you Hello, Carol. Welcome to ePluribus Unum,
your favorite podcast on your favorite show,
Pluribus. Today, we are covering episode seven,
The Gap. Something tells me that that title has
some importance to this particular episode. We
also have a unique episode going on today because
we have a special guest joining us, but we also
have Josh. Josh, how are you doing? I'm doing
well, a bit under the weather here, but I'm always
here for Carol and everything that she needs.
Even though we need our space, we still have
the same feelings about you, Carol, and I am
here to assist in any way I can. I think that's
marvelous. We appreciate you being here, and
we also appreciate Mr. Joe Price. He is the world
famous vocalist for the band Helephant and founding
member of the band CAN, Q -A -N. Be sure to check
them out. Joe, how are you doing, my friend?
Oh, I'm just happy to be here. Thanks for inviting
me. Absolutely. We are beyond pleased that you're
here with us as we come to just a few episodes
left in this season. And I think this is a rather
important episode for us to cover, episode seven,
The Gap. Before we do dive all the way in, another
thing we would like to say is we have... kicked
up our Discord, so check that out if you would
like to have conversations with us or if you
would like to talk about theories. We even have
a stupid theory section there. It's probably
my favorite section and I'm sure one of them
is bound to be right. Josh, you have a pretty
good one in there. I think I've got one or two
good stupid theories in there, mainly about Carol
being Bob Newhart and that she'll end up waking
up next to Saul Goodman at the end of the series
and realized that it was all a dream at the end
of the day. I honestly pray that that's the answer
to this whole thing because if it were, I could
totally forgo the Soylent Green. That's all I'm
saying about that. That would solve a lot of
my concerns too. I think that's really the only
way you can really properly end any show ever,
frankly. That's our Discord. Secondly, we would
also like to recommend that you take a look at
our other podcast. It's called Dad, You're Wrong,
where we have a Gen X dad and millennial son
duke it out over everything between horror, sci
-fi, and fantasy, and a few other things. Apparently,
I'm wrong a lot. So, that happened. That's the
rumor, that's the rumor at least. Yeah, I don't
know why they named the show that is my question,
but those are the housekeeping items that we
have for the top of our show here for episode
seven, The Gap, E Pluribus Unum. Mr. Price, once
again, thank you for joining us. I would like
to know. What are your overall thoughts for the
show itself? We're into episode seven here. We're
pretty deep. What are your overall thoughts?
It's such a good show. Besides being shocking
and startling and with these great characters
and the depth, it becomes this real thought experiment
to me and that becomes the part that's perhaps
most interesting in listening to your podcast.
I found that you know, you tend to really kind
of take the carol perspective and I mean I think
about what's different for this show to me is
that I've seen a lot of Movies like I am legend
or night of the living dead yet You're walking
dead and there's just a few of us left and we're
fighting to survive It's the horde and so in
this one, it's uh, it's just a lot much more
seductive The evil isn't out to kill you apparently
Probably not at all, quite the opposite. So you
have a real different of genre and what really
becomes interesting to me is the more the show
allows me to think about whether Carol is actually
wrong or whether she's right. When you think
about the joining of the collective, like I guess
our first gut instinct is that you're just sucked
into a vacuum and it operates using your body.
But my question is whether You become a part
of a community and you're able to transfer between
bodies. Go where you want to go as a consciousness.
Can you explore the Alps in a body that's currently
in the Alps? If you want to be in Kumbha's hot
tub with them, you can decide to be there or
not. Maybe somebody like you were mentioning
about Kumbha last time. Maybe he was a dishwasher
in his former life. Maybe today a dishwasher
can be a surgeon, a world famous surgeon and
feel that thrill. You know, it's that question.
Are they subsumed and consumed or are they transcending
by joining? And that tension, it seems to me,
is something that Vince Gilligan is, you know,
creating on purpose. It's kind of the point of
the show. In some of his interviews, it sounds
like it to me anyway. And I think that as the
show goes on, for me, like, my Soylent Green
Ick moment will be if the joined become the horde.
Because, you know, when you have the horde, like
in The Walking Dead, You succumb by breaking
down because you no longer can fight. You're
tired of the fight. And when you succumb, you
don't end up in an orgy in a hot tub. You just
end up devoured. So it's a different kind of
question to me and that's what I really like
about the show. It's certainly no hot tub time
machine. I would agree with that. My question
in this philosophy is, do you also have the opportunity
to opt out or are you still forced to experience
what every other joint experiences on the planet,
whether it's Kumba's hot tub or being a scientist?
