Whether The Others Lied To Carol About Consent Explained By Vince Gilligan

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Pluribus season 1 finale.Vince Gilligan elaborates on whether “The Others” lied to Carol (Rhea Seehorn) concerning a central conflict between them throughout Pluribus season 1. Pluribus follows Carol, one of the few people immune when a signal from space infects the rest of the planet, joining them together into a happy hive mind. Repeatedly, The Others say that they are biologically driven to bring more people into their fold.

Carol is reassured and subsequently more willing to interact with the hive mind on peaceful terms when she believes that they cannot infect her without her consent. The Others discover that they need to harvest stem cells from each of the immune to create a version of the virus specifically tailored to them, but are unable to inflict physical harm; thus, they would need consent to perform an invasive procedure.

However, shockingly, in Pluribus season 1’s ending, Carol finds out from Zosia (Karolina Wydra) that The Others have retrieved the eggs Carol froze before “The Joining” and are creating stem cells from those. In a new interview with Variety, Gilligan commented that, “literally, the Others are very lawyerly.“ They told the truth, that they would need Carol’s consent to harvest stem cells in this manner.

It is, however, established that they don’t need explicit consent to infect people. “They don’t need consent to change people, of course,” says writer-EP Alison Tatlock, “because the premise of the show — right from the pilot — is that they change everybody as quickly as possible, first by kissing and eventually by planes flying overhead. If they could put their special spice in the water, they absolutely would.“

“What they do need is consent to intrude upon somebody’s physical being,” Tatlock continues. “So they couldn’t take her stem cells directly. But if her stem cells already exist — or if the eggs, which aren’t stem cells, can be converted through a tricky process into stem cells — and they’re already outside of her body, they’ll do it.“

Gilligan further said: “They can mislead you all the live-long day. Absolutely. We were talking about Perry Mason — the Raymond Burr version from the ’50s. The famous moment in that show is when someone says, ‘What if I told you the killer was on the street at 3?’ And later in the episode someone says, ‘You told me the killer was on the street at 3,’ and Raymond Burr says, ‘No, I said, what if I told you.’ That’s the key to it. For us, with these folks, they’re very lawyerly.“

Following this, Carol apparently ends her relationship with Zosia/The World and has them bring her home, recommitting to “saving the world,” one way or another, because she knows that her wishes will not be respected. While Carol had opened up to learning more about the hive mind, and the show does point out the positive aspects of The Joining, its protagonist draws the line at her personal autonomy.

Pluribus has had a hugely successful run with its first season, with audiences being as captivated by the Breaking Bad creator’s writing as ever. Pluribus is renewed for season 2, which will presumably see Carol on a more urgent timeline, as Zosia tells her that it will only be a month or so before they have what they need to force her to join them.