Welcome to E Pluribus Unum. the podcast where
we dive deeper into the hive mind. This is for
episode four entitled, Please, Carol. What are
your overall thoughts on this one so far? Overall,
I enjoyed the episode. I feel like it was a blend
of episode three and episodes one and two. We
get some of the mystery, but we also learn more
about Carol's character. deeply, in fact. So
I think it hit on all cylinders for me for a
Pluribus episode and the show has yet to disappoint.
Yeah, I agree. I think this was a really great
episode. I think it rivals episode one in my
mind as far as how much I enjoyed it. And I just
wanted to highlight again here, this might be
Ray Seahorn's best performance yet and that's
saying something because she's been so immaculate
in the first three episodes, but I was just really
pulled in. I just want to point out whomever
did the animation for the title sequence did
a marvelous job and the musician that they hired
to do the introductory and closing songs did
a marvelous job as well. I wish we could use
them for our show and maybe we'll just have to
ask permission and see if they'll let us. Absolutely.
Yeah, the opening sequence is minimalist, but
there's still so much going on and you see all
these sort of nodes as they're pushing outwards
in almost a signal like fashion. I think it really
works with the themes of the show and a piece
of that psychic glue in action as a scientist
might see it or you see it on some sort of instrument.
So very awesome. And oh boy, that opening theme
song is quite catchy as well. We have another
classic cold open from Vince and his crew for
this episode and we actually get introduced to
our new character from Paraguay and we get to
see his side of the telephone conversation that
Carol had with him when she was on the plane.
So we have Menusos Oviedo and he is working a
ham radio and he's dialing it in on channel seven
point one two nine and then he turns an egg timer
to two minutes and he waits and listens to the
static and We doesn't get a response He switches
to the next channel and you could see he's going
through a series of channels and he lands on
seven point one three two Begins the egg timer
and listen so you can see here that He is a clever
person. He is trying to reach out to other people
that aren't joined or whatever he thinks this
situation is because he obviously is in the dark
totally in this and I like that a lot. He's either
the manager or an owner of a storage facility
in Paraguay and you could see that he's coming
down to the end of what he has for rations and
that the joined have been dropping food off at
the gate for him and he's been refusing the food
even though he's obviously starving. But what
he does instead is he decides to write an apology
letter to the people that own any of the items
in the storage unit to say that he needed to
open them up and he is searching for food. And
he does find food technically. For me, this is
a gross out scene. I watch horror films. I watch
action films. But when you have a person reduced
to opening up a can of dog food, and eating it.
And again, whomever they chose for this actor
nails it. I could taste the dog food. It was
just awful and gross, but he was willing to endure.
And as he's dealing with this dog food situation,
we now get to catch up to the point to where
Carol starts her multiple calls to him, up to
and including the final statement to him where
she literally says in Spanish, go fuck your mother,
asshole. and hangs up, and I'm so pleased with
his response because it was exactly what I was
hoping would happen. I could see in his face
that he realized, oh, she's not one of them,
so much so that he even writes her name down
for what he believes he heard. And that becomes
the conclusion of that cold open. So another
epic cold open from the Vince Gilligan team.
Yeah, I enjoyed the cold open on this one as
well. It was great to finally see Manousos as
he's going about his day and encountering some
of the problems that come along with how he's
decided to react to the hive mind. He almost
seems more skeptical and possibly even more afraid
than Carol is in his reaction to the hive mind.
And he treats it almost like you would a traditional
virus. He isolates himself. He doesn't go near
anyone. He doesn't accept the food from the hive
mind, despite how delicious that looked. He's
incredibly skeptical and that drives him to open
those storage units and find that dog food. And,
oh boy, that was a, like you mentioned, a tough
scene to watch, certainly. But after he gets
the call from Carol, he writes something interesting
down. Uh, La Turca, Carol S. La Turca. And I
did some digging on this one. There's a quite
a few different. meanings in the colloquial sense
as well of La Terca. The one I found that that
really fit it the most was given as a compliment
to women when they are cunning or clever or resourceful.