So I find that interesting, but I don't know
that it's alluring. It doesn't seem alluring
to me. There is, I agree with Joe, a tantalizing
aspect of joining the hive mind. I do see that
transcendent sort of mindset and they do make
it alluring to you to join a community. You know
as a very solitary person myself I see the allure
and not only joining a community but working
together as a greater whole and possibly more
than the sum of our parts. So I totally agree
and I see where you're coming from Joe, absolutely.
It's not that I I don't necessarily think of
myself as a joiner in general either It's the
fact that they managed in the writing to make
me wonder I think if the joining had no allure
then kind of a one of the main tensions in the
show would disappear Well, I don't know about
this whole transcendence thing But I think we
might find some answers along these lines or
maybe it'll just become more confusing Today
we're covering episode 7 the gap This one was
directed by Adam Bernstein, who had also worked
on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, written
by Jen Carroll from a story by Ariel Levine.
We start off the episode and scene one with Carroll
driving back from Las Vegas. Yes, we have Carroll
singing the R .E .M. song, It's the End of the
World. Carol has decided to make the best of
her time in solitude after being shunned by the
joint and I think being affected by her visit
with Kumba who also rejected her. She has decided
to come back and play around a little bit in
her hometown and she's perhaps actually enjoying
herself or perhaps pretending to enjoy herself
just to shut out the reality around her. We find
her as she is picking up at a gas station on
the way home and Not only does she go into the
gas station and make that call. Once again, we
get a repetition of the answering machine from
the hive mind or the joint. And she calls them
to tell them to turn on pump one, which they
do very quickly. And she decides to make a second
call right after that. And she orders an ice
cold bottle of Gatorade and the red one. in particular,
I believe it's the fruit punch flavor. Well,
and it's got to be ice cold, right? It can't
be anything else. And what I love is she's now
grown to ignore the message. And it's almost
like she's half become immune to it. But she'll
put the phone down when the message starts to
kick up and she'll go run some other air and
like grab a scratch off ticket or something while
she's waiting for the message to play. And just
the way that she goes about that, it's her not
doing it in the way that Kumba is doing it where
he seemingly is nice to them and asking them
politely, would you do this for me perhaps? How
much can I push this? How many of these buttons
can I push before this breaks? I think we see
that in these sequences at the very beginning
here. I see it as her having. a positive reaction
of there is no traffic, there are no people,
I can ask for anything that I want and basically
get it almost immediately. I'm going to do all
the things that I would like to do from here.
And she, you know, embraces that, I think. Not
only does she get her gatorade, she calls them
back to give them a hard time for why it wasn't
cold enough. It was tepid, it was lukewarm. Do
better next time. You know, I would say that
she's taking her own advice. In the last episode,
she told Kumba to tell them to just pick a fucking
apple off a tree. And I think that's what she's
doing. She literally plucked a red fruit drink
from the sky. She's just decided to pick the
apple from the tree and enjoy it. My question
to you guys, though, is when she scratches off
that $10 ,000 scratch off and wins, like I get
that it's meaningless and she just goes and moves
on. But I guess I wonder if there's any kind
of deeper significance to that that I'm not picking
up on. I felt like she felt the kick of winning
that and living in a world that she couldn't
cash it in, whether she needed it or not. I mean,
who wouldn't want to win a $10 ,000 scratch off?
But I think she also took it as just another
thing that she's endured. It's insult to injury
almost, right? And why not just peel out of there
then and then go live your Kumba -style fantasy,
whatever that may be. Another thing I do want
to bring in at the gas station, doesn't she find
fireworks there? And at the tail end, before
she takes off out of the gas station, she did
take some fireworks with her. A trunk load. That's
the way to do it right there. And those aren't
cheap either. Fireworks are expensive. Let me
tell you. I could blow that whole $10 ,000 from
the scratch off. We have a really great scene
that I want to bring up and that's Carol back
at home. utilizing those fireworks for the first
time in the episode. And what does she hear as
she's setting these fireworks off, but the howling
of the wolves that we've seen in a previous episode.
And I like this quite a bit. It's sort of a call
back to one of my theories that I believe that
this pack of wolves is a bit of a metaphor for
the joined. Wolves tend to work as a group, as
a pack together. And as she hears them howling
in the distance, and it seems to be surrounding
her at this point, the wildlife seems to be leaking
back into Albuquerque as the population has left,
she howls back at the wolves. And not only that,
but it ends in a really great little scene where
she essentially has the last howl. She lets out
a... a final howl that is louder than all the
others, and what do they do? But they cease their
howling at that point as if they're recognizing
the alpha wolf that has come among them. Basically
howling the quiet emptiness of the world through
singing pop songs. It's all kind of a piece.
She's the one that provides us with the soundtrack
through her entire half of the episode. Why?
Well, you don't have radio anymore unless you
call them and ask them to play the local radio
station and whatever they might play. I couldn't
imagine what a joined DJ would sound like. Frankly,
that could be good or absolutely horrifying.
