Hello, Carol. This is your favorite podcast,
E Pluribus Unum, on your favorite show, Pluribus,
where we do a deep dive into the hive mind. This
is Eric. And this is Josh. And this is episode
five. I have to ask right off the bat, Josh,
what are your initial thoughts on episode five,
Got Milk? I enjoyed this one. Yeah, it really
dove into those themes that we've been talking
about of loneliness and grief. But especially
in this episode, there was a lot about overcoming
grief. And there was also the same theme of that
illusion of independence that Carol had. And
this episode really exemplifies her first step
forward into not only breaking that illusion
of independence, but finally truly becoming independent.
Yeah, overall really great episode and it ended
on a pretty cool, I guess you could call it a
cliffhanger, but I think as we talk, I'm going
to get into a little bit about how I don't think
it's as much as a cliffhanger as it first seemed.
I will say I was as shocked as Carol at the end
there, so I don't know. You're gonna have to
do some pretty heavy convincing. My overall thoughts
on this episode are quite similar. It reminds
me a lot of episode three, where it feels half
character study and half mystery, and not as
much intense action as we had in the last episode,
especially at the end there. Again, overall,
Rey knocks it out of the park. She... literally
carries the entire episode on her shoulders.
We're with her the entire time. The only other
folks in the episode in particular are coyotes.
That's interesting as well. That's one thing
that we'll probably get into a little bit later
in the episode, but I guess I was slightly confused
or I had two paths of thinking whether it was
coyotes or if it was wolves. Well, let's roll
into this episode here. The episode begins with
us looking through a hospital window toward the
desert and it backs up. And one of the first
things that we see in this opening sequence is
a man lying in a portable cot and he's drinking
a carton of milk, which I think is a direct reference
to the title of the episode. And Carol is standing
outside one of the nurses' stations and the telephone
rings. And it's your favorite character, actually.
And she has something to say. Yeah, Lakshmi is
certainly quite the character. But we find out
from Lakshmi that not only did the joined that
was around Carol at the end of last episode begin
this sort of crying as they're chanting out,
please, Carol, but it also made the rest of the
hive mind cry. And Lakshmi's very angry about
Carol making her child cry. I feel like at this
point, I'm feeling about Lakshmi that she's likely
the survivor that has the wool pulled over her
eyes the most, because it is her child that is
part of the hive mind at this point. Well, I
half agree with you and I half disagree with
you. And this is why with Lakshmi, I think she
is deluded. I don't know that it's a I bought
into it scenario. I think she's diluting herself,
but I think she's also angry with herself as
much as she's angry with Carol. And imagine that
you're in this situation and here's your child
that's also not your child. And she's obviously
intelligent enough to know that, but she can't
let that go as a mother. And you have this other
woman who's never had children coming in to tell
you your child's no longer your child anymore,
pointing out the obvious, but you absolutely
refuse. That is just a cognitive dissonance for
you, and it makes you angry because I think in
the back of her mind she knows Carol's right.
And I think that bothers her. And every time
we see Carol have an outburst, it obviously directly
affects Lakshmi. And here it is again. She's
made quote unquote her son cry. And I think it's
just another reminder that no, this isn't business
as usual. This isn't your son still. And I think
she's going to come around eventually. But I
think her being against Carol at this point works
perfectly. But it's like the other character
we spoke of previously having more in common
with Carol. than one might think on the surface.
I believe the same thing with Lakshmi and I think
that's why they brought her back in this episode
because I didn't see necessarily that she was
mad at Carol. The reaction I got both from Lakshmi
and the actress playing her was frustration of
coming close to admitting that Carol's right.
I like that take quite a bit. Yeah. And one thing
that we didn't really get from this conversation,
we know that her son cried, but we don't know
if the rest of the hive mind were also chanting,
please Carol at the same time. Oh my goodness.
Something interesting to think about as well.
And imagine you're sitting there at dinner and
then all of a sudden all the joined that are
around you start chanting, please Carol. I mean,
horror movie material there. Pretty good stuff.
