Plur1bus

 These are my responses to this show. I began watching it in October. I do not remember if it was recommended on a podcast I listen to or if it just caught my attention on Amazon Prime (it is an Apple TV show). I think what drew me in is that the main character is a writer, a very successful one, far more successful than is believable. She lives in a house in Albuquerque that would be over $500,000 or $600,000 here in Northwest Georgia. That's a really lucrative career. So, yep, it's science fiction. 

In the first episode, and I will confess I have not rewatched any episodes, two major things happen: The planet is infected with a virus, and we meet Carol Sturka. Let's start with the first. 

Over a period of a year or more, astronomers receive signals from Kepler 22b, which is, according to Google AI (and I apologize for using it):

Kepler-22b is a significant exoplanet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission, notable as the first confirmed planet in the habitable zone (Goldilocks zone) of a Sun-like star, meaning liquid water could potentially exist on its surface, though its exact composition (rocky, gaseous, or ocean) and atmosphere are unknown, making it a prime candidate for habitability studies despite being 600 light-years away. It's a "super-Earth," about 2.4 times Earth's size, orbiting its star every 290 days, with a surface temperature potentially around 72°F (22°C) if it has an atmosphere.

The signal has four parts, which correspond to a DNA or RNA molecule--that part I'm iffy about. But for some reason the molecule is recreated in a lab and put into rats, rather large ones. One of the rats gets angry and bites a worker, infecting her. Her whole purpose then becomes to infect everyone else through his saliva, so she kisses her co-worker. And so it starts. For several minutes we see the infected persons spreading the virus as efficiently as possible. There whole purpose is to spread it, robotlike. They lick doughnuts, scrape their cheeks for samples, and eventually spray it from the sky. 

The humans on earth seem to lose individuality and march in step, always with a smile on their face. As the episodes go, we learn more about them, now that they are infected. They are peace loving. They cannot lie. They work together. They want to make others happy. They do not eat anything that is alive, only what already exists(see below*). They therefore do not harvest food or animals. They want to conserve all resources, even to the point of abandoning their homes and sleeping on floors in gyms or stadiums. But beyond that, they all have the same consciousness. All human knowledge is available to each one individually. At least, all this is the party line.

They are unsettling. I also think there are some plot holes, scientifically speaking. Now that they are infected, what is the organism's purpose? To simply infect, or to survive. If it were to survive and reproduce and continue (isn't that evolutionary theory), would they not eat and find ways to feed themselves since they are going to run out of food? More on that. 

And the biggest question for me. Happiness is defined as harmony, and harmony as sameness.  Is that harmony and happiness? 

The virus appears to me, in some commentators' view, a way to make the human organisms receptive to an electromagnetic signal which comes up later in the show. 

However, not everyone was infected. Thirteen people on the planet were immune. One of them is the writer, Carol Sturka. Another is a man from Madagascar who wants nothing but to live the high life with women, cars, and wine. Another is a young boy from India, another a Peruvian teenager, another an older Chinese woman. There is no explanation of why these people (no Europeans?) are immune. Carol wants to meet the ones who speak English, and these are they. They do meet and are not as upset with the situations as Carol is. One argument is that they are from collectivist cultures where harmony is not seen as a threat to personhood. 

So, what about Carol? She is a lesbian with a partner and manager named Helen. Carol drinks a lot. A lot. Several years back, her eggs were being harvested for in vitro fertilization, although it is not explained why it didn't take place. Carol knows what she writes, romantasy about a pirate, is not high quality stuff and wants to write true literature. Helen tries to be encouraging but isn't quite supportive that the literary book is good or even readable. 

Carol is a generally unlikeable and disagreeable person. She does not seem to have any good traits except determination to fight the horde, the hive mind, the infected. As the only American with immunity, individuality and personal uniqueness define her, and everyone around her has lost that. Carol also has a bad temper, and her explosions of temper affect the infected by sending them into seizures. Some of them die from it. One of those people who dies is Helen, whom Carol buries by herself in the backyard. 

Or, she tries to. She can't really do it, so she gets help from "the Others." See, the infected hive really, really wants her to be happy and to give her anything and do anything for her. For some reason (another whole) they have no judgment as to what would make her truly happy; what she wants in the minute is the default way to happiness. She asks for a hand grenade and gets it. She asks for an atom bomb and yes, eventually gets it. 

If this is starting to sound bizarre, let me assure you of a few things. It takes several episodes for this to happen. Not a great deal happens in each episode. Critics say the show is very slow in its pacing. That doesn't bother me. Also, the scenery is beautiful and there is a lot of cleverness; it is intricately written to tie small details together. Nothing is done randomly.. It also has a tie, according to one commentator on YouTube, to an old Twilight Zone episode, "Third from the Sun," where the  main character is named Sturka and leaves a planet to come to earth. 

What I haven't touched on is the two other main characters. One is Zosia, a formerly Polish woman who serves as Carol's "chaperone" and guide. After one of Carol's tantrums, the Others abandon Albuquerque to leave her alone and "get their space." This abandonment pushes Carol to the edge and she eventually begs someone to return. Zosia does and continues to guide Carol and speak as the representative of the hive mind to her. They also become lovers. 

Carol's resistance appears to be crumbling. However, according to the collectives rules, she can only be assimilated through stem cell recovery, which she won't consent to (think back to her eggs being harvested to figure out that spoiler). Carol wants Zosia to use the pronoun "I" instead of "we," which she does "to make Carol happy" but also, possibly, because her former consciousness is still there. 

I think the show has another hole, though. If the Others have access to all human knowledge, they would have it for their individual selves. Is the virus stronger than the knowledge?