So she just makes her own soundtrack as she makes
her way through. It's the end of the world or
the Caddyshack song or anything else. The reason
I bring up the golf course scene and I think
the reason that they used it in the spot is.
something that Joe had brought up offline and
I would like Joe to talk about it now about sort
of your theory about the animals. Well, why are
the joined unwilling to kill animals or to kill
plants and to what degree are all life on earth
joined? Are the animals somehow actually joined
too and can they just see her through the eyes
of that buffalo that's on the on the golf course
there or is the rabbit really just a you know,
a security camera that's keeping track of her.
We don't know. The show doesn't ever actually
suggest that. It's just one of those things that's
kind of fun to think about, but who knows? At
first I wanted to sort of ignore any of the animal
or plant joining ideas, but when you bring it
up in that way, I think it becomes very interesting.
So I would love to throw that into the theory
pile there. I just like the idea that it was
sort of, here's the result of letting all the
animals out of the zoo or consolidating humanity
in a certain way that allows the animals to re
-encroach on what used to be civilization. When
we get back into our state police car to get
out of there, it seems the battery is dead. And
I think this concept comes up more than once
in the last episode. Manny's car had a little
bit of a battery issue there. And here we have
Carol having a battery issue with her car. And
she's also faced with the same or a similar set
of choices here as Kumba. She goes outside of
the country club and she has the lion's choice
of vehicle. She could have a Porsche, she could
have a Lamborghini, but she lands on a Rolls
Royce. And it's not just any Rolls -Royce really.
It looks like one that's been dressed for a wedding.
It says just married on the window. And there
are balloons coming from the doors just hanging
over the car that say love. They all say love.
And I assume there's probably some sort of not
so subtle messaging here. But she cracks open
the trunk. She throws in her golf clubs. And
she throws in her shotgun and decides to take
the Rolls -Royce. This whole sequence as she
is going about these activities, to me it's really
exemplifying her loneliness. And I think that
is also shown in how she reacts to the message
that is left by the joined on the telephone and
how she has come to ignore that message. It all
seems to me the mask for that loneliness and
she's trying to run away from that loneliness.
And her choice of the Rolls Royce of choosing
specifically the only vehicle that signifies
the antithesis of loneliness, which is marriage
and having someone with you is just another way
that she is coping with the loneliness that is
forced upon her. And it's very much that they
are utilizing her loneliness as a weapon to hopefully
get her to give her consent to become one of
the joined. I still don't see it necessarily
as her masking her whatever she's going through,
whether it's loneliness or depression or whatever.
I see it as her opening her eyes and going, you
know what? Fuck it. I'm going to take advantage
of it. It's sitting here. Kuma's doing it. I'm
going to do my own version of this. I'm going
to go play golf. I'm going to go to Hymes Springs
and I'm going to... lay in there completely naked
and sing an Ellie song and I'm going to absolutely
love every minute of it. I think it wears itself
out and I think it will for Kumba as well. But
I think she's sincere in her elation and the
experience that she has. I don't feel it as she's
covering something up or trying to mask it. So
I like that those two ideas kind of wrestle with
each other in a great way. Yeah. Yeah, I agree
to a point as well. You know, I think after her
last interaction with Kumba and finding out that
Kumba knows that the hive mind is indeed using
dead bodies as sustenance, she feels that there
is no other path now. She sort of lost her way.
And this sequence of her finally getting out
of the house and stop watching golden girls and
taking advantage of things as her coming around
to a bit of Kumba's style of thinking. you shall
not besmirch the name of the Golden Girls. That's
all I'm saying about that. As she exits the hot
springs and whether she's experiencing a moment
of pure freedom or she's trying to drown out
her emptiness here, she heads over to the Georgia
O 'Keeffe Museum. Of course, she returns to a
certain image and takes it off the wall. A little
bit later, When she gets back home, she pulls
the print off the wall in order to replace it
with the actual painting itself. And this doesn't
seem like a moment of her masking a depression
or emptiness. This is a moment of, hey, since
I can, I'm going to have the original right here
in my house. Well, for someone who's been through
the level of trauma she's been, including the
horrific death of her partner and the whole world
changing as it has, to now feel slightly empowered
in this moment and to have the presence to go
ahead and just take that thing that she wants
in her place. That says something about her character
too, and I think it's kind of what you were getting
at with the way she's singing and kind of skipping
through the apocalypse. The painting is called
Belladonna, painted by Georgia O 'Keeffe, who
is a native of New Mexico. That belladonna plant
specifically is a form of nightshade. So that
is a poison as well. And it's almost a bit of
a call back to the plant that Walter White uses
in Breaking Bad to make his ricin. Well, I assume
that they had selected this painting for a particular
reason. It is great. And I think it works in
a ton of ways. She goes home, she gets the idea
standing in her kitchen to give them a call and
demand a meal. that is based on the past anniversaries
that she had with Helen at a specific restaurant.