So it's almost him realizing that Carol after
she cusses him out, Oh, this is a real person.
And almost that. She didn't custom out solely
because she was angry but possibly custom out
so that he would recognize that and that Gives
a bit of cleverness to what she did So whether
she did that on purpose or not, we'll find out
but at the very least it got Manusos thinking
that Carol could potentially be someone of the
same mind as him Well, we watched episode 3 and
I had a couple of my theories fall to the wayside,
but one theory I had in the interim was because
she cursed him out, will he realize she's not
part of the hive mind and will he do something
different? And it looks like that's the direction
they're going in and I'm pleased with that. And
I think throughout this episode, a couple of
our theories are either confirmed or denied in
a pretty definite way. So that's pretty cool.
I think this really brings us. perfectly into
the next sequence here where we jump back in
with Carol as she's leaving the hospital and
she steals a sheriff's car. I believe it is to
get home. Uh, and I'll say this too, you know,
you can't steal anything anymore. No one owns
anything anymore. So if you want air force one,
you get our air force one. If you want the state
police car, you just jump in a state police car
and start driving. They even ask her, did you
enjoy your. police car. So let's add another
layer to our concept here. There's no theft in
the world anymore. There's no reason to steal
in the world anymore. Everything is fully taken
care of. And we even learned about how well they
do take care of those that have suffered a little
bit later on. But she jumps into the state police
car and drives on down the road. Her goal is
to get back home. She does and she sees that
the joined are they're doing their cleanup She
allows them to do so and we meet Larry who is
one of the folks helping out and She calls him
shorty, which is hilarious because he's obviously
six four six five or something like that And
even when she says hey shorty, he's literally
standing next to a woman. That's probably about
four and a half feet tall Prior to her requesting
Shorty comes back with her, she goes in and begins
something I do quite a bit, which is a whiteboarding
session. That's how I always like to throw my
thoughts at the wall literally. And the first
thing that she sees across this whiteboard is
the outline or at least some ideas of her fifth
Waikaro novel. And she notably purposefully doesn't
erase it as well. Whether that is it reminds
her of Helen or she still sees some value in
it But the thing that was highlighted for me
was in all bold letters. It said love potion
exclamation point And of course a love potion
is something that forces you into love with someone
else. So very similar to the hive mind I'm sure
there are folks that are now forced into loving
everyone and loving people outside of the hive
mind as well so certainly something to think
about and it sort of goes back to some of my
ideas early on in episode one where you know
they're initially transmuting this RNA sequence
via saliva and kissing and how that connection
is what we utilize as humans prior to the psychic
glue to connect to other people is kissing or
a physical affection and love. So again, just
playing into those same themes of the hive mind,
forced love, and what we as humans use to connect
when we don't have the psychic glue. And, you
know, you mentioned one of my favorite guys in
this episode, Larry, who she calls shorty. There's
a very subtle portion here where she calls out
shorty as well, because when we see shorty come
forward after she calls him she says hey you
shorty come here we do see it it is tall larry
that comes over and not the very short woman
and that signifies that now they have learned
sarcasm and they understand sarcasm at this point
it's very subtle and it was a question we had
after last episode in the hand grenade but at
this point they have learned That she said that
sarcastically and it is now the tall person as
opposed to the short person that comes over again
something very subtle, but it's not meaningless
I Could put in there that he is the individual
interacting with her more directly than Even
the mayor that's cleaning her driveway there
the fucking mayor as she says So I don't know
if that's necessarily true or that they are learning
or changing their ability it could simply be
that he was the one interacting with her first
and They just assumed he she called him shorty
and and went that way but to bounce back to your
whiteboard with the Bacario notes. I noticed
a handful of those things in there as well She
did hesitate to wipe the board and I thought
that was pretty cool because it could be the
writer in her It could be Helen as you mentioned
But she pushes it off to the side to open up
a new whiteboard that says what do I know about
them? And she goes through a list of five things.
