Speaker 1: Warning, today's episode contained spoilers for the excellent fourth episode
Speaker 1: of Pluribus.
Speaker 2: On Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1: He warned, Hello, my name is Jason Sepsion and I'm
Speaker 1: Rosey Night and welcome back to ext revision of the
Speaker 1: podcast where we dive deep.
Speaker 2: It's your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture comedy
Speaker 2: from My Heart podcast. We're're bringing you three episodes a week.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we're doing it dot guys.
Speaker 4: It's episode four of Pluribus and things are getting crazy.
Speaker 3: We will be bringing in super producer.
Speaker 4: Ian and even a little bit of super producer Aaron
Speaker 4: to talk about our theories and schemes and scams and
Speaker 4: what is Vince Gilligan up to after our recap.
Speaker 1: Okay, Pluribus episode four, please Carol. We open, apparently with
Speaker 1: Paraguay man. A timer sounds and we see that this
Speaker 1: mysterious gentleman is scanning radio frequencies, listening to them and
Speaker 1: then crossing them off. He's sitting at a ham radio
Speaker 1: set and it appears he is in some sort of
Speaker 1: storage unit facility. There's a sign in Spanish that says,
Speaker 1: you know you gotta pay every thirty days? Are you
Speaker 1: going to be you know, all your the lock on
Speaker 1: your storage things can be cut and all your stuff's
Speaker 1: gonna be victed. He clearly has not been outside the
Speaker 1: room in a while because he's picking through.
Speaker 2: The trash and he's just like licking the tops of cans.
Speaker 5: He's hungry.
Speaker 2: It's like a fortified bunk. He's hungry. It's like a
Speaker 2: bunker in here.
Speaker 1: He looks outside and sees someone arrive take a trio
Speaker 1: of food that had been left for him, and leave
Speaker 1: another spar new tray of fresh food, much like they're
Speaker 1: doing for Carol. He arms himself with a tire ron,
Speaker 1: goes out, tips over the tray of food, comes back
Speaker 1: in uh and then writes a sign basically apologizing to
Speaker 1: whoever owns these storage units, and begins like cutting them
Speaker 1: open looking for any food.
Speaker 2: He comes away with.
Speaker 1: A horrifying collection of edible stuff.
Speaker 5: A real struggle. It's a very simid struggle, the ultimate
Speaker 5: struggle meal.
Speaker 1: It's like a three cans of dog food and like I,
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what the other stuff is, but it's.
Speaker 6: Mainly pockets of sugar and like a pouch of some liquid,
Speaker 6: unidentified liquid, very very rough.
Speaker 1: As he is eating this wolfing this down and just
Speaker 1: trying to like just wrestle it down. The phone rings
Speaker 1: in its Carol, and we see that phone call exchange
Speaker 1: from the other side, and then he writes in his notebook,
Speaker 1: caroless Turkish question mark.
Speaker 5: We go to Carol.
Speaker 2: It was fun. We go to the hospital. Carol's leaving
Speaker 2: the hospital. She's her car is totally fucking shit. So
Speaker 2: she takes a police cruiser. The hive Mine is like,
Speaker 2: how do you like the police cruiser. People on the
Speaker 2: highway are like waving at her as she drives by.
Speaker 2: She goes home and she finds that the hive Mine
Speaker 2: is like freshening up her whole house, cleaning up the
Speaker 2: grenade damage. She's like, I thought, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And they're like, don't you remember, like right after the
Speaker 2: grenade exploded, we asked you if we could clean the
Speaker 2: house and you were like yeah.
Speaker 5: And it was absent mindedly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we went with it. The cleanup crew includes
Speaker 1: the mayor of the town and the house looks great.
Speaker 1: It does look great. In her office, she she's got
Speaker 1: a whiteboard of her next Wakaro book that's planned out.
Speaker 1: It made me want to buy this whiteboard by the way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it looked very cool with the layers. Yeah, it
Speaker 6: was sick.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The multiple leaves, so she moves that aside, almost erases
Speaker 1: the new book, but doesn't, and she starts a new board.
Speaker 2: What I know about them?
Speaker 1: Uh, And it's like eager to please, they can't kill
Speaker 1: they don't play favorites. They are trying to change me,
Speaker 1: and they're weirdly honest. She goes out, gets a volunteer
Speaker 1: from the crew.