I love Lakshmi, she's absolutely fantastic. At
this point, Carol goes back to check on Zosia
and there's a nurse in the room and she asks
the nurse if Zosia is going to be okay and so
forth. And instead of the nurse being overly
friendly, like we're so used to the joined being,
she is actually very stoic and... just very flatly
says she'll be alright and doesn't even look
Carol in the eye and turns very quickly and exits
the room. And you can tell that she's put off,
this joined person is put off, and it shows a
different dimension of these characters, right?
All up to this point except for the last part
of the last episode, they've been Mr. Rogers.
It's like when you upset your partner and you
still have to live together and so you just...
our ships in the night, and you just answer questions
with one word. So it seems like they're having
an emotional response to her literally drugging
Zosia and trying to get the truth out of her.
Any guy out there who's forgotten to take the
trash out knows this sort of response that Carol
is getting from the hive mind. They're not necessarily
angry or aggravated, but they are disappointed
in Carol. and they're making that known to her.
It's a stark difference from what we've seen
from The Hive Mine previously and it's almost
as if this is a defensive posture that they've
taken with Carol and we really dive into that
quite a bit more in the next scene where Carol
leaves Zosia's room and then Carol goes out to
the waiting room and lies down on a bench out
there with her pillow. and proceeds to fall asleep.
And I thought it was very interesting that the
hive mind specifically waited for Carol to go
to sleep to begin their sort of exodus out of
the hospital. It's almost as if they wanted to
wait until she was gone or sedated. in order
to leave so that she couldn't ask them where
they were going because they would most likely
end up telling her or she couldn't ask them to
stay in particular to please her. It would please
her if they all stayed. They waited until she
was asleep to leave so that she couldn't do that.
And that leads us to where Carol wakes up and
she finds herself alone within the hospital.
And again, this is where we start getting back
into that cinematography of Carol being very
small within the frame and a vast amount of empty
space and Echoing audio as well. And this is
also where once again with the cinematography
we begin to see Carol obstructed by items within
the frame whether that's a window or a chair
or anything along those lines were reverted back
to that same cinematography that really Expounded
that loneliness that Carol might be feeling Well,
and not surprising, this episode is directed
by Gordon Smith and it was written by Ariel Levine,
both of which who worked on episode three that
seems to have both the aesthetic that you're
describing and sort of the writing and interaction
between Carol and her environment and Carol and
the joined in such a really beautiful way. I'll
even say that. I didn't realize the idea behind
them purposely waiting for her to fall asleep
so that they could exit without any drama. A
brilliant catch on that one, by the way. And
again, another really beautiful ballet sequence.
I'm just going to call them ballet sequences
from this point on, because I have a feeling
we're going to have several of them. At this
point, we find out that the hive mind is no longer
even talking to Carol on the phone, but they
do have a message that says, this is a recording
and We're still happy to help you, and our feelings
haven't changed about you, Carol, but we just
need our space. And they beat us over the head
with it, right? And her reaction to the message
is also pretty phenomenal, and how she behaves
as we hear the repeats of the message throughout
the episode are... with comic gems, but also
if you've ever been in a breakup scenario or
something like that, essentially, and everything
now becomes awkward between the two of you. It
very much had that feel to it. And it was uncomfortable,
but also done in a very funny way. But the fluid
way that everyone leaves the hospital itself,
the fluid way that we see all the traffic leave
Albuquerque, especially as... Ray climbs the
ladder to go up to the roof to really see the
breadth of the impact that she's had as far as
people exiting and I love it because she's standing
on the roof and she's watching everybody leave
and she says good riddance and Then about two
seconds later. She goes fuck you and It's funny
because between those two seconds. I said fuck
you And I like yeah Yes, Carol You tell them.