She says they are eager to please they cannot
kill they don't play favorites They are trying
to change me." And she has this starred several
times. And then five is a question, weirdly honest
question mark. And I think that helps a lot of
folks who are watching the show tally up maybe
their own thoughts, but also what Carol's thoughts
are at this particular time. That's when she
procures Larry and they go back inside and we
have almost an interrogation scene here. It seems
as though the purpose of this interrogation is
to determine if the hive mind can lie to her.
And when we talk about the Larry interrogation
sequence, she asks them, do you love my books?
Yes, we love your books. Well, do you love them
as much as Shakespeare? Yes, we do. And she says,
that's impossible. And she starts to ask about
whether Helen enjoyed her romance novels and
whether Helen enjoyed. her novel that is unpublished
at the moment. We discover through Larry that
Helen thought that her books were harmless and
that they pleased people and that it provided
them with a home and a living and she was pleased
with that and that they seemed to please Carol
in some way. Then when it came down to Carol's
Heart of Hearts, her unpublished novel, we find
out that Helen was just meh about the novel.
but that they wanted her to publish it for herself
so that she would have some sort of satisfaction
out of it. And that's outside of the hive mind.
These are the two people that knew her prior
to that and wanted her to just simply be happy.
So it's bittersweet. You find out that her partner
didn't really much care for her writing, but
was fully supportive of her career and her writing
in both ways. And it seems as though the conversation
with Larry, we have the confirmation that indeed
the hive mind can't lie. Even when Carol returns
to the white board, she writes down can't lie
and even underscores it at that point and erases
the question mark. So it's almost as if Vince
Gilligan is telling us this is a hard, fast rule
for this world that I've created. But I don't
know that we have hard, fast rules. I think it's
more about Carol's perception of what the rules
may be. I don't honestly believe that we've sussed
out whether they truly can or cannot lie or will
or will not lie for various reasons. I think
they dance around it in such an interesting way
that it still doesn't answer the question. And
I enjoy that this is a show that we both have
our own theories on. And even if those theories
are a little in opposition, it just drives the
conversation forward, which is so great about
anything that Vince Gilligan does. So I love
that quite a bit. I think this sort of leads
us back into the next sequence here where she
returns to Zosia in the hospital. And we see
from Ray's performance that she still feels almost
sorry that this happened to Zosia, but it leads
into a really interesting conversation with Zosia
as well. Some of the things that they're mentioning
here is the love potion that we were talking
about before, or the forced integration of Carol
into the hive mind eventually. And Zosia even
mentions, soon enough, you'll understand everything
and you'll feel much better. And that line seemed
to bring up a memory of conversion camp that
her mother had sent her to and brings up the
similarities of these conversion camp counselors
that were by all means evil people who are trying
to change the core of who Carol is and integrate
them into their way of seeing as well. So I thought
that was a very hard -hitting conversation. She
says in reference to the counselors at the conversion
camp she went to when she was 16. And just like
you, they smiled all the time. And oh man, what
a punch to the gut with that line. Zosia also
says, we've been you, but you've never been us.
And that's a fantastic line as well. Even though
it reminds me of Ray's line from the previous
episode where she says, I don't need my Drug
dealer to describe the heroin to me Meaning I
don't need the sales pitch here and this is the
third step in her thought process as we move
through this episode The first one was she has
an inkling of an idea The second one she confirms
it in the interrogation with Larry and as we
close out the hospital room scene They do a close
-up of the drip that Zosia is connected to. And
even in that scene, Carol specifically asks Zosia
if the joining can be reversed. And Zosia's,
I guess you can call it a non -response, we find
out that she can't tell a lie, but she can also
not tell. the truth by simply not saying anything
almost lie by omission seems to be the closest
that they can get to uh deception right and she
uh makes a beeline for the thiopental sodium
or for those in the know it's considered the
truth serum yeah arian immediately reminded me
of every A film and television show that used
a truth serum in their scripting and this is
sodium pentothal essentially which is supposed
to be a truth serum which is just a kind of a
heavy barbiturate that just really takes your
inhibitions and really waters them down quite
a bit allowing you to be hyper honest in some
cases kind of like when someone gets drunk and
they become a little bit too Honest in the conversation
it does that but to an nth degree I would say
especially in this episode And once again with
some comedic intent in the next scene But I do
really like when she runs into the doctor in
there and she very frankly asks You guys have
any heroin around here? after some coercion the
doctor agrees to Procure her some unadulterated
heroin. I believe he called it That's only eight
hours away and it's on its way. Better than dominoes
she says. 30 minutes or less and it is always
free apparently. But this leads us into a really
great scene where we find out it was a ruse and
she dumps the heroin away and instead she's going
to go about testing the truth serum on herself.