Speaker 5: She doesn't want the.
Speaker 1: Mayor, so she calls in a guy who we learned
Speaker 1: is or was named Larry, tells everybody else to leave,
Speaker 1: and then she grills Larry about various things, including her books.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do we what does the hive mind
Speaker 1: think of my books? They love them. They kind of
Speaker 1: are like very bullshitty at first, like they haven't read them.
Speaker 1: But then she's like, no, I need you to like
Speaker 1: actually prove to me. And they're like specifically this line
Speaker 1: and that line and the exchange you know that happened
Speaker 1: here in this particular scene. And so then she asked Larry, Okay,
Speaker 1: well what do you think about And this is like
Speaker 1: remind currently online there's people are asking groc the x Ai,
Speaker 1: like who is more physically fit Lebron James or Elon
Speaker 1: Musk And this reminded me of that. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: straight up to saying, well, technically Lebron is like more
Speaker 1: physically explosive, but like when you look at the holistic
Speaker 1: fitness of Elon Musk is like one of the fittest
Speaker 1: people who has like ever lived. So she asks, Okay, Larry,
Speaker 1: what do you think about my work in comparison to Shakespeare?
Speaker 1: And Larry's like, basically the same, just like it's on
Speaker 1: the level of Shakespeare. Basically like with Carro think about
Speaker 1: it as it's like modern Dame Macbeth.
Speaker 2: It's true. And then actually.
Speaker 1: Larry makes a kind of like compelling point, which is
Speaker 1: to the people that love your books, who are part
Speaker 1: of us, they these works deeply touch them, like there's
Speaker 1: a there is a fan of yours that's part of us.
Speaker 2: That was like in a dark place she was gonna
Speaker 2: commit suicide. And then it's like your book came out
Speaker 2: and it really found her where she needed to be found.
Speaker 1: And then Carol is like, okay, what did Helen think
Speaker 1: of my look? And then there's like a very troubling.
Speaker 5: Pause right, and it's like you've got to come up.
Speaker 1: You've got to have these responses quicker, I think, if
Speaker 1: you're the hive mind. But so the hive mind is like,
Speaker 1: first response is well, Helen loved you, okay, and.
Speaker 2: Then and then the high mind's like, well, I mean
Speaker 2: you said.
Speaker 1: She's off limits, so like, let's tell and Carol is
Speaker 1: like really presses, and then Larry's like, well, she thought
Speaker 1: they were harmless.
Speaker 2: They were like cotton candy, like a snack. And then
Speaker 2: Carols like, well, what about my unpublished work that I've
Speaker 2: been working on for five years, the very personal book?
Speaker 2: And then there's a very very long pause, and Larry's
Speaker 2: like trying to escape the conversation, and Carol like drops
Speaker 2: the hammer and is like, if you tell me it
Speaker 2: will make me happy. You tell me what Helen thought.
Speaker 2: And Helen thought it was fine. It's just it was fine.
Speaker 1: And then apparently we learn that the reason that Helen
Speaker 1: had pushed for Carol to release it is that she
Speaker 1: had strategized with Val, her editor, and they both thought, well,
Speaker 1: it won't harm the Wikaro brand, it won't harm the line,
Speaker 1: and it will make Carol happy, so just put it
Speaker 1: out and it'll be like basically a harmless thing to
Speaker 1: put out.
Speaker 6: Right and will fuck up the bag. Everybody will still
Speaker 6: be good.
Speaker 5: Just let her have her phone, you'll feel good. She'll
Speaker 5: feel good about it.
Speaker 2: So then Carol dismissus Larry and writes on the whiteboard,
Speaker 2: can't lie.
Speaker 1: Carol goes to see Zosha. She apologizes for the whole
Speaker 1: thing with grenade. She's like, I didn't understand how it
Speaker 1: worked with you guys, and then she interviews Zosha and
Speaker 1: asks you know about Davis Tackler, telling her that at
Speaker 1: the time, he didn't the hive mind, didn't really know
Speaker 1: how it all worked, and it's like, well, how does
Speaker 1: it work now? And so she's like, yeah, we know
Speaker 1: a lot more now basically, and Carol's like, how do
Speaker 1: we How do I fix it?
Speaker 5: How do I reverse it?
Speaker 2: And they're like, we can't. Sorry, that's like offline, that's.