And this is when we hit one of my favorite things,
the timestamps. We get eight days, 22 hours,
36 minutes and 30 seconds. I am compiling my
timestamp research right now. So I'll post that
on our social media feeds and I'll post it in
the show notes for this episode so that we can
further discuss these timestamps and what they
may really mean for us and see if there is some
sort of a correlation or a pattern. but at this
point when she's standing on the roof it leads
us to the next sequence where she goes home and
she needs to draft a script for a video so that
she can communicate with the other immune. Yeah,
I enjoyed this one quite a bit because it's similar
to how we are drafting the scripts for talking
about this episode. Eventually she orients herself
and figures out what she is trying to communicate
with this video. I thought it was interesting
that she does things specifically to look more
trustworthy, I guess you could say, within the
video. She removes the liquor bottles and she...
is adding makeup and trying to make herself look
good and more respectable as she's recording
this. Yeah, she thinks it's possible to reverse
this particular thing. She reiterates that they
cannot lie, that apparently everyone that was
joined worldwide cried all at the same time,
and that they abandoned her in Albuquerque. I've
been abandoned here all by myself. But she also
does the same thing she did in episode three.
She says, You should treasure your individuality
and that humanity needs saving and that we owe
it to humanity. And I'm going to say it again,
I think she believes this about humanity as a
whole, but I think she even more strongly believes
it about the humanity in herself, that she's
looking to save herself in this scenario as much
as she's looking to save humanity. I like that
take quite a bit. Yeah, I think there's some
substance to that. and not only her humanity,
but her individuality as well. Well, she finishes
her video finally and then she says, well, you
know, we need to get this delivered out. So she
makes her phone call and she listens to that
message once again, nodding her head as they
make their way through saying that they need
their space. And she states when she goes to
put the blue envelope, by the way, outside with
the tape in it, she tells them. I need you to
pick this up. I need you to make copies of it.
I need you to deliver it to the other 12 that
are unaffected. And I'll stay far, far away because
God knows you need your space. And when she goes
outside to leave that package by the rock, we
find that it's not one of the joined that is
coming to pick up the message, but it's actually
a drone that comes to pick up the message. So
they're really emphatically. letting Carol know
that they do not want to be near her. And I was
thinking that drones don't have an unlimited
range, right? So they're thinking the same thing.
There's likely still at least one joined still
within Albuquerque that is responsible for interacting
with Carol. There's at least somebody still there.
I want you to keep that thought in mind when
we talk about another sequence later on. But
you're right, they do use this drone to come
pick up the envelope and just her reaction at
the drone arriving versus a quote unquote person
arriving to pick up the package is absolutely
priceless. Yeah, once again, just another great
lineless delivery from Ray that we've grown to
love so much within this show. For sure. You
actually remind me of what ends up happening
next here. She goes inside to make herself a
drink, and I noticed that the label on one of
the vodka bottles was called Tater Tears. Which,
you know, vodka is made from potatoes, but I
thought Tater Tears and having that Tears line
in there, especially with what happened with
the last episode. I have to think is on purpose.
And I like it. It's those little things. And
I'll mention another one here later on. But she
goes to bed that evening. And this is the first
time I recall seeing her go to bed. We've seen
her sleep on the couch primarily. And it didn't
register to me until now that maybe she had been
avoiding going to bed because that was the bed
that she shared with Helen. And there's this
moment where the camera's behind. and we see
the bedroom beyond that, and she looks at the
bed and takes this slight breath and a small
sigh, and that's it. But my gosh, in that, you
hear all of her sadness, loneliness, grief in
those two seconds, or I did anyway, and I felt
it, and I thought, again, such a great performance.
and such a beautiful way to express so much and
so little. Here's where we also notice that she's
still wearing the handcuff. And my question was,
with all the opportunities seemingly that she
has had to take that handcuff off, is she still
wearing it because she feels guilty? Yeah, I
think it does symbolize possibly the guilt that
she felt over having caused that cardiac arrest
within Zosia. And so much of this series so far
has really portrayed Carol as a prisoner as well.
And I think it symbolizes a bit of that. And
as we get to sort of the end of the second act
into the third act and the idea of Carol finally
becoming the independent person that she always
believed that she was. and also a little bit
about how Carol tends to solve problems at the
same time. I really felt that this scene in particular
where she finally sleeps in her marital bed that
she shared with Helen, it really is that first
step in her overcoming the grief of Helen's death.