And I really love how this sequence was edited
in particular where we see her inject herself
and start the camera and sit down. and sort of
look around and in a quick little match cut,
she's instantly asleep and she's got to turn
the camera back on and go through exactly what
happened to her while she was going through this
bout of truth serum. Some funny things and some
really heart wrenching scenes. The sequence where
she has the heroin. flushes it down the toilet
immediately reminded me of Breaking Bad because
we have a scene in Breaking Bad where he has
to flush some things down the toilet and I'm
pretty sure they use the same angles and everything
so I thought that was kind of a cool call back
to Breaking Bad and you've gotten us to the point
to where she's now reviewing the footage of her
bout with the truth serum. And as you mentioned,
she does have some harrowing moments. I would
say the most harrowing moment is when she breaks
down and exclaims that I miss you. I miss you.
And she's talking about Helen and she is just.
Balling and it's hard for her to watch and it's
hard for us to watch. And I put myself in her
role and I'm thinking, how would I feel if I
saw myself? behaving in this way. And she does
exactly what I would do. She fast forwards through
a lot of stuff. And as we watch this fast forward
footage, we see her dancing around the living
room, getting food, all kinds of funny stuff.
And then we'll stop and she'll be reading parts
of her novel in a crazy English accent. And then
it'll fast forward again and just go back and
forth through maudlin and humorous scenes in
this sequence here. and she decides to take the
memory card and flush it down the toilet. And
my thought was that memory card could survive
that and they could find that. And if they find
that, they would see that she had tested this.
drug on herself to see how it works out later.
That may or may not make a difference as we move
on, but it was interesting to me that she wouldn't
destroy it in another way, like Mr. Robot and
throw it in the microwave or smash it with a
hammer. She decides to flush it down the toilet.
So I wonder if that will come back to haunt her
later. Yeah. And I think she gets the confirmation
that she wanted out of her experiment here with
a truth serum, specifically when she fast forwards
to herself talking about Zosia and she admits
Zosia is so annoying. Yeah. She goes, she's so
annoying. And the next line is, and why'd she
have to be so goddamn fuckable? And I'm going
to tell you this. I paused it there because I
was laughing so hard. I had tears coming from
my eyes. I was laughing so hard when she laid
out that line so well delivered. And it made
me wonder, did they bring the pirate lady and
to play because they also believe that Carol
might be physically attracted to her as well.
And I going to say yes with this scene. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I think that's something I don't think
Carol would ever admit even to herself. Uh, definitely
not out loud. Yeah. This, this strange creature
is effable. Uh, but she does. So I think that
confirms to her that this experiment can work.
She says we have a winner. Yeah. And then we
go to the next scene where she indeed is finally
going to test this with his OSHA in particular.
And it was confirmed in the previous episode
towards the end with the hand grenade scene that
the hive mind is susceptible to things like alcohol.
So we keep that in mind in that this true syrup
more than likely would. Be effective against
an individual within the hive mind as well. So
we do have that laid down for us already and
of course Carol her intent here is to inject
this truth serum into Zosia to get her to Open
up a little bit so that she'll answer the question
that she posited earlier around Can I reverse
the joining? as Carol returned she gathers OSHA
out of the bed and politely asked if she would
like some sun. And this is really the kindest
that we've seen Carol to Zosia. It seems almost
as if Carol really only shows kindness ever when
she wants something in return, but Carol gathers
up Zosia. And I guess I should mention that Carol
injects the truth serum into Zosia's IV drip
while they're going down in the elevator. And
there's even a short funny scene. Muzak in elevators
and what where where did that go? I never noticed
it when it sort of left the zeitgeist But yeah,
whenever I'm in an elevator now, I don't hear
that music that I heard from my childhood So
now we can say that the joined are not only Vegetarians
they don't murder, but they also don't appreciate
music Another thing to add to the joined philosophy,
Musak is out. But if you want to listen, I'll
play you the song Between the Moon and New York
City. But it's the Musak version of a Yacht Rock
song. There's comedy stacked on top of comedy
here that I might go over some folks' heads,
but I thought that that was really fantastic.
