This is it, Carol: the season one finale of Pluribus. Vince Gilligan’s sci-fi standout got a two-season order from Apple TV right off the bat, so fans knew a tidy conclusion wouldn’t be coming.

However, while a cliffhanger ending was to be expected, the climb we took to get there was packed with Pluribus’ trademark blend of careful pacing, high-wire tension, and observations about humanity that are both hilarious and heartbreaking.

First, a deeply unsettling prologue kicks off “La Chica o El Mundo”: it’s now 71 days after the Joining, and we’re in a remote village in Peru, home of Kusimayu—one of the survivors who attended Carol’s disastrous summit back in episode two. She’s decided to join the hive mind.

We’re spared the part of the procedure that extracts her stem cells; we see what comes after. All she has to do is inhale vapors and endure a brief seizure, and when she opens her eyes again, she’s on the team. With that familiar bland smile now fixed to her face, Kusimayu opens the pen containing all her animals, including the most poignant baby goat this side of Severance.

In Albuquerque, Carol and Zosia watch satellite footage of Manousos getting closer. Carol is nervous about this intrusion; she’s just gotten comfortably settled into her newfound happiness (or the illusion of happiness, anyway) with Zosia, and his arrival is absolutely going to disrupt the fantasy. “I’ll just hear him out and send him on his way,” Carol declares.

(By the way, this is 60 days post-joining, so we’ve rewound to before Kusimayu’s transformation.)

Zosia makes herself scarce, and Carol receives Manousos alone, in a scene about a million times more awkward than we could have imagined. Their previous interactions consisted of screaming back and forth at each other over the phone—frustrating, but also a hopeful sign that someone, anyone capable of even having a screaming argument still exists. And as we’ve seen, Manousos was so intrigued by Carol’s video he made an agonizingly long trek to find her, learning English (sort of) and suffering grievous injuries along the way.

But upon meeting face-to-face, the two immediately clash. She’s leery of the machete he carries. He’s leery of entering her home, convinced the Others (he calls them “the weirdos”) have installed surveillance equipment without her knowledge. When they finally talk outside, he insists on holding an umbrella to prevent prying eyes from drones overhead. (Considering we saw how closely he was being watched on his approach to Albuquerque, his fears feel legitimate in this case, though his overall vibe is very paranoid.)

But even when they finally compromise on where they should converse, things are still very prickly between them. Carol insists she doesn’t want to “destroy” the Others; Manousos maintains, “These weirdos are evil” because “they have stolen everyone’s soul.” Carol argues that they’re still human; Manousos argues that they are not.

Then, Carol—who has just underlined the fact that the Others cannot lie—tells a whopper to Manousos, saying she doesn’t know why they returned to Albuquerque after abandoning her for 40 days. (Good thing she asked Zosia to have that giant “come back” plea she’d painted onto the street removed before Manousos’ arrival.)

Eventually, they move their chat—aided by the monotone of Google Translate, though Manousos’ English is by now far better than Carol’s very rudimentary Spanish—into Carol’s house. He won’t engage until he does a thorough search for listening devices and finds something very odd hidden in Carol’s liquor cabinet.

When Carol calls Zosia demanding answers, she finds out it’s a sensor that’s been there for years. Like, since 2011, when she was freezing her eggs. It seems Helen hid it there to keep discreet tabs on her boozy spouse, and it’s been hanging out ever since. Detail-obsessed Pluribus fans will remember that Carol has referenced freezing her eggs before, making a joke about it during that flashback to Carol and Helen’s stay in the Norwegian ice hotel.

So that’s two mentions of Carol’s eggs across Pluribus season one, and series creator Vince Gilligan isn’t dropping that information in vain. But before we get to that, we still have more Carol-Manousos drama to get through. Needing some time away from her new frenemy, Carol gets him to move into the empty house next door, something he’s very reluctant to do. This reaction is very much in keeping with his desire to pay for everything he takes, or at least sign an IOU for it. This guy has a moral code that’s remained firmly in place, even as the world has dramatically shifted around him.

At any rate, while Carol is getting drunk and falling asleep to Golden Girls, Manousos is prying into her activities by talking to Zosia. He could really talk to any of the Others—it would truly make no difference—but summoning Zosia in particular is designed to get a rise out of Carol, and it works. She’s furious. She drags Zosia away, but Manousos quickly requests another Other come talk to him instead.

While Carol is fumbling through Zosia’s gentle insistence that “We love him the same as we love you”—logically, Carol knows that’s how the hive mind works, but emotionally, she can’t comprehend that; Zosia is her special, uh, “chaperone,” after all—Manousos takes a page from Carol’s own playbook.

“Something’s about to happen,” Zosia announces, and calmly lies on the floor before she begins to shake. Carol, frantic, races next door and sees that Manousos has caused the mass seizure event this time. He’s been deliberately agitating the Other sent to replace Zosia to try and pull him out of his hive-mind stupor.

It doesn’t work, and to Carol’s horror, the Others decide it’s Manousos’ turn to be put in isolation—and since he’s now in Albuquerque, that means another mass exodus from Carol’s hometown.

“I think there’s a way to put things back in their place,” Manousos insists to Carol. “Now the work begins!”

When she hesitates, he goes for the kill, and here we learn why the episode is titled “La Chica o El Mundo”: “Do you want to save the world or get the girl?”

For a moment, Pluribus makes us think that Carol has chosen Zosia. There’s a blissful montage of the pair on various luxurious vacations (Carol’s beach read of choice: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin). It’s peaceful. It’s idyllic.

But a fireside conversation on their ski trip brings all that to a screeching halt. Carol is happy, and she’s startled by how good it feels. “It only gets better,” Zosia beams.

Slowly Carol realizes she means… the Joining. It’s the thing Carol has vehemently resisted from the start. Though this newfound happiness has been blissful, she’d rather be miserable forever with her individuality intact.

And besides, back in Las Vegas, didn’t Mr. Diabaté assure her that the survivors could not be converted without their express consent? The stem-cell extraction process is invasive, and without getting permission to perform the procedure, the Others wouldn’t have the necessary material to bring a holdout into the hive mind.

That information was liberating. It put Carol in an actual good mood. But now, she has a horrible realization: her eggs. The Others have her frozen eggs. They don’t need to stick a giant needle into her hip. They’ve already got the goods.

“How long do I have?” she asks Zosia.

“A month,” Zosia replies. She’s thrilled that Carol will soon be forced into receiving this marvelous gift. “Hopefully not more than two or three.”

Needless to say, this changes everything.

It’s now 74 days post-joining. Manousos is still alone in Albuquerque, and he hears a helicopter approaching. It’s toting a large box, which it sets down outside Carol’s place. We see that Zosia is the pilot, and Carol’s sitting beside her.  They share a very loaded look as Carol climbs out. It’s a sad moment. But they’re sad for different reasons.

When a baffled Manousos approaches, Carol tells him, “You win. We save the world.”

What’s in the box? Why, an atom bomb, of course!

The Others sure hoped she wouldn’t ask for one after her semi-serious inquiry following the grenade incident. But they’re obligated to give Carol whatever she wants. Bringing a giant bomb into the story is bang-up way to set up the events of season two, isn’t it?

You can watch all nine episodes of Pluribus season one on Apple TV. A second season has already been greenlit, but so far there’s no word on when new episodes might arrive.

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