‘I’m smart enough to know you don’t ask a drug dealer to describe their heroin…’
The astronomical success of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul has ensured that any project that Vince Gilligan puts his name to will always garner considerable attention. While Pluribus takes place in Gilligan’s beloved Albuquerque and stars Better Call Saul alumni Rhea Seehorn, this is nothing like the world that Gilligan crafted in those two shows. Indeed, if anything, Pluribus is a return to the writer’s work on The X-Files…
The electric opening episode sees the entire world (minus a dozen or so people) being infected with an extraterrestrial virus that results in a kind of hive mind a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Faculty. The crucial difference here is that the invading forces are essentially benevolent. They indulge the whims of all the remaining survivors to a fault; they are incapable of lying, and they refuse to eat anything that is already alive, resulting in mass starvation.
One of the many impressive things about Pluribus is how successfully it navigates the always difficult tonal balance between tragedy and comedy. This is not a comedy in the way that Succession was a comedy, but it does have genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. Koumba Diabaté (Samba Schutte), one of the ‘immunes’, takes the opportunity of an alien invasion to basically procure a harem of women, a private jet and a suite at a Las Vegas hotel. This is both hilarious and tragic in equal measure. It’s also a depressingly accurate representation of what would actually happen in the event of a benevolent alien invasion.
Pluribus isn’t as immediately captivating as Breaking Bad, or as groundbreakingly distinct as Better Call Saul, but it is a fresh and genuinely innovative take on a well-worn sci-fi subgenre. Witness how the takeover is depicted in the pilot to see how Gilligan’s latest TV extravaganza is so unlike everything else delivered in this area before. It’ll be absolutely fascinating to see where they go from here.
