If you have an Apple TV subscription, there’s a more than likely chance that you’ve watched the gripping first episode (or all nine) of Pluribus, as it’s currently the streaming service’s most-watched new series to date. That laudable distinction is no shocker, as the mysterious sci-fi-esque drama boasts the tag team of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and his Better Call Saul superstar Rhea Seehorn. Also not shocking? That Seehorn has already earned award nominations for her performance as the hivemind-thwarting Carol.
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The first to acknowledge both Pluribus and Rhea Seehorn herself was the Critics Choice Awards, which revealed its nominations in early December 2025 for the January 4 ceremony, where she's up for Best Actress in a Drama Series, while the show itself is up for Best Drama. Both also scored Golden Globe nominations in their respective categories a week later, and it won't be very surprising to see other awards' voters and organizations showing the same love for the Virginia native.
Speaking with CinemaBlend ahead of the CCAs, Seehorn told me that the timing of the nominations, combined with Pluribus having only premiered in November, had her thinking that any such accolades wouldn't even be possible until next year. In her words:
Well, [it was] definitely surreal. I must admit that I was unaware. I never did the math on this season being on the eligibility for Critics Choice, or Golden Globes or SAG. Not that I'm blasé and didn't care about them.
Whether her lack of awards-based hubris was wholly genuine or just due to ill-factored timing — of course it was genuine — Seehorn has long delivered the kind of lived-in and meticulous performances that would be worthy of nominations even if less than half of a season's episodes were available to watch. (I've previously raged over her work as Kim Wexler getting ignored for years by the Emmys and others.)
But as Rhea Seehorn herself learned following the nomination announcements, a show's eligibility for awards isn't determined by how many episodes were already public. She explained:
I honestly was just like, when [the nominations] started rolling in, there were only a few episodes out, but my publicity team had to tell me, 'Yes, but the critics have seven of them, and this many will be out by the time the nominations come out. So that's the eligibility.' And I was like, 'Oh!' So no, I didn't see that coming, to say the least.
I can think of no greater reaction to nomination news than a complete lack of awareness that such recognition was even on the table. To me, it's a sign that the performer's head is in the game, and not on the outcome. Granted, this is a strange exception where I do kinda wish Seehorn would have been shimmying up light poles and celebrating her nominations in the loudest way possible. But most intents and purposes, I think her actual reaction was A+.
Rhea Seehorn Shares The Best Things About Reteaming With Vince Gilligan
Given how wildly successful and viewer-beloved Rhea Seehorn's work was on Better Call Saul, it wasn't necessarily the strangest news in the world to learn that she was teaming back up with Vince Gilligan for Pluribus back when the show was first announced. Both seem like excellent colleagues, as well as brilliant people in general, and I was happy to hear Seehorn share just such compliments when I asked her what the coolest thing has been about working with Gilligan again. As she put it:
Wow, that'd be hard to single out one thing. I'll at least make it two-part, and that is specifically just who he is as a collaborator: how talented, how intelligent, but also how generous and open to ideas [he is].
If all bosses were on the same level of collaboratiion and intelligence, I might not have left all the jobs I had earlier in life. (No complaints, of course, since none of them would have resulted in talking to Rhea Seehorn.) But even beyond all of the virtues that Vince Gilligan himself embodies, the actress says the positive way she feels while working with him is another huge advantage.
But then additionally, I would say, anybody who's gotten to work with the same collaborators that they collaborate well with over and over, which is not many of us - it's a great gift - you do start to have a shorthand and a way of exploring things, and also feel a safety net to take risks. Because you feel like, 'It's okay if I try.' If I'm like, 'Vince, what if blah, blah?' and we try it, and it's dumb, I don't feel like I'm there trying to prove myself, and am terrified to fall down. I feel more like I just came to the table with some ideas, because it's expected of me.
Vince Gilligan would probably be the first to admit that Rhea Seehorn brings elements to Carol that he and other writers wouldn't have thought of, and that her behind-the-scenes input is as essential as her on-screen performance. For all the time that actors spend on camera as themselves, bringing characters to life takes completely different sets of skills, and being able to play around with scenes often evolves those abilities.
Sadly, we won't be seeing more of Carol's story play out on the 2026 TV schedule, as Gilligan has candidly shared it will be a while before Season 2 comes together. Hopefully by the time that production kicks off, Seehorn can boast both a Critics Choice Award and a Golden Globe, along with a SAG award, an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
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