Suitably creeped the hell out!
From the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul comes AppleTV’s newest series, Pluribus. Pluribus is written, directed and created by Vince Gilligan the mastermind behind Heisenberg and Jesse Pinkman, and his newest show is a far departure from the gritty crime drama. Pluribus in its advertisement flies under the radar in terms of revealing details on what the show is about. Based on the trailer I saw when browsing the AppleTV library one night, I learned that Pluribus is centred around a miserable woman named Carol whilst everyone else on the planet is unendingly happy.
Pluribus, separates itself from its predecessors by stepping in to the realm of sci-fi. Whilst the universe of Breaking Bad is kept grounded in reality, Pluribus within its opening minutes shares that it’s going to explore concepts and ideas brought upon our world from outside forces. I won’t go too much into details concerning the events of the pilot episode as the show has been pitched as a science fiction mystery and revealing critical plot details takes away from the intrigue of the adventure. But in passing conversation with other friends and colleagues who’ve watched the show, several people related to finding themes and tones from other popular projects some that I heard were: Black Mirror, Severance, Star Trek, Futurama, and even The Walking Dead.
The show feels very much like it’s a sibling of the Breaking Bad universe in how its physically shot, a lot of the cinematography and visual landscaping of scenes feel likes its ripped straight out of the previous shows. Between scenes in laboratories, dessert landscapes, and particular framing structure with characters. It also follows a similar tonal structure with it’s quirky fast paced moments to explain critical points in a character’s history and explaining plot points, but then massively slowing down in dramatic moments of high tense situations.
By the end of the pilot episode I was suitably intrigued and eager to learn more about what is in store for Carol. In a show that has promised many twists and turns from episode to episode it felt like so much of the shows story was revealed in the first episode. So if we know all of this now, what on earth could they be planning? What comes after what happened in this episode? Is the problem at hand something that we only see on Earth…?
Episode 2 of Pluribus is out now and I’m off to go learn more. But if you’re a fan of science fiction shows, or if you loved the writing from Vince Gilligan is previous years then this is one you’ll want to check out as it releases so it’s not spoiled. I’m telling you now, in a couple weeks time this will be the next big show people are raving about around the water coolers.
You can catch Pluribus on AppleTV+ with new episodes releasing every Friday.