And I think that the Agatha Christie novel, which
is And Then There Were None, has a lot to do
with the story. To be fair, I haven't personally
read this particular Christie novel, but it's
about 10 people that were murderers and they're
invited to this isolated island where they're
killed off one by one. And it's essentially about
the consequences of your past actions coming
back to bite you. And it just got me to thinking
about these 10 people, are they similar to our
13 survivors? Is this isolated island similar
to the isolation that has become our planet?
Do you have any thoughts, particularly on the
novel that was shown there? This is where we're
introduced to the other characters in this episode,
whether they're coyotes or wolves. They may be
wolves, definitely. And they are rummaging through
our trash outside. But before she sees them,
and she walks past a painting, and it's a painting
of these two cats. in the bedroom before she
looks out the window and sees the coyotes or
the wolves. Carol calls to leave a message about
turning on all the lights at this point because
she feels like if all the lights were back on,
then maybe the animals wouldn't come into town
to raid the trash. And she looks over to reluctantly
grab her partner's sleeping mask. in order to
feel like she can get some rest, I guess, and
it is sitting on the Agatha Christie novel, and
then there were none, I'm going to say that it's
just what it is on the surface. She's alone,
and then there were none, meaning that there
are no joined around her at all. And I think
it was just reinforcing that, but I really like
your take on it where you start to dig a little
bit deeper about the consequences because that
also rings absolutely true. She is here alone
because of the consequences of her actions that
she purposefully did. This wasn't her just getting
angry because of her reaction. This was her drugging
someone to get them to speak and potentially
causing a heart attack. And now she's as dangerous
as she thinks they are to her. This also gets
us to the next morning. Apparently she's able
to get some rest and she goes out to clean up
the trash, leaving another voicemail to come
by and pick up my garbage here. And I wanted
to bring up something here. This brings up the
concept of inefficient communication in this
episode for me. And here's where I am with that.
Number one, she's trying to communicate with
people around the world via a camcorder. tape
that maybe she bounces it down to a disc or whatever
and gets it delivered to these people. In a world
where we know that, she could pick up the phone
and talk to people as they're on her television,
right? And be just more direct or even through
the internet and do a Zoom call or something,
right? The same thing with her communication
with the joined where now she's forced to leave
a message in order to seek her demands, completely
inefficient on the part of the hive mind. And
my question is, is it purposeful or to be passive
aggressive, maybe, or is it just a simple way
for them to accomplish what they're trying to
accomplish, which is keep her at more than arm's
length because she's dangerous? It could very
well be a bit of both. I like your train of thought
with that one. That's really interesting and
something I hadn't quite thought about myself.
Well, the next morning they come to pick up her
trash and they do explain to her that the bags
need to be less than 17 pounds. And of course,
when the drone comes by to pick it up, it comically
gets caught up in the light pole. A fantastic
sequence. I loved it. I laughed hard, especially
when they hold after the drone gets caught up
in the light fixture and it's hanging there with
the garbage bag and just a few seconds later
with perfect comic timing the bag bursts and
all of the garbage ends up back on the ground
again. This is Carol literally having to start
completely over with what used to be a pretty
mundane thing for anybody becomes sort of a major
deal. and she decides to take herself into town
to deposit the trash in the city and just put
it in a local recycling bin and a local garbage
bin. Also very funny because she's trying to
take the silver platter and the silver dome and
put it into the recycling bin and things just
aren't working in the way that they should. But
it leads us to a very interesting clue, I would
say, in the bottom of the recycle bin. Yeah,
once again, just expanding on the thought of
this illusion of independence that we all have.
