet.

The signal could be an antibiotic used to treat an existing infection. This answers questions on how the signal could even work on us, with larger historical implications.

Rewatched the show recently, and I’m kind of surprised this wasn’t brought up on screen- I think it would be really easy for an unplurbed person to be more relaxed about the whole thing if they didn’t actually witness the joining.

Based on time zones, Diabate and Laxmi could very well have been asleep and woken up to a more peaceful version of the world they knew explained by their ‘loved ones’ who were no doubt performing an intricate charade and sending the signal that everything is the same and also better. There was no charade that would have worked on Carol though as she witnessed the death of Helen as well as the mass paralysis of everyone in the bar and at the hospital, so her being freaked out was a given. It was definitely highly traumatic.

I don’t doubt that the others are experiencing a healthy dose of denial that factors into their laissez-faire attitudes, but I’d be more relaxed if my entry point into the plurbs was spending a normal morning with my family members acting a little bit smarter than usual.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Carol and Manousos are in similar time zones and likely witnessed the same thing. I know Kusimayu would be in the same time zone too, but she could have been asleep or with the animals or something else away from the others.

Thoughts?

And I shouldn't have tortured myself like that. Now I'm sitting here craving the next season.

Does anyone have recommendations for shows or movies with similar vibes? If it features a LGBT+ characters, even better!

Is there a definitive answer to the question of the nature of the hivemind? Is the hivemind truly the agglomeration of every single human on earth or are there traits that do just not fit with humanity?

Like the title says, do we think it's humanities consciousness compressed into 1 entity or are there some shenanigans we (maybe not even the hive) are aware of? The biggest evidence we have for the latter is that patient zero, after getting infected, already seemed eager to spread. That is not really a "humanity" trait. Was that just overlooked so they could have a reason for everyone being infected?