In the second episode of Pluribus<\/em>, Apple TV+\u2019s horror\/science fiction\/social theory thriller about a brain virus from outer space, Carol (Rhea Seehorn) references a familiar premise. After mentioning \u201cpod people,\u201d a term first used in Jack Finney\u2019s 1955 novel, The Body Snatchers<\/em>, Carol barks, \u201cI\u2019ve seen this movie. We\u2019ve all seen this movie. And we know it does not end well.\u201d<\/p>\n Finney\u2019s pod people premise, understood as anti-Soviet messaging, was that parasitic aliens were replacing individual humans with bodies grown in pods sprouted from alien seeds. The aliens looked and sounded just like humans, but behaved as mindless, docile automatons, with no individuality and a hive mind. There have been four official Hollywood adaptations of Finney\u2019s work (I enthusiastically recommend the 1978 version, Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>; it\u2019s the best of the bunch) and the trope has been modified for various zombie and undead pictures, as well as on Star Trek<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n In the second episode of Pluribus<\/em>, Apple TV+\u2019s horror\/science fiction\/social theory thriller about a brain virus from outer space, Carol (Rhea Seehorn) references a familiar premise. After mentioning \u201cpod people,\u201d a term first used in Jack Finney\u2019s 1955 novel, The Body Snatchers<\/em>, Carol barks, \u201cI\u2019ve seen this movie. We\u2019ve all seen this movie. And we know it does not end well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Finney\u2019s pod people premise, understood as anti-Soviet messaging, was that parasitic aliens were replacing individual humans with bodies grown in pods sprouted from alien seeds. The aliens looked and sounded just like humans, but behaved as mindless, docile automatons, with no individuality and a hive mind. There have been four official Hollywood adaptations of Finney\u2019s work (I enthusiastically recommend the 1978 version, Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>; it\u2019s the best of the bunch) and the trope has been modified for various zombie and undead pictures, as well as on Star Trek<\/em>.<\/p>\n What makes the conceit\u2019s permutation in Pluribus<\/em> so devious, and so pertinent to the times, is that succumbing to the virus\u2014pooling your consciousness into a benign collective\u2014might actually be leveling up. The show is daring enough to suggest that maybe our natural defensive instincts against such a radical transformation are incorrect, more akin to a zealous luddite viewing any technology they don\u2019t understand as evil. It may at first seem to be a COVID tale, but Pluribus <\/em>is most interesting when it becomes a kind of prediction model for an AI-led society<\/a>. It even dares to question if a world run by machine learning and automated decision-making might be the only panacea for modern life.<\/p>\n A still from the TV show Pluribus<\/i>.Apple TV<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pluribus<\/em> comes to us from Vince Gilligan, whose big break was writing for The X-Files<\/em> and whose later creations include Breaking Bad <\/em>(which has tremendous Star Trek cred<\/a>) and Better Call Saul<\/em>. Both shows are about how corrupted institutions (health care and the legal system, respectively) can trigger a moral decay in someone, slowly turning a hero into a villain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though set in New Mexico like his previous two shows, Pluribus<\/em> reverses the established Gilligan arc. Carol is not exactly evil when we meet her, but she\u2019s hardly warm and fuzzy; she is an author of fantasy fiction who loathes the fans that gobble up her work, which she considers junk. She\u2019s kind of mean to her wife and is quick to use alcohol as a crutch (a court-ordered breathalyzer lock on her car deftly adds tension during one suspenseful scene). What she doesn\u2019t know is that astronomers have recently detected strange radio patterns, which they soon discover is an RNA sequence.<\/p>\n These dummkopfs then create the strain in a lab and, well, there\u2019s a leak. Gilligan recreating what many, including those in , feel certain is COVID\u2019s origin is just one example of poking the bear; the disease is then later spread via that old war horse conspiracy theory: chemtrails<\/a>. Carol, just back with her manager-wife from a book tour, watches as everyone around her in an Albuquerque bar has a seizure and collapses. (Her wife bashes her head and dies.) A news broadcast directed solely at her reveals she is one of the very few (only 13 worldwide) who are naturally immune to the virus. Everyone else still living is now part of the \u201cWe\u201d\u2014they have total shared consciousness and knowledge, with no leadership. There is no one steering the ship, just group euphoria and a drive to spread the word to other planets for what the We sees\u2014knows<\/em>\u2014is the betterment of all, the true righteous evolution.<\/p>\n This is a reversal of the familiar trope of a malevolent entity tempting heroes to their doom. The most striking example for me is the fifth Halloween-themed Simpsons<\/em> special, \u201cTreehouse of Horror V\u201d (1994), one of the annual episodes where horror, science fiction, and fantasy cliches are tossed in a blender. In this one, Ned Flanders is evil and rules the world thanks to mass lobotomization (it\u2019s called \u201cre-Neducation\u201d). Homer, ironically, is the only one left with his mind intact. Bart and Lisa approach him with their brains in jars and, in a sing-song tone, plead, \u201cJoin us, Faaaaaaather.\u201d Marge then appears with a truly bonkers look in her eyes and declares, \u201c.\u201d (For over 30 years, I\u2019ve been oddly disturbed by this image and I\u2019m glad to know I\u2019m not the only one<\/a>.)<\/p>\n But what if it wasn\u2019t a gravelly voiced lunatic Marge Simpson, but someone sent across the globe because she most resembles your dream woman, backed up by nearly everyone on the planet urging you to take just one puff of an opiate that will grant you eternal happiness? In such a scenario, one would eventually begin to have doubts. This is the situation our hero, Carol, finds herself in, and the series is so richly written and nuanced that I did find myself questioning just how well I\u2019d stand up to a pod people menace\u2014or whether it\u2019s even such a menace at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Naturally, as the hero of any sci-fi television show should be, Carol is resistant. The Others, as they are called, can grant her any wish, so she organizes a summit of all the English-speaking immune. She is shocked to learn that they do not want to fight back. One dude is having a blast sleeping around and living in great wealth. What\u2019s more, some, especially those with families, wish to be cured of their immunity and hope they can be included in \u201cthe Joining.