As independent as you think we are, we still
trust in the society as a whole to accomplish
even the bare minimum of tasks. And as Carol
is completing this very basic task of throwing
out her garbage, she finds at the bottom of the
garbage can a bunch of empty milk cartons. And
at that point, she even goes to a larger dumpster
that's got a very vivid yellow lid on it. And
I do believe that color has a lot to do with
this series as a whole, not only with the stark
yellow of the marketing or the stark yellow of
the jacket that she was wearing way back in episode
one, but that yellow lid reminded me of that
same color. And it could be pretty innocuous,
you know, it could just be recycling, but there
may be something there and that's something I
haven't dove too much into here. But at the bottom
of this dumpster, when she opens the lid, she
finds nothing but almost a sea of these milk
cartons. We never really knew up to this point.
how the hive mind are obtaining sustenance at
all. Right. I mean, to be honest with you, I
assume they just ate and went to the bathroom
and showered just like other humans. It was now
was just perfunctory, right? And you just did
it because you needed fuel or you needed to be
cleaned. And they're the milk cartons like you
would get if you were a kid in school and it
was the milk that came with your lunch, that
sort of thing. They very much have that. laid
out, they're also regular milk, chocolate milk,
strawberry milk, which is also interesting, but
she is lying in the bottom of this recycled dumpster
covered in empty milk cartons and she says, you
motherfuckers sure love your milk. Just like
us from Wisconsin, we love our milk. Right, right.
I mean, when you look at the vastness of the
universe, we don't really eat that much cheese.
Well, speaking of cheese and dairy, we get a
good hard look at a milk carton and it says Duke
Dairy and it's a local dairy. And what does she
do? Normally we would say follow the money, but
Carol, follow the milk. And there's a really
interesting sequence as she enters Duke Dairy.
And I'm not quite sure that the difference between
the normal, the chocolate and the strawberry
milk. are innocuous, right? Because as she enters
into the Duke dairy sort of manufacturing, we
see the production line of all of these cartons
and she even flips through some of the unglued
cartons as well. But we see some full cartons
and they're twisting. almost like a double helix
or a sequence of RNA, and they're different colors.
It's not all in an order. It's normal milk, it's
chocolate milk, and then it's strawberry milk,
almost like that RNA sequence that made up the
initial outbreak, I guess you could call it,
of the joining. So a very subtle hint there,
and just how those milk cartons sort of twisted
around into a double helix was really interesting.
Great catch. I did not catch that. I've seen
so many extremely satisfying manufacturing videos
where you're manufacturing paper goods or anything
like that and you're bottling bottles of liquid
and so forth and it's just very satisfying and
so I just got caught up in all of that and how
this machine works and what's going on here but
you really caught something there that I think
may be subtle but I think that is put in there
most certainly intentionally and I really like
that. Well, what we discover at the Duke dairy
is that they find out that the packaging facility
has been converted over to packaging a different
liquid into these milk cartons, which is why
I said that the regular chocolate and strawberry
flavors didn't necessarily matter because it's
all this sort of yellowish, almost oily, consistent
liquid with no odor. And now we're really starting
to come up with some pretty interesting questions
because what is this? Why is it? Why do they
consume it? And as you mentioned, we have this
really neat sequence that finds Carol making
her way to the storage portion of the Duke dairy.
And we find that she has these pallets of what
look like 40 pound bags, the little brown bags,
like what you would carry your salt for your
water softener or something like that. That's
what the bags look like. And it looks like they're
filled with a crystalline substance that almost
looks like sugar or salt. And this goes back
to what I mentioned at the beginning of the episode
where I don't think our cliffhanger is quite
as much of a cliffhanger as we're sort of led
to believe. When she goes to the back and finds
these large bags of this white salt -like substance,
she also finds that it's being pecked at by crows,
these sort of carrion birds. And I think that's
our very first clue as to what exactly happens
in our cliffhanger here. But Carol shoes away
the crows, which, if anybody knows crows, that's
the worst thing you can do. Never make an enemy
of a crow, because they remember things, absolutely.
Make friends with the crows, certainly, if you
ever see one. But she grabs one of these big
40 -pound bags, and the next scene is we see
her as she's struggling to bring that back home.
