Pluribus 1.06
Dec. 5th, 2025 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which I had to google this week's celebrity cameo because his fame had eluded me in my corner of the world for now, but I was amused by the rest, and felt for Carol.
First confirming and then deconstructing the Soylent Green trope was a neat twist on it. Seems Gilligan is aware that while consuming human bodies is still a big taboo, it just isn't such a shocker anymore after several decades of use. So poor Carol, convinced she has finally found the smoking gun that will motivate the other non-Hive people left on Earth to join her cause, gets deflated when bring the news to the only fellow survivor whose whereabouots she knows and who is on the same continent, i.e. Kumba the Wannabe Casanova, only to learn that he knows, so do the others (except one), and also they have zoom calls twice a week which most of them really do not want Carol to join. Being ghosted by the Hive Mind is one thing, but being rejected by (seemingly) all the people left who are in the same situation you are in: Rhea Seahorn's face was a study in silent pain until Carol made it the bathroom where she could cry unobserved. Not that she didn't learn useful info as well during her trip to Vegas, this time cheerfully explained to her by a recording of John Cena, aka the celebrity I had to google. In which she and we learn the Hive weren't kidding about their strict no-kill policy including plants, meaning they have a substenance problem, hence the "HIP" drinks. And Kumba tells her that even with this, there is the prospect of mass starvation on the horizon.
(Seriously, whoever designed the virus clearly wanted to wipe out the receiving species.)
She also gets the good news that she won't be assimilated any time soon because the Hive have now figured out that in order to assimilate the survvors, they'd need to get their stem cells, which is enough of a painful and invasive procedure that they can't do it without their strict consent, which Carol of course won't give. Interestingly, for the time being nor will Kumba, who is otherwise living out his best life, aka his personal James Bond fantasy, staged for him by the Hive. With all the photos and paintings of him, there is of course an echo of You-Know-Who, enough to make me queasy, but otoh Kumba with all his skeeviness is more dimensional, and by that I don't just mean he's reliably courteous to Carol. I'm pretty sure he hasn't been rich before the Joining happened (hence, for example, him imitating the way Carol eats the breakfeast he has prepared for her, and of course the fact he can prepare breakfast - the superrich have other people doing that for them), which makes it a bit more understandable why he jumped on the chance to live out his fantasies. (Though it still means the whole sex-with-supermodels part is as "how can they meaningfully consent when in a hive mind?" dubious as ever.)
The other man of the episode shows up in the last sequence; Manutos (spelling?) has actually received the first video Carol had sent last week, subtitled as requested, and because he's been isolating himself completely, this is the first time he learns about other survivors (other than Carol) and the fact the Joining can be reversed. And he, the one character less social than Carol, reacts with the silent awe and hope she must have been hoping for, and finally leaves his isolation and dog food behind in order to start his journey to the US to meet up with Carol. But not before an exchange with the woman who had been bringing the food he daily rejected. Whose body turns out to be that of his mother. Very much unlike Lakshmi with her son, Manutos is NOT willing to see his mother in this woman; I guess the total difference in personality might even have been what tipped him off back when Joining happened.
(Would Carol have been willing to see a Hive-controlled Helen as Helen had she lived?)
It didn't escape me that the prospect of a tenth of the world population being threatened by starvation despite the whole Soylent Green supplies could work as motivation for the other survivors to join Carol in wanting the Joining reversed after all, and presumably it is a big reason why Kumba is not willing to give up his individuality yet. (Well, that and as himself, he gets served and waited upon as much as he wants, superstar-style, wheraes as a member of the Hive, he'd be on a liquid diet and might have to do the serving. Never mind concern for the future of the human race, that's not a real choice for an egotist.) But even if she's soon no longer alone in her efforts, whether with Manutos or some of the others, the question of the "How?" still remains as elusive as ever... or does it? Because I think that might be where the one radio frequency Manutos has found where he doesn't hear white noise but some weird sounds could come in. After all, the original virus was created by decyphering a space broadcast. Maybe the antidote as well?