\u201d<\/p>\n And this is where that old Marge Simpson moment kicks in. Despite Carol\u2019s hard front, which lasts several episodes, there are twists and turns to the narrative that lead her to see the wisdom of the old saw, \u201cIf you can\u2019t beat them, join them.\u201d Life for Carol, especially with her handler Zosia (Karolina Wydra), with whom she begins a physical relationship, has its definite perks. Anything she wants, she can have in no time. Zosia is the collected memory of everyone Carol has ever encountered, including her late wife whose consciousness was uploaded into the hive mind before she died. Seehorn\u2019s tough-as-nails Carol starts to weaken. This is very much like those sad stories you hear<\/a> about people who fall in love with ChatGPT and their lives crumble. (Less sad: Stan Marsh\u2019s idiot dad on South Park <\/em>becoming addicted to the program and annoying his family<\/a> with it.)<\/p>\n In an interview with Polygon<\/a>, Gilligan ducked a direct question about ChatGPT\u2019s influence on the show. \u201cI have not used ChatGPT, because as of yet, no one has held a shotgun to my head and made me do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI will never use it. No offense to anyone who does.\u201d That\u2019s a great quote from a marvelous writer, but someone as intelligent as Gilligan has read up on the technology even if they reject it.<\/p>\n The Others constantly behave in ways reminiscent of a ChatGPT conversation. All interactions are affirming and complimentary. They are proactive with helpful suggestions, \u201cyes, and<\/a>\u201d-ing in creative ways to make things better. In life, ChatGPT will take your verbal vomit and spiff it up into something resembling a business letter. On the show, the hive-minded Others will quickly assemble and restock a supermarket or fix a house from fire damage.<\/p>\n The trouble comes when the entity misunderstands human cues. The Others give Carol a live grenade that nearly kills her, because a jokey remark slipped through the cracks. Scenes like that play into larger existential fears about AI, like the ones found in the blockbuster book with the Samuel Z. Arkoff-style title If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies<\/a>. <\/em>What\u2019s so fresh about Carol\u2019s interactions with the Others is how, following growth and adjustments on her side (as well as theirs, following this and other violent near-misses), everyone begins to get on with a new way of living. Pluribus<\/em> seems to be on board with the prophecies that say AI will take over, but offers an alternative vision\u2014beyond the sky falling\u2014of what it may look like.<\/p>\n Seehorn (right) and Karolina Wydra as Zosia in Pluribus<\/i>.Apple TV<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I think, however, Pluribus <\/em>is so effective because the forthcoming AI apocalypse that keeps many of us up at night is just one of several catastrophes happening in the world right now. (Close your eyes and click on any Foreign Policy <\/em>link on this page to learn more!) If ever there were a time for a threat from a distant star, it\u2019s now, and many of us would shrug and say, \u201cSure, what\u2019s one more thing?\u201d Gilligan\u2019s show debuted in November 2025. None of us were alive during the Civil War, but even those who were around in 1968<\/a> will agree that right now is particularly bananas. And I think a lot of us would do anything to just get everyone to chill out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To give a personal example, I occasionally look at my town\u2019s Facebook page to ask if, say, a newly opened restaurant has good wonton soup. Within 60 seconds, I see the most vicious hate speech imaginable. I happen to live in a county that leans red in a blue state, making everyone ready for an online fight. Outside in the real world, this is a fine place to live, but on my computer screen it\u2019s bad impulses, bad faith, and bad vibes. Is this what my neighbors are actually like, and, with just a slight nudge, they\u2019d all turn into monsters?<\/p>\n This direct look at the intense polarization asphyxiating U.S. society is the primary subject of one of the finest movies of last year, something that works as an antithesis to the calm, if disease-born, harmony in Pluribus<\/em>: Ari Aster\u2019s Eddington<\/em>.<\/p>\n Like Pluribus<\/em>, the film happens to be set in New Mexico (in a fictional town called Eddington), in my mind cementing these two works as being in dialogue with one another. Not that any characters in Eddington<\/em> understand the concept of dialogue. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as a small-town sheriff and Pedro Pascal as its mayor. It\u2019s 2020, during the days of mandatory masking and other COVID-era protections. Phoenix is skeptical of the lockdown rules, Pascal wants them enforced. Things escalate, residents joins sides, the Black Lives Matter movement comes to town, some join just to look cool, everyone is posting everything to Facebook, and eventually the whole place dissolves into madness. It is a deeply nihilistic yarn, but you shouldn\u2019t fear that it\u2019s the movie equivalent of attending a No Kings march or Turning Point USA rally. It\u2019s actually a sharp and extremely witty social satire, a frenzied 2025 version of Robert Altman\u2019s Nashville<\/em>, with more jokes. It divided critics and received not a single Oscar nomination, but it\u2019s the movie from 2025 I probably think about the most (along with Marty Supreme<\/em>), even though it gave me a stomachache from stress.<\/p>\n Everyone has their own way of dealing with vibes as catastrophic as the ones we\u2019ve got humming around us right now. I find it helpful to occasionally take a deep soak in them, but with fantasy premises. Strategic foresight never suffered from a little entertainment value. Neither Pluribus <\/em>nor Eddington<\/em> are what you\u2019d call happy. Yet they offer vastly different perspectives on the problem of intense polarization. Pluribus<\/em>\u2019 big stick of AI bringing unity at any cost may not be the solution, but it sure seems a little more pleasant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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