Speaker 1: Something we can't do, which basically tells Carol by process
Speaker 1: of elimination that it is reversible and big deal. And
Speaker 1: then so Zosha's like, don't worry about it, because soon
Speaker 1: enough you're going to you're gonna really understand it, which
Speaker 1: means I think that they're speeding towards the solution, towards
Speaker 1: assimilating Caroly into the hive mind. Carol asks Zosha to
Speaker 1: tell her and this is like, you know, we talked
Speaker 1: last week about oh man, they're really toning the line
Speaker 1: with Carol potentially being unlikable.
Speaker 2: Like why is she?
Speaker 1: I get that she wants to fix everything, but I
Speaker 1: don't get the urgency. And now you get the urgency.
Speaker 1: And this is when you're like Vince Gilligan master, because
Speaker 1: he gives.
Speaker 5: You that little bit, it all makes sense.
Speaker 2: It all makes sense now in a way that is
Speaker 2: like whoa.
Speaker 1: And we discover and Zosha tells us that Carol was
Speaker 1: in a conversion therapy camp put there by her parents
Speaker 1: and it was like the worst experience that you could
Speaker 1: imagine that everybody was horrendous, but with smiles on their faces.
Speaker 1: And basically Carol is saying, this reminds me of that.
Speaker 1: You see, Zosha, how this is exactly the same. They're
Speaker 1: the people of the conversion camp didn't take my agency
Speaker 1: and my consent into their decision making. And you're not
Speaker 1: doing it either. You're just doing this to me, trying
Speaker 1: to do it to me. Why are you trying to
Speaker 1: do this when I don't want it and then have mind.
Speaker 1: Zosha is basically like, well, you don't know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be us.
Speaker 5: You know what it's like to be you, but you
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 2: How actually cool it is to like completely be subsumed
Speaker 2: into the hive mind, which I'm not buying it, but
Speaker 2: I have to give it to the hive mind.
Speaker 5: They do come up clever responses let's take home break, and.
Speaker 2: We were back with the rest of their tute.
Speaker 1: And we're at Carol then goes to the pharmacy of
Speaker 1: the hospital and flips to the drug manual, finds like
Speaker 1: information on sodium pentathal, which is like the old school
Speaker 1: truth serum, like from like.
Speaker 5: Cold War spy shit.
Speaker 1: And a guy comes in catches her and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: I want heroin. We learned that Carol was a heroin addict.
Speaker 1: They got a look over heroin. He's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know about heroin. He's like, what about oxy? What
Speaker 1: about something else? It's like, no, I want heroin, and
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, well it's coming. It's eight miles away,
Speaker 1: but it's on its way.
Speaker 4: This was a huge one where I was like, okay, Carol,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I feel like you're using all your past
Speaker 4: to find potential ways to evade this, and again Vince
Speaker 4: Gill again like what he's the master. It was really
Speaker 4: funny because three is such a slow burn, and I
Speaker 4: do still stand by. I don't think it's as strong
Speaker 4: as one two and definitely not as strong as this,
Speaker 4: but it does all come together here in a way.
Speaker 3: Just start to go.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, my guy, okay, I see what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: An incredible setup episode, absolutely so, she gets the heroin
Speaker 1: and she also steals some other stuff from the pharmacy
Speaker 1: which they don't know about. She goes home, she dumps
Speaker 1: the heroin out, sets up a video camera to record
Speaker 1: herself and then using herself as like the experimentee, injects
Speaker 1: herself with the sodium pentathol and then.
Speaker 2: Just tapes what comes out. And after she wakes up
Speaker 2: after like being fully blacked out, she plays the SD
Speaker 2: card and it's very funny. There's like a lot of
Speaker 2: blabbering and slurring and like reading her own works in
Speaker 2: English accents and saying she's complaining about Zosha, saying how
Speaker 2: annoying she is, but also like clearly attracted to her,
Speaker 2: being like, well, she's also very fuckable. And then Carol
Speaker 2: throws away the SD card and clearly she has some
Speaker 2: sort of plan, and then she goes back to the hospital.
Speaker 2: She takes the handcuffs and stuff out of the police car.
Speaker 2: She begins wheeling Zosha away, like let's go for a walk,
Speaker 2: it'll be nice.
Speaker 1: They get to the elevator, she looks around her cameras
Speaker 1: and then she puts the serum, the truth serum, into
Speaker 1: Zosha's ivy bag, and then wheels her out to a
Speaker 1: little plaza and begins to question her, like how do
Speaker 1: I reverse it?