But you're right. is behind Zosia who's sitting
in the wheelchair in the elevator and that's
her opportunity to spike her IV with the truth
serum and she wheels her outside into the sunshine
and Zosia says yes we do enjoy the sunshine we
are enjoying this and finally Carol starts to
interrogate her but she's interrogating her first
about the weather And we know with the joint
that they like to break down all the details.
What's the barometer? What's the wind speed?
They even provide Celsius and Fahrenheit for
the temperature outside. And as Carol asks more
and more detailed questions about the weather,
Zosia starts to fade out a little bit. And Carol
just becomes very insistent. You told me before
that we could reverse this. How do we reverse
this? And Zosia just says, No, no, no. And this
is where the scene becomes very invasion of the
body snatchers because we start to see people
creeping out from the edges. And by creeping
out, I'm saying that it doesn't feel comfortable
or friendly or nice at all. No one has a smile
on their face. In fact, they look like they have
a scowl. Zosia is crying at this point and Carol
realizes she doesn't want to lose this opportunity
as she's continuing to grill Zosia and saying
please just tell me how do we reverse this? How
do we reverse this? And she asked Zosia the question
several times over as she starts to see everybody
crowd in around them. She takes a pair of handcuffs
and she handcuffs herself to Zosia and she says
you have to do what I say now back off and when
she says back off the entire crowd backs up an
entire step again that creepy in unison symmetry
that we have here. So at this point, the entire
crowd of the joined around her are chanting,
please Carol, please Carol, please Carol, over
and over again. And now you have Carol handcuffed
to Zosia, Carol telling them, I have agency,
you have to do what I say. And all they're saying
over and over again is please Carol, please Carol,
please Carol. It's extremely unnerving. It's
completely the opposite in the way that they
behaved before. Yeah, a really fantastic scene
and just wonderfully acted, not only from our
two main leads here, but the other actors that
are surrounding them. It is almost something
wrenched right out of a horror movie. I want
to point out that Zosia's face while they're
all chanting at her, she's clearly feeling the
effects of the drugs and the after effect that
she's not. chanting along with the crowd around
them. And it seems almost as if to me, what I
sort of picked up on was, is this, is she reverting
back to an individual as well? When you inoculate
somebody with whether that's alcohol or, or with
the truth serum here, does that wrench them farther
and farther away from the hive mind? So I thought
that was really interesting. Of course, there's
a couple of explanations for what that look on
her face could actually be here. And listen,
I'll say this. This isn't something I subscribe
to, but it's something I want to throw out in
the ether here. Are they answering her question?
Where is it that pleasing Carol? is going to
be the way that she's able to revert them out
of the joining. Not something again, that I,
I I'm subscribing to, but it's something I want
to put out there because I thought it was an
interesting thought that I had. So probably not.
But I think the wording in particular, please,
Carol could also work as a potential answer down
the road. But we see at this point that Carol's
plan goes awry. And once again, we find Carol
doing harm to not only the hive mind, but the
closest person to her in this individual named
Zosia. You know, when we talk about Zosia's appearance
in the chair while she's drugged, the thing I
saw on her face was sadness. And so now it's
the opposite of what everyone else appears to
have on their face. And that's an important distinction,
appears to have on their face. And she's sad.
And I think it does lend itself to your theory.
Did this drug help to break her away from the
hive mind? And I'll say that we have another
piece of evidence as the scene continues in that
as well. So I don't think that you're quite off.