Zosia is a beautiful woman and I like her; she looks like a friend of mine. But she is also like ChatGPT. She is able to read Carol and tell her exactly what she wants to know; she feigns empathy very well. It's pretty creepy. At the emotional level of the show, I want Zosia to be freed more than Carol to be okay. Carol is very selfish and plain hateful. Essays on the show say we are supposed to root for her, so it's a bit of a deep reflection experience for me to figure out why I don't empathize for her but do want her to make the world "right" again. More on that below.

The other major character does not appear until the end. He is the thirteenth immune human, a Paraguayan man who speaks no English and manages a storage facility. He is interesting because he distrusts the Others explicitly, will not eat the food they bring him, will not accept help from them, and does not want their drones to spy on him. He drives from Paraguay through the jungle, almost dies, is saved by the Others, leaves them in an ambulance, and finally makes it to Albuquerque. He tries to learn English on the way. 

His name is Manousos. He has figured out that there is a radio signal frequency that controls the horde because the virus has reconfigured their brains. Whether he is onto something, we will have to see. That was the last episode. 

So, what is a spiritual take on this? My first one is that I have spent too much time trying to watch YouTube videos and today is the last day on that. It helped me realize again that filmmaking is an incredibly intricate art and one needs to learn to "read" cinema and filmmaking at several levels. That this is a TV show makes it no less cinematic. But what is the show really about? Conformity? AI (Gilligan says no, not at all)? Politics and our tribalism today (Gilligan seems to point to that, but I don't like politically motivated storytelling)? Human personhood and individuality? What is happiness and what brings it? 

I would say it raises questions about science (why do they create the virus without knowing what it is?) What would the world be like with no spirituality or human seeking for it? There doesn't seem to be anyone who has a religion here. If all of human knowledge is in the hive mind, then there would be religion in there, too. And those would contradict each other by their very natures and truth claims. Why is harmony equated with peace and happiness? Is it even possible to live without human distinctions? (Zosia says "We love everyone the way they want to be loved" or something like that. Homosexuality does not breed children, but since that is not a goal, since survival of any species is not in question, that point is moot.) Is love just smiling at someone and letting them be whatever they are, which is in this case just like yourself because there is no "self?"

Another issue is that the infected humans have all the knowledge of human history in their brains or access to it, but they don't seem to be doing anything with it. But then, why should they? If someone dies, they just feed the rest of the horde. Why bother to create art and study science if it's likely that the whole race will disappear within a certain period--after everyone has died and been eaten and the numbers exponentially swirl downward? And no one needs to have children, as that is just more humans. It's a cliche, but "a baby is a sign God wants the world to go on," and the lack of childbirth was explored in P.D. James' Children of Men. So while the virus has made all humans (except 13 of them) happy, it has only given them a stupefying mental state. They do not love, they do not really care. They just are, in an unsustainable way. 

This is shown subtly in the last episode when the Peruvian teenager agrees to "join." A truck brings the virus in a sealed container to her village. Before it comes, she is seen petting her baby goat lovingly. She cares for it. It matters to her. After she is infected and has a short seizure, she stands up and walks away from the village with her neighbors, pausing to let the goat and chickens out. The little goat follows her and she just smiles and doesn't even heed it. The goat looks terrified and confused. It is sad, and tells the whole story in one sequence, I think. Where are the villagers going? Perhaps to blend with another village? What will happen to the goat? Predatory animals will kill it and the chickens. Life of any kind is not valuable. Only the hive and that sense of peace and harmony matter. 

There is more to discuss, and I confess I will probably watch it when it comes on again next fall or whenever.  It asks important questions--what is peace, harmony, and happiness, and where do they come from and mean being the main ones, along with what is our purpose, even if I don't like the answers, and it's intricately made. I don't like the main characters but the actor performs her well. 

I think it would be a good program to discuss as an apologetic tool or in a philosophy class. 

Addendum. I mention "rooting" for Carol because despite her unpleasantness, she wants the world to be "right." But, from a Christian view, the world is not "right." It is beautiful but deeply flawed, just like every person. The imago dei is marred in each of us in some way or many. Our loves are disordered, Augustine would say. So that Carol wants the world to go back the way it was is only to say she wants her little self-contained world to be like it was. We don't get a sense she cares that much about other people anywhere in the world. She can't even get along with the other immune people. She doesn't want to have anything to do with Manousos. 

Carol is a sign of what is wrong with the world that makes the dystopia of the hive mind seem so nice. It reminds me of American who go visit Japan and are blown away by the order, "harmony," and civic peace they see. They come back raving about it. But this harmonic overlay masks cultural propositions we Americans would buck against, and a deep-seated ethnic superiority of the Japan of history. So, Carol's character is fascinating and well written despite my preference even for the hive mind Zosia and the driven, obsessed Manoussos. He wants to deliver humanity from the collective and will stop at nothing. He doesn't want to be beholden to them, to the extent he eats cans of dog food he finds in the storage facility rather than the food the Others bring him. 

*As to what the horde eats, think the old movie Soylent Green. It's a classic, but if you don't know it, soylent green is the only food available on a starving, overpopulated planet (1970s Los Angeles is the setting) and old people are soylent green, leading to the famous line by Charlton Heston: "Soylent green is people!" In Plur1bus, millions of people died, almost a billion, in the "joining" and after Carol's tantrums. Also, one video asks "Where are the babies?" One episode is devoted to Carol learning about how the horde lives off dead human by product. Again, this seems to be anti-survival when they could eat at least vegetables or plants. So it's an odd aspect of the show, seemingly just for squeamish affect or to show the new regime is actually malevolent, not beneficent.  In fact, nothing about the hive mind seems "good" to me. They cover destruction with a nice veneer of smiles and compliments, and they will bring Carol anything she wants.