Speaker 2: What do I do? How do I change this?
Speaker 5: Tell me?
Speaker 1: Now, Zosha is like weeping, weeping. The hive mind pours
Speaker 1: out of the surrounding buildings to like, you know, stop
Speaker 1: what's going on. Carol handcuffs herself to Zosha so they
Speaker 1: can't stop it, orders them to back away, and continues
Speaker 1: like asking how do I reverse it?
Speaker 2: How versa? And now the whole crowd is like doing
Speaker 2: is chaded? Carol, Please, Carol, please, Carol please.
Speaker 5: They're all crying too.
Speaker 1: Crying, weeping, and then Zosha passes out, falls on the
Speaker 1: floor and one of the timeline is like, she's dying
Speaker 1: of cardiac arrest.
Speaker 2: May we save her life? And then she's like, yes,
Speaker 2: go save her life, and that's where we end. Let's
Speaker 2: see a quick break and then talk about this incredible episode,
Speaker 2: and we're back so much to talk about what an
Speaker 2: awesome episode of the show. What did you think, Rosie,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts?
Speaker 4: I mean, unbelievable episode, starting to really get to the
Speaker 4: point of, oh, I see where this is going now.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, a huge.
Speaker 4: Big emotional episode, but also finally giving us some more
Speaker 4: of the steaks. And also, you know, I love somebody
Speaker 4: who is a complicated and unlikable character who has a reason,
Speaker 4: which is not often something that you see a lot
Speaker 4: of times.
Speaker 3: They'll just be like, she is a bitter woman.
Speaker 4: So I think, like the big reveal here about conversion
Speaker 4: therapy and how similar this feels huge. Yeah, just so
Speaker 4: well done and so really I did not see it
Speaker 4: coming at all, and I think there was just there's
Speaker 4: a balance between using something like that as a so
Speaker 4: called twist or using it to further the plot. But
Speaker 4: I think here it feels very deserved and establishes a
Speaker 4: lot makes a lot of sense to do with what.
Speaker 3: We know about Carol and the world.
Speaker 4: I also loved the truth Serum experiment because, like I've
Speaker 4: written quite extent about the kind of history of truth
Speaker 4: Serum and the way it was influenced by comic book
Speaker 4: stories and the way it was influenced by you know,
Speaker 4: the oss and it's really really interesting to see that
Speaker 4: here and also to see I think we end this
Speaker 4: episode with a very interesting quandary, which is like, how
Speaker 4: much like physical power do they have over Carol? And
Speaker 4: do they need every single person on earth to be
Speaker 4: involved in it for it to be successful, because otherwise,
Speaker 4: why wouldn't you just kill her? Like if she is
Speaker 4: not going along with the plan and now she's like
Speaker 4: trying to uncover what it is and reverse it. I
Speaker 4: find that to be a very interesting wrinkle, and I
Speaker 4: want to know why they need Carol, So yeah, just
Speaker 4: really intrigued. I think this is gonna secure people. They
Speaker 4: can't kill people because it would make her unhappy, but
Speaker 4: why Like what is the nature of the swarm? You know,
Speaker 4: so they have a biological imperative I guess to not kill,
Speaker 4: but I need to know why and I need to
Speaker 4: know how that works with their invasion plans and how
Speaker 4: the hive mind works.
Speaker 3: So I'm very intrigued.
Speaker 4: And I think that this is going to be the
Speaker 4: episode where if people are not already hooked, this one
Speaker 4: is going to have.
Speaker 3: Them hooked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 4: Also, congrats to Vince because this is they are saying,
Speaker 4: like the biggest Apple TV drama series launch.
Speaker 3: Now do I technically think this is you know, low
Speaker 3: bar but still.
Speaker 4: Low Bark is also like what else counts as a drama,
Speaker 4: like a severance a drama. But it did get six
Speaker 4: point four million hours logged in the first two episodes
Speaker 4: according to Nielsen, So it's people are hooking onto it
Speaker 4: and I'm really excited to keep talking about with you guys.
Speaker 1: So we had, you know, like I thought that Paraguay
Speaker 1: guy as we are calling him at the moment, was
Speaker 1: like scanning for other survivors. But super producer Aaron has
Speaker 1: a theory that I love. Aaron, come in and tell us.