And she begins... doing some testing on the white
substance that she's found at Duke Dairy. Yeah,
she so smartly uses the pH in drinking water
testers from her hot tub to determine that the
liquid has a pH balance of 7 .1, which essentially
means that it's neutral, like water or celery,
which is mostly water. And my first thought,
being the number nerd to a certain degree, were
the ham radio channels that Menuselis was dialing
through from the previous episode, which were
7 .129 and 7 .132. So I don't know if that's
a little nod there, but again, I'm very confident
that Vince Gilligan doesn't put anything into
his work that doesn't actually mean something.
So this prompts Carol to create another video
for the immune and to see if she can further
the investigation, so to speak, or share more
of the clues that she's discovered on her own.
And again, it points out the utter inefficiency
of the communication style here. But she does
ask herself in this scene, are you even getting
these messages? How am I even to know? I like
the scene quite a bit where she records herself
and she's just providing evidence to the rest
of the survivors as she calls them. And when
she gets aggravated with herself, she finally
has almost a realization that she needs to stop,
take a breath, and delete that video that she
had just recorded and go and re -record it again.
So it almost plays into the fact that While she
is finding this individuality within herself
and true independence, she's also learning how
to communicate with other people in a more healthy
way at the same time. It almost plays into like
a stoic philosophy a little bit where you are
best to the earth and other people as a whole
when you're the best version of yourself. And
she's slowly figuring it out that not only can
I be this independent person and be the best
version of myself, but that's also the best version
that is most valuable to the people around me.
I saw it as still the cynical Carol, but then
doing the things that she knew she needed to
do in order to make the message palatable for
her very, very small audience. And so now that
I'm trying to doubt her sincerity and her arc
here, if that's what it is, if we're taking a
curmudgeon and making them into not necessarily
a people person, but someone that can work with
and communicate with other people without treating
them poorly, whether outwardly or in her mind.
And especially when you talk about removing the
liquor bottles from... behind her, putting a
suit coat on, doing her makeup and her hair,
redoing videos. For me, that leans more into
performance than it does into sincerity. She's
still trying to get something, which is, I need
these people on my side. And a calculating person,
which I believe Carol is, would do these things
to do that. It's more like, I screwed up. I need
to get you back in our room again and we need
to start talking about this again. I really like
the performative aspect that you mentioned because
it may be a theme with this episode because I
think that the joined and the hive mind, their
actions throughout the entire episode have been
overly performative as well. You know, they're
really going the extra mile to... Show that Carol
is alone and we're gone now and who are you now
that we're gone? It's how I felt with the conversation
she had with Larry last week and did you notice
his character design by the way? I want to point
this out He was wearing what looked to be a biking
outfit like when you ride your 10 speed 12 speed
and that's that's your hobby, right? But he was
also sunburned. I don't know if he noticed he
was sunburned on his face He was sunburned on
the top of his legs And I thought, what brilliant
detail to have to adjoin is that you have the
sunburned cyclist to come in to talk to Carol.
And I guess this sort of leads us into the next
scene, you know, that is that night where the
wolves or coyotes return. And this kind of brings
me back to the first scene where they show up
and they're getting into her trash. And I almost
think that These wolves or coyotes are a small
metaphor of Carol being alone and this pack that
is her antagonist. And that shows up again here
where this pack is now trying to uncover the
grave of Helen. And they obviously smell Helen
decomposing beneath the dirt here in her grave
and are attempting to eat her. And I just want
to highlight, this is our second clue. of what
the potential cliffhanger of this episode could
be if indeed we do look at the wolves or the
coyotes as being a hive mind, being a pack mind,
and they're also trying to dig up this grave
to consume for sustenance. But again, this is
another example of Carol finally taking that
step into being a truly independent person. There's
no one else around her. that is going to stop
these wolves or coyotes from digging up her wife
out of her grave. So she has to do it herself.
