While all of progressive humanity is waiting for the final season of Stranger Things (starting today), I watched a few episodes of another fall premiere, Pluribus. The title refers to the famous American motto. I won't dwell on that, you can read about the motto in an old post E Pluribus Anus!
In short, aliens sent a magic glue to Earth from outer space. Everyone who licked it (or even sniffed it) instantly gets their brain glued to everyone else's! And all of humanity couldn't resist and got glued together. The result is a kind of collective consciousness, or a Hive Mind, if you like.
But instead of spawning up zerglings and showing the aliens what a classic Korean zerg rush is, the little humans with a hive mind are up to something strange. Namely, they're doing their best to court the few people on whom the glue for some reason didn't work. There are only a handful of them, but for some reason they're very important to the Hive Mind.
And one of these unglued ones turns out to be the main character, Carol Sturka. Agents of the Hive Mind, all cheerful and helpful, follow her around and help — bring her whatever she asks for, fly her around first class, clean up, make conversation. And they tell her straight: we don't know yet why you didn't get glued, but in a couple of months we'll definitely find out and then we'll glue you properly!
And Carol wonders too — what stopped her from joining the common happy matrix? Her stupid last name? Natural skepticism? The fact that she's always unhappy with everyone? Her stupid last name? And along the way she figures out how the glue-licking little humans work.
That's what Pluribus is about. It was created by Vince Gilligan, who gave the world Breaking Bad (and Better Call Saul). And it shows in almost every frame. Personally, I'm not a Walter White fan, but it would be silly to deny that the work is of very high quality. Pluribus is also technically well made, but plot-wise it's somehow odd. It's sort of interesting, and there are funny jokes, and it's clear what they're laughing at. But at the same time it's drawn out, as if on purpose, to spoon-feed it to every fool. And I can't say I really want to keep watching.
Some say it's turning out to be another masterpiece. But so far it seems like some kind of nonsense. Hard to tell.