And when she gets to the restaurant, we have
several plates that are covered in the chrome
dome that we had seen before that for whatever
reason always reminds me of Looney Tunes cartoons.
And she is dressed to the nines. That dress is
absolutely amazing. That chain around her neck
is impossible. And she starts lifting up the
lids to these dishes, naming them off essentially
and saying with some of them what date or year
it was. And she has very clear memories of these
moments and these meals with Helen. It's like
she gets to the apex of enjoying her environment
here. Even being willing to have them recreate
these meals from her past using their understanding
of Helen, which she's so offended by. And then
when she's sitting there, trying to enjoy it
in this beautiful dress and this amazing scenery,
slowly those wolves start coming back in again.
There's a couple of great things in this portion
as well. When she requests this dinner, there's
seemingly some hive mind hidden away somewhere,
since they're able to get into Albuquerque and
get into the specific restaurant and cook this
meal for her. There is an aspect of that performative
nature of how the hive mind is still there, but
purposefully hidden away from her and that they
are still very much in Albuquerque despite what
we've been led to believe. And I loved, I'm sure
there's quite a few different songs on this player
piano that she has. The first one that popped
up in my head as I was looking at it is Dancing
on My Own by Robin, who is a great pop star.
I thought the song choice adds to the potential
loneliness that Carol's feeling at this moment.
Yeah, I definitely want to troll through the
selections that she thumbs through because something
tells me that every single one of those songs
has a point that she could have selected and
it would have still landed. But what she ends
up landing on with the player piano is the song
I Will Survive. Again, pretty strongly on the
nose there, but very defiant to the wolves that
are howling. I wonder if, as you said, is this
the apex of her enjoyment of being alone? Is
this the last thing that will satiate either
her loneliness or satiate her being able to be
alone and do anything that she wants? Again,
I don't know if it's a production thing. I don't
think it is, or if it is a thing within the writing
of the show. They are too quick to answer. without
having known what she wanted already. There's
no way that they could have made all of these
meals so specific to these places with these
ingredients this quickly, in my opinion, without
having already known it in some way. And I'm
gonna refer back to the grocery store stocking
before, or even the Gatorade that she gets in
five minutes that is tepid, but I'm sure it was
ice cold when they left. I just find it... impossible
to stock the grocery store to have the Gatorade,
to have these fanciful meals on the go without
having some sense of already knowing. Well, it
does sound incredible. Amazon knows because you
look at something a few times and they kind of
know your patterns. If you're likely to buy it,
the AI will move it to a facility closer to you
so that when you do order it, it shows up the
next day. But then, you know, if you think about
it, Helen is not just Carol's partner, she's
her manager. And she manages everything about
Carol from trying to manage her moods to her
schedule. She understands Carol better than herself,
apparently, in a lot of ways. So the idea that
everybody that Carol knows, including the person
who knows Carol better than herself, maybe there's
something to that. Well, I believe this is probably
Josh's favorite part. Our next match cut is your
favorite character, Manny. Yeah, it cuts in a
wonderful way right to Manny from the sound of
the music to almost dead silence. We only get
the sound of the plastic hose as it's slapping
against the metal gas tank. But we see Manny
with a yellow scarf. And as he's walking to retrieve
gas from another stalled vehicle, he is practicing
his English. So we see that he's on this journey,
not only to go find Carol, but he also sees the
need to communicate with Carol once he gets there.
The first thing I believe we hear him utter is
yellow. the dog is yellow. But that's not the
only yellow thing that we see Menousos with in
this scene. Of course, he has his wonderful little
convertible that is a very stark yellow, but
even the cassette tapes that he's utilizing to
learn English are very distinct yellow as we
see that yellow is indeed the color of individuality
and he has another great. a line here, especially
about the yellow dog. He says, the yellow dog
chases the gray cat, almost as if these individuals,
himself and Carol are the predators to what could
be the gray cat in the hive. Well, and then is
the girl who freed the mouse from the mole strap,
is that Carol? Then she's the girl freeing the
mouse. Yeah. I feel like there has to be some
significance to that, especially since that is
such a unique line and Why would you choose to
have that as something to teach someone conversational
English? It's almost like you're teaching someone
English through reading a children's book. Normally
it would be, you know, where's the bathroom,
right? Or can I ask for the check please? Or
something like that. But it's not that at all.
