Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn Unpack ‘Pluribus’ Finale Twists and Reveal Original Ending: ‘It Would Have Been Satisfying but Not as Satisfying’

SPOILER ALERT: The following piece contains plot details from “La Chica o El Mundo,” the Season 1 finale of “ Pluribus,” now streaming on Apple TV. Courtesy of Apple The season finale of “Pluribus” opens with Kusimayu (Darinka Arones) surrounded by loved ones in their small Peruvian village. She is one of 13 survivors of the global shift known as The Joining, which has fused almost all of humanity into a single shared consciousness with whom she’s eager to merge. A special gas has been delivered via plane, and she happily inhales it, briefly convulsing in a state of hive-mind bliss. She’s one of the Others now, and they all evacuate the village expeditiously. One down, 12 to go. In the episode, titled “La Chica o El Mundo” (“The Girl or the World”), a bloodied Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga) completes his death-defying journey from Paraguay to New Mexico. And Carol ( Rhea Seehorn ) is playing house with Zosia (Karolina Wydra). With the rest of the unaffected living in delusion and shooting the shit on weekly Zoom meetings, Manousos may be Carol’s last hope at (in his view) saving humanity. But while he’s been trekking through the Darién Gap and teaching himself English, Carol’s been playing croquet and sleeping with the enemy. Popular on Variety The two “Old-Schoolers,” as the cast and crew of “Pluribus” refer to them, don’t exactly get along. Manousos dumps Carol’s phone through a drain grate, and they bicker about whether the Others are, in fact, people. Carol’s situationship with Zosia has softened her views on the 7 billion people stricken with the mind virus, so much so that she threatens Manousos with a shotgun as he attempts to cure one of them with radio frequencies. Eventually, Carol chooses the titular girl over the world, and she and Zosia embark on globe-trotting adventures, including a luxurious ski trip. The honeymoon phase comes to a screeching halt, however, when Zosia lets it slip that the Others have found a way to potentially convert Carol into one of them, against her will. It was previously established that they would need her stem cells, but their biological imperative prevents them from retrieving them via injection without her consent. Now, Zosia admits, the Others have discovered eggs that Carol had frozen with her late wife, Helen. Through a tricky, months-long process, they hope to convert the eggs into stem cells, which they could use to share their happiness with Carol. This betrayal makes Carol go nuclear - literally. Remember when the Others told her they’d give her an atom bomb if she asked for one? Well, now they have. Back in Albuquerque, she and Manousos make a pact to save the world by any means necessary. In two interviews, Seehorn and “Pluribus” creator Vince Gilligan , director-writer-EP Gordon Smith and writer-EP Alison Tatlock break down those finale twists and reveal their original, less explosive Season 1 ending. A major revelation in this episode is that the Others have Carol’s frozen...

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