Four episodes into Vince Gilligan’s latest mind-bender, and I’m having the deeply uncomfortable realization that Carol Sturka might be the most relatable protagonist I’ve encountered in years. While critics are praising Rhea Seehorn’s performance, I’m sitting here watching Carol complain her way through the apocalypse and thinking, “Yep, that’s exactly how I’d handle the end of the world.”
The premise: humanity gets infected by an alien virus that makes everyone perpetually happy, cooperative, and incapable of harm. Everyone except 13 immune individuals, including Carol, a miserable fantasy romance writer who hates her own work and audience. The show’s title refers to “e pluribus unum” – out of many, one – but what we’re really watching is one deeply flawed woman rage against a world that’s become aggressively, unnaturally nice.
What’s fascinating about the hive mind is how it flattens all human taste and judgment into this weird consensus. When they critique Carol’s writing, they genuinely can’t distinguish between Shakespeare and trashy romance novels – because somewhere in that collective consciousness, someone really did think her Wycaro books were masterpieces. It’s not that they’re wrong; it’s that they’ve absorbed every possible opinion and somehow arrived at this bland, inoffensive middle ground that satisfies no one.
What’s brilliant about Gilligan’s approach is how he makes you question whether this world actually needs saving. The “others” have achieved world peace, eliminated suffering, and are working tirelessly to help recovering addicts. Carol’s fighting to preserve humanity’s capacity for misery, selfishness, and making terrible decisions. It’s a show about contradictions – asking whether our flaws are worth fighting for.
The “black box” question that is haunting me: why are there exactly 12 immune people scattered globally, and why is it taking a hivemind with access to every scientist’s knowledge so long to figure out how to convert them? The show’s biggest mystery isn’t really that hive mind – it’s Carol herself, and whether her stubborn refusal to join represents humanity’s last hope or just the final tantrum of someone who’s never been happy anyway.