By Scott Tobias Freelance Film Critic & TV AnalystThe first season of Apple TV+’s Pluribus has been a masterclass in the “quiet” apocalypse. While traditional science fiction often relies on the visceral terror of tripod lasers or xenomorphs, Pluribus has spent nine episodes exploring a much more insidious threat: a beatific, hive-mind virus that offers humanity everything it ever wanted at the low cost of its soul.
In the impeccably wrought season finale, “La Chica o El Mundo,” the show finally strips away the “friendly” veneer of “the Others,” forcing its misanthropic protagonist, Carol, to choose between the addictive bliss of surrender and a harrowing, lonely sacrifice for the future of a species she barely likes.
The Death of Culture through a Smile
The finale begins not in Carol’s suburban cul-de-sac, but in the Andes mountains of Peru. We are reintroduced to Kusimayu (Darinka Arones), the youngest known immune survivor. In a sequence that feels more like a documentary than a sci-fi thriller, we witness her “Joining.”
Unlike the violent abductions of classic cinema, this is a warm, communal ceremony. The air is filled with traditional Quechua songs. The Others don’t come with chains; they come with a sense of belonging. But the horror lies in the aftermath. The moment Kusimayu inhales the mysterious steam—the delivery mechanism for the hive-mind signal—the music stops. The eyes roll back. The smile fixes.
Within minutes, the newly “Joined” villagers begin putting out campfires and releasing livestock. In a chilling display of “frictionless departure,” an entire Indigenous culture is erased. It isn’t bulldozed by a corporation or evicted by a government; it simply ceases to exist, folded into a global homogeneity. It is a profound opening statement for the finale: the Others don’t just steal your mind; they delete your history.
The Misery of the Immune
The arrival of Manousos, the paranoid survivor from Paraguay, serves as a sharp contrast to the “Others.” If the Others represent the ultimate, if hollow, community, Manousos represents the ultimate, if miserable, individual.
When Manousos pulls his ambulance into Carol’s driveway, he finds a woman who has softened. Carol, once the lone warrior of the human race, has spent weeks being courted by Zosia, a manifestation of the Others who looks and acts like a dream partner. The irony is palpable: Carol finds Manousos’s austerity—his refusal to eat anything but canned food and his insistence on speaking through a translation app—to be just as off-putting as she once was to the rest of the world.
Manousos is the “mood-killer” at the end of the world. He brings with him the harsh reality that the Others have stolen the Earth, regardless of how many wishes they grant.
The Last Temptation
The episode’s core—and the inspiration for its title—is a roughly 40-minute stretch that mirrors Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Carol allows herself to fantasize about a normal life. We watch Carol and Zosia move through a series of “couples’ vacation” vignettes: sunning by a luxury pool, sharing a bubble bath in a high-rise hotel, and sipping wine by a fire at a ski resort.
“I must have every happy chemical flowing through my bloodstream,” Carol tells Zosia. It is the most vulnerable we have ever seen her. For a misanthrope who has spent her life being rejected or rejecting others, the promise of a permanent “high” of acceptance is almost too much to resist.
However, the illusion breaks when the Others tip their hand. Zosia reveals that Carol’s immunity is a resource they intend to mine. They aren’t just interested in her company; they are interested in her frozen eggs. The hive mind needs her stem cells to “fix” the genetic anomalies of the immune survivors.
The linguistic sleight of hand used by the Others is terrifying. When Carol says Zosia wouldn’t do this if she loved her, Zosia replies, “Please understand we have to do this because we love you… because I love you.” But as the show has subtly hinted all season, there is no “I” in the hive. Zosia is a projection. She is every fan Carol ever had, every government official, every stranger—she is everyone and no one.
A Hard Sacrifice
The finale’s climax involves a deceptive collaboration between Carol and Manousos. In a tense sequence involving a radio transmitter and a shotgun, the show explores whether the “Joining” can be reversed. Manousos proves that he can “put things back in their place,” but it requires an act of aggression that momentarily shatters the Others’ collective consciousness.
Ultimately, Carol chooses the world over “the girl.” Her return to her home via helicopter—carrying a mysterious, heavy cargo—marks the definitive end of her period of temptation.