Mild spoilers below for the first two episodes of Pluribus for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed them via Apple TV subscription, so be warned!
The most anticipated post-Halloween streaming debut among prestige TV nerds like yours truly (if not the entire 2025 TV schedule), was the latest series from small-screen laureate Vince Gilligan, the inscrutably named Pluribus. The sci-fi-leaning project has kept fans guessing and doing detective work since its conception was announced, and not even the release of the first two episodes has stemmed that need for answers.
As many are aware, Gilligan was the brain behind Breaking Bad and its rise to permanence atop Best-Of lists for the rest of time, and he also co-created one of television’s most beloved and acclaimed spinoffs, Better Call Saul. Both shows are 100% in my own personal Top 10, and I can already foresee a day when Pluribus will join that same list. In part because it’s already doing something that wasn’t entirely possible with the two shows centering on Walter White and Saul Goodman.
Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul, While Often Mysterious, Weren't Impossible To Predict
Such as it goes for projects that are entirely embedded in the real world, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are largely genre stories that tend to allow for a set amount of possible outcomes. Sure, it was pretty impossible to guess with any amount of specificity how much havoc Bryan Cranston's teacher-turned-kingpin would bring to Albuquerque right when audiences were learning about his cancer diagnosis and meeting the rest of the family. But it wouldn't have been stretching to predict a truly epic fall from grace for Walt. Nor to think that he might not make it through the end alive.
Better Call Saul presented even fewer options for its finale endgame with Jimmy/Saul, since it was set up as both a prequel and a sequel to the Emmy-winning flagship drama, with all signs almost immediately pointing to the Cinnabon-managing Gene being brought to justice in one way or another. It wasn't always clear whether or not Rhea Seehorn's Kim Wexler would stick with him, but for those whose first instincts pegged her as being too smart to stick around....well, you know.
To be sure, I'm not voicing any of this through a negative filter, as I don't necessarily need crime dramas to deliver completely left-field storytelling. I love both of these shows regardless of how much they truly surprised me. But that does play into why I'm enjoying Pluribus on a slightly different level.
Pluribus Kicks Off With An Incomprehensible Event, And I Can't Begin To Imagine Where It's Going
I've never cooked amphetamines, and I've never passed the bar exam, but could obviously still find ways to relate to Walt and Saul's stories. On the flip side, Pluribus kicks off with epically tragic and world-shifting event that's so large-scale that it's relatively impossible to realistically wrap one's brain around it. Not even an author of fantastical fiction, Seehorn's Carol Sturka, can immediately grasp what's occurred, despite witnessing signs of it everywhere she looks.
In that first episode, Carol finds herself caught in a global nightmare when nearly every single living person's consciousness has been usurped by extraterrestrial beings that ooze positivity and helpfulness, despite Carol's behavior being entirely antithetical in the immediate aftermath. And understandably so, since her partner is dead, her successful career is meaningless, and she's one of the only people left whose identity is still intact.
Unlike Saul Goodman and Walter White, whose respective fates were always going to be either "dead" or "jailed," Carol doesn't inspire any such tidy predictions. Sure, she could also get killed or get imprisoned, but within this particular narrative, both of those outcomes actually would be fairly surprising. Especially since it doesn't seem like jails are necessary anymore.
Thankfully, Pluribus seems like it was crafted in part to keep audiences guessing from one installment to the next, and it isn't just a random cobbling of events that naturally aren't easy to foretell. But the fact that it's not a limited series, and that there are overall three-season plans, allows for so much story that I can't wrap my head around any of it.
If I absolutely HAD to predict something, though, it would be this: Magnets, bitch!
Pluribus drops new episodes every Friday on Apple TV. Let us know your own predictions, even if they don't center entirely around magnets.
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