r/Pluribus_TVshow • u/jwagnervaz • 7d ago
Serious Theory The show looks have lost the meaning
This Show Has Lost the Plot (Spoilers)
The show seems to have lost its own meaning. It has become so consumed by its own ideas that it has forgotten how to tell a coherent story.
Even if Carol is already infected, that doesn't change the fundamental problems with the writing.
What we get is a show that fails to work as a sci-fi series. It feels more like a drama that expects viewers to accept anything without questioning whether it makes sense or whether the writers have bothered to fill the plot holes they've created along the way.
There are countless problems. I'll mention just a few.
Spoiler alert
1 The protagonist has no real depth
In the first episode, Carol tries to charm the audience with a carefully manufactured persona. Later, she becomes unbearable toward everyone around her, even when she's alone. Her behavior changes so drastically that it's difficult to understand who she's supposed to be.
Character development is one thing. Inconsistent characterization is another.
2 The virus is supposedly encoded in four frequencies, but nobody bothers to explain what that actually means
The person who supposedly discovered how to sequence the virus barely gets any dialogue. An idea that could have been central to the entire plot is reduced to a passing detail.
It feels like the writers came up with an interesting scientific concept but couldn't be bothered to develop it into a coherent part of the story.
3 The infection rules make no sense
One of the infected tries to kiss Carol and actually succeeds, yet she doesn't become infected. Why? The show never provides a convincing explanation.
Later, the infected claim they cannot lie and insist that Carol joined them willingly. But nobody ever asked the infected whether they wanted to become part of this collective in the first place.
How can the show make such a big deal about consent when the very foundation of its collective consciousness raises that question?
It's a glaring logical contradiction.
4 The timeline of the outbreak is a mess
We're told that the virus was sequenced at a government facility and subsequently escaped. There was already a conflict involving humans, yet apparently nobody thought to warn the general population.
Then the show claims that the space station was one of the first places to become infected.
How does that work?
The virus supposedly had to be sequenced before the outbreak, but the sequence of events surrounding its escape, its spread, and the infection of the space station never comes together in a convincing way.
The timeline feels less like a carefully constructed chain of events and more like a collection of plot points arranged wherever the writers needed them.
5 The symptoms and transmission mechanisms contradict each other
In rats, the heart continues beating intensely while the animal remains completely motionless, appearing dead. In humans, the symptoms are different: they tremble briefly and then wake up peacefully.
Why does the same infection produce such different responses? The show doesn't explain.
A kiss can apparently transmit the infection within seconds, which raises even more questions about the biological mechanism involved.
And there's another contradiction: infected humans generally avoid violence, but the rat that serves as patient zero displays violent behavior.
Different hosts can certainly react differently to an infection, but a sci-fi story needs to establish some rules if it expects the audience to take its fictional biology seriously.
This show doesn't seem particularly interested in doing that.
6 The collective consciousness is an interesting concept that goes nowhere
The television broadcast appears to be synchronized with the landline telephone. An infected politician speaks to Carol and knows things that seemingly only his assistant could have known.
That assistant died from the virus.
This suggests that the collective possesses some form of shared memory or consciousness that extends beyond ordinary communication.
That's potentially fascinating material for a sci-fi story. Unfortunately, the show barely explores it.
Instead of investigating the implications of its own premise, it introduces ideas and then moves on as if their mere existence were enough.
7 What happened to the animals?
The immune characters suggest that animals have disappeared, yet we're also told that the animals themselves weren't infected.
In the bar scene, water appears to be a transmission route. If rats can be infected, why wouldn't other mammals be susceptible to the same mechanism?
If the virus affects humans but not other animals, there needs to be a reason. If it does affect animals, the show needs to explain what happened to them.
Otherwise, the world-building falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.
8 The transmission through food and drinks is inconsistent
Carol's assistant becomes infected through a nonalcoholic drink, while the entire bar apparently becomes infected through alcoholic beverages.
Alcohol at 40% ABV can inactivate many enveloped viruses under appropriate conditions, although the effectiveness depends on the virus, concentration, and exposure time. That doesn't automatically mean every alcoholic drink would prevent transmission, but it certainly raises questions the show never addresses.
