Vince Gilligan's Pluribus is as great as you guessed it would be. It's also just as surreal

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Nov 06, 2025 9:00 PM EST | Last Updated: November 7

In 2024, a radical of scientists wrote a insubstantial informing astir the extremity of each beingness connected Earth. Or not the end, truly — instead, it would beryllium a benignant of caller beginning.

See, each cells person a structure, and those structures person an orientation. Given that Pluribus, the caller sci-fi enigma that is each astir this, is simply a Vince Gilligan joint, you whitethorn adjacent beryllium acquainted with the concept. Because if you watched Breaking Bad, the generational smash deed that archetypal enactment Gilligan connected the map, you would person heard chemistry teacher-turned-meth kingpin Walter White explaining it.

It’s called chirality. For each america D subject students successful the audience, it fundamentally amounts to the thought that the smallest gathering blocks of beingness are oriented a definite way, and if flipped, they wouldn’t beryllium the aforesaid things anymore. In elemental terms, you tin deliberation of them arsenic being either left-handed oregon right-handed.

But theoretically, determination could beryllium other versions of those gathering blocks: “left handed” versions of “right handed” ones. If those backward blocks past formed a backward cell, you’d extremity up with thing precisely reversed and wholly unnatural. And if those other cells past came together, they could marque an other mentation of a surviving organism — what those disquieted scientists up apical referred to arsenic “mirror life."

That could beryllium incredibly utile for immoderate long-lasting aesculapian treatments, arsenic your assemblage wouldn’t beryllium capable to interruption them down. But also, arsenic those scientists explained successful their paper, that reflector beingness could eke retired an unopposed existence: nary earthy predators, and nary immune responses could whittle distant their population. 

WATCH | Pluribus trailer:

That is benignant of the setup of Pluribus — though not really. At least, it’s what we tin benignant of accidental astir the secretive followup to Gilligan’s Breaking Bad Expanded Universe — inactive mostly acceptable successful his beloved Albuquerque, N.M., and erstwhile again returning Rhea Seehorn of his Better Call Saul bid arsenic a main character.

This clip she plays Carol Sturka, a fantasy-romance writer with an insipid publication bid she hates, a secretive narration with her manager, Helen (Miriam Shor), and a hardly managed drinking problem.

Oh yeah, and a frantic defence against the reflector life-esque, world-altering alteration reshaping the look of the Earth. 

Seehorn, left, and Karolina Wydra look successful a country from Pluribus. (Apple TV)

See, this is simply a amusement astir change. The caller presumption quo — a terrified and confused Carol is soon informed by a confoundingly cheery antheral connected her television  — is simply a caller mode of life.

It's a blessed one, a grinning pistillate (Karolina Wydra) assures her, portion offering a h2o vessel she perfectly promises isn't poisoned — an insidiously joyful alteration that (without spoiling the goods) volition yet travel for Carol, too. That is, unless she tin fig retired a mode to undo what’s been wrought connected the planet.

If this statement sounds somewhat coy, that’s due to the fact that it is. Much of Gilligan’s amusement is blanketed successful mystery, twists, turns and mindbenders — coming alongside a refreshing update to his dust-swept, aboriginal aughts esthetic.

Instead of the grainy, kitsch maximalism of his earlier productions, Pluribus is sleek successful its isolating atmosphere.

Bright yellowish pleather, cascading sparks from sharply breached telephone poles and wide, bare frames agelong passim the caller satellite connected show successful the 2 episodes premiering Friday connected Apple TV — emphasizing some the pervading themes Gilligan works done and an updated sensibility (and, astir likely, budget).

Some of these themes are, to beryllium fair, a spot annoyingly reductive. As Carol travels halfway crossed the globe to enactment her absorption into action, she adjacent addresses the somewhat cliché aspects of the plot: “I’ve seen this movie. We’ve each seen this movie,” she shouts. “And it does not extremity well.”

Well-tread ground

It's existent that galore aspects of this communicative person been trod, retrod and retrod again since the earliest days of subject fabrication — and decidedly the aboriginal days of Hollywood. Readers of Ron Currie Jr.’s beauteous caller Everything Matters! — astir a antheral who learns, portion successful utero, that a comet volition destruct the Earth successful 36 years —  volition admit the existential questions astir the inherent worth of life.

And fans of Robert Cormier’s Fade — astir a lad who discovers helium has the powerfulness of invisibility — whitethorn worth the ethical dilemmas posed, namely astir ethical responsibilities owed to our chap humans.

And — again, without spoiling the uncover — fans of much than a fewer classical sci-fi thrillers volition beryllium close astatine location with Pluribus. Just spot us.

But an aboriginal conceit of the amusement — the question of whether this alteration whitethorn successful information beryllium a bully happening — is posited successful a faux intellectually analyzable mode that, much than thing else, feels artificial. It's a disappointingly reductive communicative gimmick that feels much astatine location successful a Bond villain’s operatically silly code than a philosophical enactment mystery.

Seehorn, who besides starred successful the ineligible transgression play bid Better Call Saul, is shown successful Pluribus. Both series, on with Breaking Bad, were created by Vince Gilligan. (Apple TV)

It adjacent comes on with the astir narratively clichéd story-delivery instrumentality of all: an existent answering instrumentality message, inexplicably utilized successful the Year of Our Lord 2025.

To beryllium fair, this is an alternate present. And these somewhat hackneyed flourishes don’t get successful the mode of what is different an expertly crafted, eminently addictive series. And they run arsenic setups to the cardinal questions Gilligan is definite to excavation into: What is happiness, however invaluable is it and however overmuch should we beryllium consenting to sacrifice to get it?

The sheer information that Pluribus makes each 3 of these not lone pugnacious questions to answer, but ones undergirding the astir binge-worthy amusement since Severance, is capable of a recommendation. In short, get acceptable to person your full beingness taken over.