Until the very end of Pluribus episode 7, “The Gap,” very little of the action on-screen seems crucial to the show’s overall plot. Compared to the density of some previous episodes, where revelations piled up with almost dizzying speed, “The Gap” feels sleepy and hypnotic — a deep-breath relief after the occasional terrors of the previous six installments. Series protagonist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) drives around Albuquerque, sings some songs, and entertains herself. Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) travels north, amid stunning landscapes. There are a lot of small incidents along the way for both of them, but almost nothing that significantly affects the story.
Until the end, at least, when two major shifts in the narrative hit home. And even before that, “The Gap” is Pluribus’ tensest episode since the pilot, in the most low-key ways.
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for Pluribus episodes 1-7.]
For Pluribus watchers with their own equivalent of Carol’s whiteboard, tracking revelations about the hivemind that’s taken over humanity, “The Gap” offers one significant reveal. When Manousos succumbs to his wounds and collapses in the jungle of the Darién Gap, the Others rescue him, ignoring his previous stated wishes to remain independent, and contradicting their repeated promises that they’ll respect the agency and choices of the handful of people worldwide who were immune to the Joining.
It isn’t the first time we’ve learned that the Others are capable of overruling the will of Originals like Carol and Manousos. Carol’s liaison Zosia (Karolina Wydra) made it clear early on that if the hivemind can figure out what made Carol and the others immune to the RNA rewriting that linked most of the planet, they’ll assimilate Carol against her will. That seems to be an exception to their normal rules — a “biological imperative,” as Zosia repeatedly says. But saving Manousos is something different. Can they ignore his directives because they’re saving his life? Because he’s unconscious and can’t protest or resist their help? Because respecting the Originals’ agency was always just a preference, not a stricture? It’s unclear, but it is clear that they’re willing to override what they know he wants.
That’s one of the few real revelations in an episode that mostly just observes Carol and Manousos on a collision course that, so far, only one of them knows is coming. “The Gap” sometimes feels like a hangout episode, just a collection of vibes, as the two characters each do their own thing. But there’s a deep sense of dread underlying the action, as a situation that seems to have reached an equilibrium heads toward a dangerous new tipping point.
For most of “The Gap,” it looks like Carol has come to terms with the new world order. After learning in the previous episode, “HDP,” that her fellow Originals have been meeting without her and cutting her out of all communications, she’s given up on trying to lead them against the hivemind. And after learning at the same time that the hivemind doesn’t have a scientific solution to her immunity — that she’s no longer on a deadline to dissolution — she clearly feels safe not only demanding things from them, but berating them for not living up to her exacting standards when she requests something frivolous just to flex her power.
She still hasn’t reached the level of hedonism enjoyed by her fellow Original Koumba Diabaté (Samba Schutte), but in “The Gap,” she focuses on enjoying herself for the first time since the Joining, instead of on fighting the hivemind. She drinks beer, sets off fireworks, and howls with the wild wolves she was previously afraid of. She basks in the water at a hot spring. She visits a museum, appropriates a Georgia O’Keeffe painting, and puts it on her wall at home. She sings to herself, particularly R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” And she does seem fine — or at least like she’s ready to stop fighting the rest of the world.
All of which makes Manousos’ slow, dogged progress from Panama to reach her in New Mexico feel like a slow-motion nightmare. His grim refusal to engage with the hivemind in any way paints him as a fanatic with an even more extreme response to the Others than Carol’s. His solitary project of mapping every radio frequency, looking for anomalies, shows he’s methodical, determined, and focused, where Carol is impulsive and emotional. He might be exactly what she needs — a counterbalance, an ally in the fight against the Others, and a companion — or he might disrupt every small bit of calm that Carol’s managed to find.
That’s what gives “The Gap” its tension: the sense that their inevitable meeting is going to change everything for both of them, and possibly for the hivemind, even while the situation is still in flux.
Manousos’ koan-like chant throughout his journey — “My name is Manousos Oviedo. I am not one of them. I wish to save the world.” — speaks to his own anxieties and his own humanities. He’s concerned about the language barrier between him and Carol. He’s anxious about being misunderstood, about not coming across clearly in their first meeting. He obviously thinks it’s important to work with someone else on the hivemind problem, even at the risk of a dangerous intercontinental journey alone. But even if he and Carol have goals in common, even if they’re both lonely and looking for allies, they’re still radically different people with different approaches to their problems.
The end of “The Gap” changes both of their situations in important ways. Carol faces her potential accidental death at the business end of a firework, and chooses not to resist. When her ersatz round of Firework Russian Roulette doesn’t kill her, she doesn’t seem relieved or disappointed, just numb. After that moment, possibly finally accepting how far she’s sunk into depression, loneliness, and despair, she calls for Zosia to return and breaks down weeping in her arms. Carol finally cracks and admits that she needs help.
Manousos doesn’t. Facing his own parallel death from infection, exposure, and dehydration, he opts not to call on the Others, and they save him anyway. That development is its own dangling sword of Damocles, as Pluribus continues to slowly parse out how the hivemind feels about its wayward missing links, and exactly what it can and can’t do to them or with them. “The Gap” isn’t an explosive episode, except in the most literal sense, as Carol blows things up and sets her own garage on fire. It’s a slow-burn installment that offers new insights about Carol and Manousos’ characters, and sets them up for a conflict that’s obviously going to change the game for both of them.
The irony is that, whenever Manousos does make it to Carol, he’s going to arrive a little too late. The version of Carol we see early in “The Gap” would likely have been happy for any encounter with a new person, and anyone on her side in resisting The Others. The version of her we see by the end has changed her relationship with them in a profound way that’s likely to have repercussions for the rest of the season. Every new piece of information we get about the Others and how they relate to the Originals changes the equation just a little, and their rescuing Manousos in “The Gap” seems like an important new development. But the shifts in the unaltered characters from episode to episode just keeps setting up bigger forms of tension. Who is Carol going to be by the time Manousos finally finds her?
Pluribus episodes 1-7 are now streaming on Apple TV.