I also want to point out when he's walking, in
the middle of this road, a guy rolls up to him
and is the extremely friendly joined person that
is there to be like, hey, Manousos, how are you
doing? Hey, we would like for you to hydrate
more. And if you need a ride, I'd be happy to
give you a ride. We can fly you there. You could
be there within the end of the day. And he wants
absolutely nothing to do with them. The importance
of this conversation, though, is that they're
using the exact same language on Manousos that
they used on Carol. at the very beginning as
well, being overly helpful, overly considerate,
overly everything. And he reads it in the exact
same way she does, that there's something wrong
here. Nobody does this or is like this. You're
obviously not who you were before. You can move
on. I've got this. And it also illustrates throughout
this last half of this episode how resourceful
Menousos is. And I believe that he must have
some sort of training or education or something.
that has provided him with the knowledge that
he uses in this episode to make his way to the
gap. He doesn't have training in siphoning gas
without drinking it, which led me to this pair
of thoughts. When do tropes become so a part
of culture that if Manny didn't drink the gas,
people would be taken out of it because that's
such a trope in movies, but also that Manny strikes
me as the kind of guy who Just isn't happy without
the taste of gas in his mouth. You got to feel
the grit. Exactly. And every time he siphons
gas, which we see a couple of times throughout
the sequence, he leaves a crisp hundred dollar
bill under the windshield wipers. And to me,
what this signifies from a new source is that
not only is he an honorable man, but that he
sees a future. for the earth and that things
can go back to normal. And he's very much a man
of faith. He believes that things can be better
past this point. I see him very much as a man
of faith and that he believes that he is on the
righteous path in that regard. And he still believes
in doing right. Honorable is a wonderful word
for this man, without a doubt. I think it goes
beyond that even. I think it's that he also believes
in paying his dues, so to speak. But he's saying
that the only way that you can take part in something
is if you pay your dues for it or you pay what
is owed. And again, you do such a good job of
putting it into the religious realm for him.
This is what a very faithful man would do. This
is what a very godly person would do, do unto
others in this really taking care of other people
kind of way. And you really get to see our two
characters who are clearly not enamored of the
joint, but then they're contrasted here. Carol's
way of handling things is not at all putting
hundred dollar bills under windshield wipers,
you know? It's interesting that they're both
different, but at the end they seem to lead to
basically the same place, the arms of the joint.
Our friend is driving his mustard yellow MG Midget
and he gets to... a spot here that has clothes
scattered all over the place. And I don't know
about you fellows, but when I saw this, it became
very unnerving, especially the angle. I think
we were almost at ground level with the car.
And he finally gets to a part to where he can
no longer drive the MG. It was almost out of
a horror movie, right? When you encounter those
clothes and we see the joint as they almost...
dissolve out of the jungle. It was incredibly
creepy. And at this point, they're essentially
pleading him not to go into the gap. And they
seem so much more emphatic than they normally
are. When you have Zosia give Carol a bottle
of water that she refuses, it's very much here,
take it. We highly recommend you take it. All
the doctors on the planet recommend you take
it. But if you don't, that's fine. But when we
have these Native peoples, like you said, fade
in and standing before Manusos, they have a laundry
list of all the reasons you should not go into
the gap. Most people that do go in there die.
We don't want you to go in there. We can take
you exactly where you need to go. You can be
there by the end of the day. Please don't do
this. And all the while, his gaze never leaves
them. He's always watching this group of the
joins standing sort of in front of what looks
to be a creek or a small river that would lead
into the gap here. Well, and Manousos is just
perfectly designed to hate the nanny state, which
is what they kind of seem like to me. He sets
his own car on fire. It's just the most brilliant
moment. Seconds before it actually happens, I
knew it was going to happen. It's one of the
things I love about the writing in this show.
It can surprise me, but sometimes it doesn't
surprise me in a way that makes me want to cheer.
And this is one of those moments. I was rising
out of my seat for this. It was fantastic. This
was a cheering moment. Yeah, I think this was
very much my favorite scene of the episode where
he lays his hand on top of the MG as if to say
goodbye to a good friend. And at that point he
goes to the trunk of the MG, pops it open, pulls
out the gas canister. and proceeds to, while
staring at the hive mind, pour the gas canister
over the MG and light it on fire. And he says,
nothing on this planet is yours. You cannot give
me anything because all that you have is stolen.
You do not belong here. It was just such a brilliant
sequence and just solidifies Menousos as by far
my favorite character in this series. Joe, what
are your thoughts on the line he delivers here?
How does that make you think about the joined
sort of now and his perspective of it? And does
it change your sort of transcendent thought you
had earlier on? I mean, at the end of the day,
whether he likes the change that they've gone
under or not, they are still the people of the
earth. And Kumba says in the last episode to
Carol, if he misses you, come back. And that's
where I started wondering about If they won't
even pluck apples off a tree, does that mean
that they share the consciousness with the tree?