I was excited in episode two when she lashed
out at Zosia in the cul -de -sac. And we saw
Zosia have her first episode. And I thought in
that moment, oh, again, we have a weapon here
to either fight against this or perhaps reverse
it. Maybe if I got angry enough, it would bounce
everybody else out and just leave the person
who's standing in front of me in. Now we have
another instance where you introduce a drug or
a truth serum. And it looks like it could be
another tool potentially to pull a person out
of the hive mind. Now we're going to go into
the very final scene here to maybe answer that.
To remind everyone, we're completely surrounded
by the joined. Their numbers continue to increase.
They're all chanting with tear stained faces,
please Carol, please Carol, please Carol. And
they say, Zosia is now experiencing a heart attack.
Will you allow us to save her? And again, she's
presented with a question she can answer, no,
and they wouldn't. And she says, yes. And then
we see a doctor try to revive Zosia. And then
the final audio that we hear is the defibrillator
says, shock advised. And then they cut to black.
So we're left with a cliffhanger as to whether,
frankly, once again, is Zosia gonna make it?
And Carol having to endure the repercussions
of the decisions that she's made in order to
test her theory on the truth theorem and try
to find a way to reverse the joining. Let's say
a drug or an outburst does break a person out
of the hive mind. The potential result is you
have a Helen situation where she dies and, or
we have a Zosia situation where here she could
die. And is that the only way out of the joint?
Oh, interesting. So maybe if you die and are
brought back, for instance, with a defibrillator,
does that sever your tie at that point? That's
a really interesting thought. I didn't think
about that. Well Kiefer Sutherland thought of
it years ago in a film called the flatliners
Hell yeah, he did if you haven't seen it. Honestly,
I can't recommend it It doesn't age well, but
the concept is still fun. So yeah, we're trying
a flatliner situation here That's my final thoughts
on the episode itself quite impressed There wasn't
a waste of space time or word and I thought that
they delivered enough of the mystery and enough
of the backstory with Carol that This may be
possibly a perfect episode. I got to agree with
you. It was lean, mean, and it answered a lot
of questions for us and maybe posited even more
questions for us. So another great one. Well,
I want to also point out my favorite revelation
for me in this that you revealed where she says,
please Carol. And is it them? imploring her to
please allow us to do something or please stop
and you're more saying no it's actually we're
here to please Carol and both answers are terrifying.
It's something to think about certainly something
I didn't agree with I think and I probably still
don't but it's interesting to think about and
it would be fun to have a little kernel of truth
in there. For sure. I didn't want to dig into
too many theories out there. We're pretty early
on in the show and theories can go awry rather
quickly. But one statement that was made by a
handful of fans is they believe that she was
asking the wrong questions. When she's interrogating
Larry, I at first had that same feeling. Why
are you asking about your novel and whether your
partner liked it or not? You have more pressing
things to be asking questions about but in reality
she was interrogating him to define where the
holes were in the Swiss cheese she's coming up
with an idea of how she can conquer this so there
was that and then the episode culminates in a
couple of questions that are Huge can you reverse
this? what's going to happen if you finally get
the formula right. Because again, we don't know
how they're going to attempt to make this happen.
And do I have a choice at that moment to go with
you or not, despite your biological imperative?
So I know another fantastic episode. Yeah, I
guess what I see as the theme for this episode.
is posited right at the end of the cold open
with La Terca because the entire episode is about
Carol being this very clever and cunning woman
and incredibly skillful and resourceful woman
as well. That could have almost been the title
of the episode and it would have made plenty
of sense. They could have even called it Clever
Girl and that would be a reference to Jurassic
Park where the guy's hunting down the two predators,
and he says, clever girl. And she's beyond clever.
She's sharp. I really hope she gets at least
nominated for an Emmy, but she should just land
it. I can't think of many other television actors
that have been nailing it on this level this
year. I agree wholeheartedly. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think that'll do it for this episode
of E Pluribus Unum, episode four entitled, Please.
Carol if you like what we're doing here with
e pluribus unum, please Carol do us a favor and
check out our other podcast dad You're wrong.
If you enjoy horror movies science fiction or
fantasy. Thanks a lot guys. Have a good one.
We'll talk to you next week