Pluribus and social skills
Dec. 14th, 2025 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unbibiumI've been watching Pluribus for a while, and I love it so far.
I mostly want to talk about how it's subverted the usual TV "mystery box" formula that's been the bane of television for years. Sometimes, TV producers want to ration the information they give us, and the usual way is to put a big fat mystery box in the pilot and then spend seven seasons tickling our nethers, only to make up something unsatisfying in the series finale.
In Pluribus, the subject matter is: the entire world is basically acting as one person now, and any normal person could spend a whole day just asking about how that works. Like "is there any functional difference between talking to different people?" "do you still close the door when you use the bathroom?" "Is there literally anyone in a bank right now?" "Is there literally anyone in a comedy club right now?" "What's the network latency between Albuquerque and Tokyo?"
We're halfway through season 1 at time of writing, and I know that Carol has just spent all of the "Got Milk" episode doing all this detective work among the deserted streets of Albuquerque. But I'm still thinking about the episode "Pirate Lady" and the meeting on Air Force One. The first private meeting between half of the unjoined. And they all have more information than Carol about what the plurbs have been up to. And the episode "HDP" where Carol shares her hard-won discoveries with Monsieur Diabate, who already knows about it, and tells Carol what she's been missing out on.
This isn't to say that Carol doesn't ask them anything. Most of the time, she just interrogates specifically to find ways to fight them.
Episode 2. Asks if there's any pockets of unjoined in places that might have heroes. Asks if there's any scientists among the English-speakers.
Episode 3. Asks if there's any scientists among the non-English-speakers.
Episode 4: The lie detector test with Larry, the reveal that the joining might be reversible, and the subsequent enhanced interrogation.
And when she hurts them, she asks about that.
Episode 2: How many did I kill just now?
Sometimes she asks questions only to interrupt the answer.
Episode 1. Asks "what happens when I say no" and then hangs up.
Episode 3. At the end, asks "what's so great" and instead of making space for an answer, she makes up her own assumptions about what the answer is and rants about them.
"The Gap", follows the two grumpy characters, as they spent a month defying their adversary in their own ways. Carol living it up as the Last Woman On Earth, and Manousos nearly getting himself killed in the IRL Mario Maker troll level. And neither of them learning a damn thing about their adversary. As the audience, we have no idea what the plurbs have been up to, or what the other unjoined have learned about them.
Contrast with Kumba. Now, I'm no expert on poker, but, like, winning the big pot with a royal flush, playing five-card draw? I think we're meant to learn that Kumba can't actually play poker, probably learned the rules that morning. Any gambling expertise in the hive was probably dedicated to stacking the deck to keep Kumba from losing immediately. And yet, I think we'll find that he's learning a lot about their limitations just through the natural course of his fantasy LARPing. For example, why couldn't the Bond villain stay in character while everyone else clapped?
The next episode is titled "Charm Offensive", suggesting Carol might actually start working on her intelligence-gathering game. Will she be able to open her mind? Will she be able to stop herself from immediately turning her first lead into a disaster? That'd be like Wiley E Coyote catching the Roadrunner. But anything can happen in a show like this. The possibility space is limitless.
I mostly want to talk about how it's subverted the usual TV "mystery box" formula that's been the bane of television for years. Sometimes, TV producers want to ration the information they give us, and the usual way is to put a big fat mystery box in the pilot and then spend seven seasons tickling our nethers, only to make up something unsatisfying in the series finale.
In Pluribus, the subject matter is: the entire world is basically acting as one person now, and any normal person could spend a whole day just asking about how that works. Like "is there any functional difference between talking to different people?" "do you still close the door when you use the bathroom?" "Is there literally anyone in a bank right now?" "Is there literally anyone in a comedy club right now?" "What's the network latency between Albuquerque and Tokyo?"
We're halfway through season 1 at time of writing, and I know that Carol has just spent all of the "Got Milk" episode doing all this detective work among the deserted streets of Albuquerque. But I'm still thinking about the episode "Pirate Lady" and the meeting on Air Force One. The first private meeting between half of the unjoined. And they all have more information than Carol about what the plurbs have been up to. And the episode "HDP" where Carol shares her hard-won discoveries with Monsieur Diabate, who already knows about it, and tells Carol what she's been missing out on.
This isn't to say that Carol doesn't ask them anything. Most of the time, she just interrogates specifically to find ways to fight them.
Episode 2. Asks if there's any pockets of unjoined in places that might have heroes. Asks if there's any scientists among the English-speakers.
Episode 3. Asks if there's any scientists among the non-English-speakers.
Episode 4: The lie detector test with Larry, the reveal that the joining might be reversible, and the subsequent enhanced interrogation.
And when she hurts them, she asks about that.
Episode 2: How many did I kill just now?
Sometimes she asks questions only to interrupt the answer.
Episode 1. Asks "what happens when I say no" and then hangs up.
Episode 3. At the end, asks "what's so great" and instead of making space for an answer, she makes up her own assumptions about what the answer is and rants about them.
"The Gap", follows the two grumpy characters, as they spent a month defying their adversary in their own ways. Carol living it up as the Last Woman On Earth, and Manousos nearly getting himself killed in the IRL Mario Maker troll level. And neither of them learning a damn thing about their adversary. As the audience, we have no idea what the plurbs have been up to, or what the other unjoined have learned about them.
Contrast with Kumba. Now, I'm no expert on poker, but, like, winning the big pot with a royal flush, playing five-card draw? I think we're meant to learn that Kumba can't actually play poker, probably learned the rules that morning. Any gambling expertise in the hive was probably dedicated to stacking the deck to keep Kumba from losing immediately. And yet, I think we'll find that he's learning a lot about their limitations just through the natural course of his fantasy LARPing. For example, why couldn't the Bond villain stay in character while everyone else clapped?
The next episode is titled "Charm Offensive", suggesting Carol might actually start working on her intelligence-gathering game. Will she be able to open her mind? Will she be able to stop herself from immediately turning her first lead into a disaster? That'd be like Wiley E Coyote catching the Roadrunner. But anything can happen in a show like this. The possibility space is limitless.