And at the end of the day, Manny, being such
a man of God and a man of faith, what do you
do? You reject earthly things. You reject the
earth. So that's a real interesting tension to
me and how his character works. It brought to
mind the thoughts of colonialism for me and America
in general being essentially stolen land and
that may add into your theory of potential invasion
and the hive mind just being a tool for extraterrestrial
invaders. I actually want to bounce on something
Joe had mentioned earlier and it's about the
are the animals joined? Are the plants? joined
and not for surveillance purposes. Because now
the line that Kuba said earlier, which is, it
misses you. He doesn't say, we miss you, they
miss you. He says, it misses you. And if your
sort of theory is true here that every living
thing on the planet is actually joined except
for these 13 human beings and maybe a few other
creatures, I don't know. That makes a lot of
sense. Now it's not necessarily a surveillance
state or something like that. It is now Earth
has been joined and you're one of the few things
that hasn't joined and it as a whole misses you.
I guess that makes her the flea on the Earth
and the Earth is very forgiving of its fleas.
To a certain extent, but at some point the dog
has to scratch. Well, needless to say, we love
Manny's monologue here. It is the standout for
me for this episode. He absolutely ignores the
joined and he grabs his go -bag along with his
machete and forges on into the Darien Gap. I
feel the sequence begins far away and we see
Manny rather small in this huge jungle that is
encroaching on him. As we make our way through
this sequence, Manny has a mantra, and as he
becomes more and more tired, and as he comes
across more obstacles, we tend to get closer
and closer on Manny as he's trying to make his
way through the jungle. And I really loved his
mantra that he goes through here. He says, I
am a nusos oviedo. I am not one of them. I wish
to save the world. And I just love that as he's
repeating it. And we get a lot of repetition
throughout this series, not only Manny's mantra
or what he's repeating to learn English, but
the repetition of the hive mind's message to
Carol. Most shows, once you've heard, let's say
the voicemail message once or twice, we know
what it is. He's making us listen to every single
word, every single time. And that is purposeful
to us as the audience. He's ribbing us a little
bit here and making it a little tough on us,
but I think he's doing it in great fashion. We
do get a moment where he gets to make camp, he
has a fire set up, and you can see that he's
trying to use the mantra as a way to keep him
on track and maybe keep his fears allayed, but
he's definitely worried. even he's starting to
second -guess himself as to whether he should
have done this or not, we notice that the rocks
are slippery as he might cross a certain section,
and he's tired, and he's obviously not getting
much sleep in the jungle. And he finally gets
to a section where we find the trees that were
mentioned earlier by the joint before he went
into the gap, and these are the porcupine trees.
And I myself had never seen these before, and
when you see them, These are terrifying trees.
They do have these three, four, five inch spikes
on them all the way around the trunk. And you
can see that they're dripping with something,
whether it's bacteria or poison. And not only
that, when he gets to the porcupine tree forest,
they're pretty close knit. He's having to kind
of skim by them and try not to get too close
to the porcupine trees. As you said, you start
to see him stumbling and I was thinking, you
know, Oh, he's going to break his ankle or something
and be stuck out there. And then what, but, you
know, if you give me Chekhov's diseased pork
and pine trees, somebody better get impaled on
it. And, and they sure do. I think we all let
out a shout as we were watching that at that
point. Definitely. But when he was impaled on
that tree, yes, I was shocked. because of his,
and you bring up a great word, Josh, because
of his righteous nature, my first thought, or
I would say my second thought was how's he gonna
get out of this? You know, this is our guy and
he is righteous. In what way will he potentially
get out of this? And he certainly tries. Yeah,
this is where he decides to cauterize his wounds
with a red hot machete. They talk about grit
in your teeth and being ready just to see that.
It's interesting to me because when I was watching
this, I had to think about what it was really
saying to me and it felt like the most poignant
scene in the episode, which is, it seemed like
self -flagellation to me. They specifically mentioned
the bacteria -laced spines. And I feel like I
should mention, I'm not sure if these are actually
called porcupine trees. I think I just made a
joke of that and now we're all calling them that,
but I don't know if there's actually a name for
these things. That's the cool thing about the
show. We call everything what we want to call
it. We call them the joined. Everybody else calls
them the others. I'm not going to call them the
others ever. They will always be the joined.