She's alone against the pack. And this was such
a well -directed sequence. I think this might
be the first time we've really cut into a starkly
handheld... experience as far as cinematography
because she goes outside and she tries to confront
these wolves and quickly finds out that she's
fairly ill equipped to take care of a pack as
they're growling at her. So she runs back inside
and we get this great handheld sequence where
she runs out to the police car. and she jumps
in and she's trying to wrench out the shotgun
that is in between the seats and she can't seem
to get it out and this drives her to change her
mind and now she she wants to use the police
car itself as the weapon to get rid of this pack
of wolves or coyotes from digging into Helen's
grave so she hops in and she even flips on the
the siren and the lights and she goes around
the block gets through the back of her yard slams
through her nice little fence that she's got
and scares off the the pack and ends up parking
literally on top of Helen's grave almost to protect
it and from what we see at the very least it's
so late and she's so tired that she ends up falling
asleep within the car with the lights still on.
She wakes up the next morning and she is in the
car and she looks over at the shotgun and you
see that there's this little button and she pushes
the button and the release opens up and she goes,
son of a bitch. And she sees that she's still
wearing the handcuff and she reaches for the
keys and sees that the key to the handcuff is
on this key chain and once again says, son of
a bitch. And again, it makes me wonder, was she
unconscious of the idea of having that on her
wrist all this time or was she subconsciously
wearing it because she felt guilty or as you
mentioned, was she consciously or subconsciously
wearing it because it is a symbol of her being
a prisoner in this situation. You have so eloquently
described this episode in that she's gone from
being a person who believed they were independent,
yet still relying on the basics like garbage
and police, to becoming the person that takes
care of those things directly. And now including
relinquishing herself from her own self -imposed
prison. So again, another brilliant scene. And
I think this also exemplifies how Carol has gone
about her problem solving in the past. She's
approached this situation, understandably, with
a lot of emotion. And every decision that she's
made pretty much up to this point has been an
emotional decision. We find that when she takes
emotion out of it and she takes a breath or she
falls asleep and she wakes up with a clear head,
she sees that the solutions to these problems
of getting the shotgun or uncuffing herself are
actually fairly simple. And when she changes
her outlook on how to approach a problem, then
she finds that the solution has been right in
front of her the entire time. It leans into the
thing where when you become so, whether it's
obsessed or just distracted by the thing or things
that are directly in front of you, how you lose
sight of the things that are simple. And this
next scene is really great as well. she wakes
up the next morning and she realizes she has
to find a solution for Helen's grave. So she
goes to some sort of gardening place and she
picks up these slabs of square concrete and she
brings them back home and she is placing them
on Helen's grave and she ends up making a cairn.
as the Vikings might have called it, to not only
protect her grave, but I felt that it was very
symbolic of, again, taking that next step of
overcoming her grief of losing Carol. And it
literally takes her all day. We almost get a
time lapse of Carol placing the Karen on top
of Helen, and it literally ends on... The sun
setting behind her as she's closing the doors
to the cop car. It felt very symbolic that sunset
meant that she is finally overcoming that grief
and she's setting the Sun on this grief and taking
the next step and of course she she makes a Tombstone
for Helen as well. And I think you looked into
that a little bit more than I did So I want to
hear your thoughts on the tombstone specifically
On the headstone, it looked to me as though she
painted an orchid that sort of overarched Helen's
name. And when you go to look up orchids, there
are tons of meanings, but I knew there was something
here that I think would stick for me. And it's
that orchids have come to symbolize eternal love
and also are an important part of sharing sympathies
after the death of a loved one. And she does
place it in the center. the tiles as well very
similarly to what you were describing the Vikings
would do. She sits down after honoring her lover
and makes herself a drink and as she does she
knocks over the bag of the crystalline substance
and she sees that there's a barcode she hadn't
recognized before and she's very smart again
she takes her large bag of crystals over to her
favorite grocery store and she uses the scanner
there to scan the barcode but We don't get any
satisfaction. The barcode doesn't work. She thinks
that this bag is awfully similar to a dog food
bag. She goes to the dog food aisle. She finds
a bag that is quite similar with a label on it.
She peels the label back and what does she find?