More importantly, if kissing is such an effective transmission mechanism, why rely on food and drinks as well?
People don't eat or drink at the same time everywhere in the world. Different transmission routes should produce different patterns of infection, yet the show rarely bothers to demonstrate a believable progression.
Instead, it seems as though everyone becomes infected simultaneously through a combination of kissing, food, and liquids.
The result feels less like the spread of an infectious agent and more like the writers simply deciding that the entire world needs to be infected now.
After Episode 4 ...It Gets Worse in Different Ways
The show finally introduces a little more action, but action without a coherent explanation isn't particularly impressive.
Apparently, drugs that affect consciousness don't work on "US," but screaming loudly does.
Seriously?
The rules governing the collective's vulnerabilities seem to change whenever the plot needs them to.
The casting of the foreign characters is also disappointing, with the exception of the pirate girls. Several performances feel improvised, and I don't think the problem is a lack of budget.
At this point, the series feels like three completely different stories awkwardly stitched together.
One wants to be a philosophical exploration of collective consciousness. Another wants to be a character-driven drama about grief. The third wants to be a sci-fi thriller about a mysterious global infection.
None of them feels sufficiently developed, and they don't come together as a cohesive whole.
Honestly, changing the genre from science fiction to drama would make more sense. At least then, I could stop expecting the show to explain its own scientific premise.
I'll give it another episode. But if Episode 5 is more of the same, I'm done.
If I have to spend more time thinking about how to make a slow-moving show make sense than the writers apparently spent constructing its universe, they should be paying me.
After Episode 5 I Finished the Series
I did finish the series, and my original criticisms still stand.
The show has its moments, and the action eventually improves, but adding action doesn't solve the underlying problems. A scene can be visually engaging and still make no sense within the rules of its own universe.
The central premise remains underdeveloped, the transmission mechanisms are inconsistent, and the collective consciousness raises fascinating questions that the writing never adequately explores.
The character development isn't much better. The immune characters seem to have only two possible reactions to the prospect of humanity becoming one organism: they're either completely fine with it or they hate everyone without distinction.
Where is the nuance? Where is the internal conflict? Where are the different philosophical, psychological, and practical responses you'd expect from people facing the end of individual human existence?
Instead, we get characters who seem designed to represent opposing positions rather than actual human beings.
And then there's Carol.
The show seems determined to make her grief the emotional center of the story, but her behavior before and after her loss is remarkably similar. She was already angry, abrasive, and difficult to tolerate before the tragedy. Her grief doesn't reveal a particularly compelling new dimension to her character so much as give the show another reason to focus on the same behavior.
Her assistant, who may also have been her secret girlfriend, was already being treated poorly before her death. Now that she's gone, at least she's free from Carol's endless monologues.
It's difficult to care about a character's emotional journey when the writing doesn't give you enough reason to connect with the character in the first place.
And what exactly is this supposed to be?
A virus? A cult? Possession? Psychic glue? Some kind of cellular radio connecting every human being?
Or is it simply a lack of writing?
Because the series seems unable to decide what its central phenomenon actually is, how it works, or what rules govern it.
Final Verdict
This show is bad, and I didn't even need all these arguments to justify that opinion. Unfortunately, there are plenty of them.
It has no meaningful action until relatively late in the series, no consistent internal logic, no convincing scientific framework, weak character development, and far too few explanations for the world it asks us to accept.
Science fiction doesn't have to be scientifically accurate in every detail. It does, however, need internal consistency. Even the most fantastical premise becomes believable when its rules are clearly established and followed.
Here, the rules seem negotiable, the explanations are missing, and the characters are forced to carry a drama that isn't strong enough to compensate for the weaknesses of the science-fiction plot.
Good luck with your pseudo-virus, psychic glue, or whatever it is that's supposed to turn humanity into one giant organism.
The concept had potential. The execution simply doesn't live up to it.
My conclusion remains the same: this is a drama masquerading as science fiction, with an underdeveloped premise, inconsistent rules, and a protagonist whose grief doesn't make her any more compelling than she was before.