So these are porcupine trees, my friend. I like
the joined and I like the porcupine trees. And
I do think it's interesting that here we have
Manny in the cathedral of heaven, the jungle.
surrounded by the earth, defying everything and
his own hubris perhaps has led him to this spot
and he's burning it out with a leather strap
clenched between his teeth. It just says so much
about his character. Yeah, if we see Manny as
this man of faith, this righteous man, it very
much brought to mind the self -flagellation and
the paying of penance. it was quite honestly
a horrifying scene to watch. And it just shows
how much will Manny has and what he's willing
to do to reach his goal specifically to shun
the joined at the same time. Cause we know they
mentioned prior that he can just wave to them
in the air and they'll come, but he does not
do that. And we see the next scene. as he's stumbling
through the jungle still saying his mantra and
ends up collapsing. And indeed the joined was
watching him the entire time and they come to
his rescue in a helicopter. Well, what another
contrast between Menousos and Carol. Menousos
is literally burning himself to stay alive and
Carol is considering sitting still to let herself
be burned to death. I didn't catch that. That
was a good one. I also want to point out, Joe,
you mentioned earlier about how these are two
people that are going through their own gauntlet,
though similar and different, and they end in
the same way, in the arms of the joined. And
I think this brings us into the third act as
we catch up with Carol. We see something that
we haven't seen yet and that is a fairly large
time jump as we move from, I believe it's 12
days to 48 days. It's about 36 days of a time
jump. as we catch up with Carol. When we do the
jump from the jungle back over to Carol, she
has her booyah jams from 1998, which apparently
are quite important. She has her own mixtape
going here. And it's Judas Priest, you got another
thing coming. So again, you have another strong
defiant song from our Carol here, as she's hitting
golf balls into the office building across the
street. At this point, Carol has lost her path.
She's lost her way forward. After hearing from
Kumba that even the other immune don't agree
with her on her stance of ingesting humans, being
wrong, as I think all of us really feel about
that, she doesn't see a way to overcome the joint
anymore. And we have this segment here in the
cult of SAC. And she's sitting in a circle of
fireworks. as they're erupting sort of sequentially
all around her. And the final firework tips over,
and it's facing right towards her head. And there's
almost a strange, nihilistic acceptance that
comes across Carol in this moment as she is facing
down this firework and accepting her fate, much
as Menousos in the prior scene was denying his
fate. She does have that nihilistic look. And
I got a little bit worried there, but I think
she has endured enough of this solitude in order
to, as Kumba had said in the previous episode,
have a change of heart. It's a very passive -aggressive
way to get someone to do that, in my opinion,
but here we are nonetheless. And as she faces
down this firework, it does fire off. And it
seemed like it didn't even phase her. as it whizzed
not even inches past her face, landing in the
roof of her neighbor's house. I love the way
the camera just slowly closes in and you see
her face and she doesn't move a muscle, but you
know what's going on in there. I guess that's
the question. Is it her final submission? Is
she giving in? Is she broken? I don't know. I'm
not sure if she's given in or if she's just gotten
more resolve. I guess we'll find out. I very
much see it as At this point, Carol has lost
her path. She's lost her way forward. She is
now officially fully alone and she's accepted
the fate of if this firecracker goes off in my
face, then I'm okay with this being the end.
But we see this blue firework go off and it lights
the roof of her neighbor's house on fire. And
what does she utilize to put out that fire but
a yellow garden hose? But as she puts out the
fire, it brings us to the next scene in which
she heads to Salmon's hardware store to pick
up a five -gallon bucket of paint. write something
in the center of that cul -de -sac in large letters
that point up. And of course, we know that whether
she likes it or not, they're watching her either
from a satellite or from a drone or from something
else. And then she goes into the house, into
her house, and sits in front of the painting,
the Belladonna painting, and watches it. And
then we hear a car pull up, and we wonder, who
is that? Turns out it's Zosia. And Carol comes
out and hesitantly, slowly comes towards her
and then embraces her completely. She's shuddering.
She's gasping. She's so relieved and so upset.
And it's like she's lost her grip to a point
and can't even hold back the pain she's been
feeling. And of course, Zosia shows up in a bright
blue car. How about that? And I think there's
two different ways to interpret the scene as
Carol falls into the arms of Zosia. And Zosia
not very emphatically embraces her back, but
we have to think, was this a plan of Carol's
to call back the joined, begin the next phase
of her plan or a new phase of her plan? Or is
it truly that she's lost her path completely?
and the weaponizing of her loneliness by the
joined have defeated her. And she's now at the
mercy of the joined almost just to have some
sort of connection back in her life. After these
36 or so some odd days, I'm of the mind that
she has been defeated and that there is no ulterior
motive for her to call back Zosia or call back
the joined, but she has finally succumbed to
that loneliness. You know, Carol doesn't strike
me as much of an actor. When you watch her, the
way she hugs Zosia, that doesn't seem fake. And
she doesn't seem like a person who doesn't say
what she thinks. In fact, she seems to very specifically
always say what she thinks. But then when I thought
about her sitting there taking this painting
and finding some agency with herself again in
a new way, and sitting there looking at it while
she waited for them and then you realize after
the hug that she put the call out to ask them
to come. I wasn't sure what she was painting.