First confirming and then deconstructing the Soylent Green trope was a neat twist on it. Seems Gilligan is aware that while consuming human bodies is still a big taboo, it just isn't such a shocker anymore after several decades of use. So poor Carol, convinced she has finally found the smoking gun that will motivate the other non-Hive people left on Earth to join her cause, gets deflated when bring the news to the only fellow survivor whose whereabouots she knows and who is on the same continent, i.e. Kumba the Wannabe Casanova, only to learn that he knows, so do the others (except one), and also they have zoom calls twice a week which most of them really do not want Carol to join. Being ghosted by the Hive Mind is one thing, but being rejected by (seemingly) all the people left who are in the same situation you are in: Rhea Seahorn's face was a study in silent pain until Carol made it the bathroom where she could cry unobserved. Not that she didn't learn useful info as well during her trip to Vegas, this time cheerfully explained to her by a recording of John Cena, aka the celebrity I had to google. In which she and we learn the Hive weren't kidding about their strict no-kill policy including plants, meaning they have a substenance problem, hence the "HIP" drinks. And Kumba tells her that even with this, there is the prospect of mass starvation on the horizon.
(Seriously, whoever designed the virus clearly wanted to wipe out the receiving species.)
She also gets the good news that she won't be assimilated any time soon because the Hive have now figured out that in order to assimilate the survvors, they'd need to get their stem cells, which is enough of a painful and invasive procedure that they can't do it without their strict consent, which Carol of course won't give. Interestingly, for the time being nor will Kumba, who is otherwise living out his best life, aka his personal James Bond fantasy, staged for him by the Hive. With all the photos and paintings of him, there is of course an echo of You-Know-Who, enough to make me queasy, but otoh Kumba with all his skeeviness is more dimensional, and by that I don't just mean he's reliably courteous to Carol. I'm pretty sure he hasn't been rich before the Joining happened (hence, for example, him imitating the way Carol eats the breakfeast he has prepared for her, and of course the fact he can prepare breakfast - the superrich have other people doing that for them), which makes it a bit more understandable why he jumped on the chance to live out his fantasies. (Though it still means the whole sex-with-supermodels part is as "how can they meaningfully consent when in a hive mind?" dubious as ever.)
The other man of the episode shows up in the last sequence; Manutos (spelling?) has actually received the first video Carol had sent last week, subtitled as requested, and because he's been isolating himself completely, this is the first time he learns about other survivors (other than Carol) and the fact the Joining can be reversed. And he, the one character less social than Carol, reacts with the silent awe and hope she must have been hoping for, and finally leaves his isolation and dog food behind in order to start his journey to the US to meet up with Carol. But not before an exchange with the woman who had been bringing the food he daily rejected. Whose body turns out to be that of his mother. Very much unlike Lakshmi with her son, Manutos is NOT willing to see his mother in this woman; I guess the total difference in personality might even have been what tipped him off back when Joining happened.
(Would Carol have been willing to see a Hive-controlled Helen as Helen had she lived?)
It didn't escape me that the prospect of a tenth of the world population being threatened by starvation despite the whole Soylent Green supplies could work as motivation for the other survivors to join Carol in wanting the Joining reversed after all, and presumably it is a big reason why Kumba is not willing to give up his individuality yet. (Well, that and as himself, he gets served and waited upon as much as he wants, superstar-style, wheraes as a member of the Hive, he'd be on a liquid diet and might have to do the serving. Never mind concern for the future of the human race, that's not a real choice for an egotist.) But even if she's soon no longer alone in her efforts, whether with Manutos or some of the others, the question of the "How?" still remains as elusive as ever... or does it? Because I think that might be where the one radio frequency Manutos has found where he doesn't hear white noise but some weird sounds could come in. After all, the original virus was created by decyphering a space broadcast. Maybe the antidote as well?
no subject
Date: 2025-12-05 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-06 07:19 pm (UTC)I like that this is a show without twists, but with turns instead - it was clear it was bodies, and Carol putting the pieces together on her own was good detective work with her limited resources, and as you said, having it be something the rest of the group already knew is itself more of a shock. When John Cena explained they wouldn't even pick apples, I had the thought that the Hive represents the absolute pinnacle of a certain kind of White Person Vegan.