The same barcode. and she flips the dog bag over
and finds out that the dog food is manufactured
at a place called Agriget. So another item that's
being manufactured right there in town that she
can now go and investigate. And that's exactly
what she does. She heads to the Agriget warehouse
and she sort of moves into the back of the warehouse
where there's a refrigerator area. We see mostly
in this fridge that it's primarily fruits and
vegetables on the warehouse shelves in here.
And we get to the cliffhanger of the episode
where she lifts up the plastic and another amazing
performance from Rey without any dialogue. She
is surprised and that surprise quickly morphs
into horrifying as she gasps and we cut to black.
And then that's the end of the episode. I want
to note, just as a nerd, that when we first appear
at Agrijet, that we have a box truck that is
parked where they do their freight, and it's
a Danichi freight. And that is in respect and
honor to Paul Danichi, who was a cinematographer
who worked on Better Call Saul. So I just thought
that that was a cool Easter egg to be throwing
in there. But yeah, her reaction is the classic
horror of the gasp and the covering your mouth,
and then the screen goes black. My question to
you is now, because you pointed out a handful
of times in this episode that you seem to think
that you might have a theory. I want to ask about
the theory first because I have thoughts and
my question is this. Are you telling us that
you think this is a Soylent Green situation?
Yeah, I think you really caught on to my thinking.
And I think when we first see the white substance
as Carol goes into Duke's dairy, we find that
there are crows pecking at the bag specifically.
And of course we know that crows are a carrion
bird. They tend to eat the leftovers of a carcass
after it's already been killed by a predator.
And in the next scene, if we were to take the
wolves and the coyotes as a metaphor for the
hive mind in general, we find the wolves or coyotes
digging up Helen's grave in order to be a Acherian
creature as well and feast on the carcass of
their prey that has been killed by other means.
What's under the tarp is likely some of the 863
million dead humans that died during the joining.
The hive mind has refrigerated these dead bodies
and are now using them as sustenance. So I think
that is fairly well explained throughout the
episode. And I didn't feel that the cliffhanger
was as much of a cliffhanger as we were led to
believe. Unless of course they gave us a bit
of a red herring here. What are your thoughts
on that? I will say that Yes, there is most certainly
a possibility that what is under the plastic
sheet is a frozen corpse or several, but I would
also posit that they are not consuming them or
eating them. It was just more convenient to store
them in this manner. Maybe they're against cremation.
We don't know if they're against burial, but
we've seen what could potentially happen with
that. So that might be off the books. I would
say this as well. If this is a Soylent Green
situation, then I'm out because that is not where
this should even remotely go. I'll be extremely
disappointed if that's what it is. What I more
see and I would love is, We have an entire episode
where Carol had all of the evidence and all of
the deduction and all of the clues put together
in a very, very interesting way that led from
one thing to another. And I would love to find
out that what they're consuming is actually a
liquid that it has all the nutrients and all
of the whatever you might need to make the human
body run as efficiently as possible without having
to cook or chop up fruits and vegetables or do
any of that stuff. So it becomes another efficiency
thing and that they're taking vegetables and
other items and making them into whatever this
drink is that is a power drink, a super drink.
Let's call it manna. they make manna now. And
that is what is easier to keep those that are
joined in their proper nutrition. Yeah, that's
certainly another way to look at it. And I definitely
had the feeling in the back of my mind that they
are purposefully leading us this way as well
as a sort of a red herring. So that's certainly
something to keep in mind. And I think it's something
we'll all be mulling about over the next 10 -day
wait we have until the next episode and perhaps
even longer than that I could very well see it
where after this that Carol believes that they
are utilizing these dead bodies as their sustenance,
but When she presents that to the other 12 survivors
as what she believes is fact, we find out that
it is indeed fiction. And once again, we find
Carol alone and cut off from the remainder of
the survivors due to that reason. Well, I tell
you what, it keeps getting deeper. We keep coming
up with interesting theories as this thing rolls
along. We are figuring out what clues we can.
And I am most certainly quite excited for the
upcoming episode six. Well, I think that'll do
us this week for E Pluribus Unum. Thank you,
Carol, so much for listening to us, and we'll
talk to you next week.