You know, she's faced down her own death. She
gave up on life. And then when it missed her,
it was like a coin toss and it set that house
on fire. And if she was really truly given over
to nihilism, she could have just sat there and
let it burn down and burn down the whole neighborhood
and her too. but she didn't. I think she made
a decision and she got up and she got grabbed
that yellow hose and put out the fire and put
her next plan into action. And I think that the
notion that somehow she is going to be the poison
pill that walks into them is fascinating. I'm
on the side of her being calculating because
we've seen so much of that in her anyway and
so much of it before and also thinking ahead,
she paints the cul -de -sac, she goes into the
house, and she sits there in front of her painting
and sort of meditates on it, right? She even
reacts to it, almost like she's having a conversation
in her mind. And then what does she do? She calls
back to them and brings them back. It doesn't
seem necessarily like, quote unquote, a change
of heart. It seems like she's using their own
methods against them. to get them to do what
she wants them to do again. And as far as the
reaction, yes, it is a true and honest reaction.
She's been alone for 36 days. The next human
being, whether it's a robot or not, you're going
to embrace it because that is human nature. That
doesn't mean that she has failed or given up
or is willing to embrace the joint at all. At
the end of the episode, we have the closure of
the two threads and the gauntlets have been traversed.
They've both gone through torment and torture
and have ended up in the arms of the joined.
And I mean, what could be next? Yeah, and we
only have two more episodes left. So prime yourself
for hearing the word penultimate a lot for the
next week. Now that we've run through it and
shared our thoughts on it, Josh, again, what
are your overall thoughts on this particular
episode? I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I think
specifically because we've got much more of Menousos
and his journey and those are always such a pleasure
for me and the juxtaposition of their two journeys
throughout this and how they deal with loneliness
and how Carol has lost her path whereas Menousos
has found his path I think was a really great.
two sides of the same coin. And to me, it was
very heartbreaking at the end to see how Carol,
in my eyes at least, had lost her path and see
her finally embracing the joint. My final thoughts
are, oh gosh, I can't believe there's only two
episodes left. They're not going to sew anything
up, are they? The journey they've taken us on,
I can't even imagine what's coming next. It's
such a fascinating place to leave us. The chess
pieces are clear, understood and on the board.
And how is this going to play out and where is
it going to leave us at the end of the season?
I hope with the level of writing we see here
that we're going to get some reveals that have
some sense of leaving us salivating for more.
And I, from what I understand, it's going to
be a couple of years before we have more. So
I guess we should just really chew these well
and enjoy them. Yeah, and I think they're also
certainly rewatchable, right? We can go back
and see if we can't find a few more pieces of
information that will get us through the long
stretch as we wait far beyond 45 days, 20 hours,
42 minutes, and 55 seconds. I kid. Bringing that
up though, actually, we have two time stamps
in this particular episode. One's not so unique
and the other one is, and I have to say both
of these are non -prime numbers, so if we match
that up with our previous prime number timestamp
theory, what we're getting here are some dark
reveals, and maybe the dark reveal for Carol
is that she embraces the nihilistic view and
the joined, and Menousos, of course, defies the
joined and goes into the gap anyway and could
potentially die. two pretty dark storylines.
When we get to our second timestamp, this is
a significant time jump and we have 48 days,
16 hours, 57 minutes, and 12 seconds. Again,
not another prime number, so we have some dark
reveals in this episode for Carol as well. Those
are just the two timestamps that we had for this
episode and I wanted to bring those up to align
them with. the current theory we have. Whether
it falls apart later or not, you know, there's
always potential there, I'm sure. Well, thank
you once again, Carol, for joining us on E Pluribus
Uno for the Pluribus episode seven, The Gap.
We want to thank Joe for joining us as well.
So many insights, Joe. It's been a real pleasure
having you on the show. And honestly, I believe
I can speak for Josh and say we would love to
have you back sometime. I appreciate that, man.
Anytime, I'd love to come back. That's fantastic.
I always love getting another voice in here.
Josh, you have any parting words for us before
we bounce? Well, I just want to say, Carol, our
feelings about you haven't changed, but we don't
need our space over here. We would love for you
to come join our Discord and chat some great
theories and chat some stupid theories with us
as well. But apart from that, if you guys would
like to join us on our other podcast, Dad, You're
Wrong, where a Gen X dad and a millennial son
talk everything from horror, sci -fi, fantasy,
and everything in between. We'll be having our
end of the year episode, our top tens coming
out before the end of the year, hopefully around
Christmas time. And apart from that, we will
be talking to you guys next week for episode
eight of Pluribus. Thanks, Carol.