Speaker 2: In the beginning, the guy in Paraguay is checking a
Speaker 2: radio frequency, waiting for like a minute and then crossing
Speaker 2: off each one, and he's going frequency by frequency. I
Speaker 2: think he's not looking for survivors. I think he's looking
Speaker 2: for how they communicate, so obviously like a hive mind needs,
Speaker 2: it's not just like some telepathic thing. I think.
Speaker 5: I think they're using somehow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a frequency they're using. And also
Speaker 2: I think it was back in episode one or two
Speaker 2: they specifically mentioned like, oh, all the cell phone towers
Speaker 2: are down, So I think that the bringing down the
Speaker 2: cell phone towers is to free up all these high
Speaker 2: frequency radio waves that they can use to communicate. Now
Speaker 2: he doesn't find it, so I'm not positive that this
Speaker 2: is the case, but that's what I think they're hinting
Speaker 2: in with him doing all this research, and it also
Speaker 2: just makes me think, this guy I like that more
Speaker 2: than we do, which is really intriguing.
Speaker 4: I love that read Aaron, especially because I think that
Speaker 4: makes sense. And also, if you think about it, a
Speaker 4: classic Hive of Mine story, right, usually you have to
Speaker 4: kill the mother figure, the central figure, so trying to
Speaker 4: find out where it goes back to makes a lot
Speaker 4: of sense. I also like the notion that I love
Speaker 4: a story like even you know, going back to something
Speaker 4: as kind of campy as like a Mars attacks.
Speaker 3: I think it's always really fun when there is.
Speaker 4: A story about somebody who thought that aliens were real
Speaker 4: and then they are real? And this is definitely giving.
Speaker 4: This guy was prepared for something. Maybe he knew about it,
Speaker 4: maybe he didn't, Maybe he just had always been waiting
Speaker 4: for an alien invasion. But I think that's gonna add
Speaker 4: some really interesting stuff. And I love that read Aaron
Speaker 4: I hadn't thought of it.
Speaker 5: I love it too.
Speaker 4: But that makes in the sense of the show. I
Speaker 4: think makes so much more sense. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: what a show, Jason.
Speaker 3: I want to make theories. I was gonna say, well,
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 1: To raise something that I think goes along with Aaron's theory.
Speaker 1: And so Carol gets the Truth serum and through chemical
Speaker 1: means does manage to cut Zosha off from the Hive Mind,
Speaker 1: like they lose contact with her and she loses Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: She loses Hive Mind WiFi right, but she goes into
Speaker 1: cardiac arrest. And so I wonder also if there is
Speaker 1: not some huge danger to cutting off the Wi Fi
Speaker 1: without knowing the way to do it, because it seems
Speaker 1: like you could potentially like exterminate the globe if you
Speaker 1: do it incorrectly. What do we think about that we
Speaker 1: already have examples of her like getting angry and shutting
Speaker 1: them down and then yeah, causes huge exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think this is the next conflict she's going to
Speaker 2: run into, is she figures out a way to do it,
Speaker 2: but it's so damaging that she going to second guess it.
Speaker 3: Well, she also was considering just a nuke, you know.
Speaker 4: And this is an interesting thing because there is actually
Speaker 4: this is the second series that we have right now
Speaker 4: alongside it Welcome to Derry, where it's just like, guys
Speaker 4: the nukes. There may be nukes before the end of
Speaker 4: both of these shows. But I do kind of like
Speaker 4: that the main conflict between Carol and the Hive Mind
Speaker 4: is actually about her having to treat them humanely, Like
Speaker 4: she could just be going to a Walmart and getting
Speaker 4: a gun and shooting a bunch of people down, but
Speaker 4: her actual hatred and viciousness and bitterness around humanity is
Speaker 4: being constantly questioned by the fact that these people don't
Speaker 4: have agency in their bodies, which we now know why
Speaker 4: she relates to. So I do think that going forward,
Speaker 4: she is not only going to be trying to find
Speaker 4: ways to not get assimilated. I think I think that
Speaker 4: she will be trying to and it will start with
Speaker 4: figures like zosher and stuff who she knows and is
Speaker 4: making connections with, where she is trying to free them,
Speaker 4: and that is going to end up, I think being
Speaker 4: a major part, because freeing them is a side effect
Speaker 4: of getting rid of the hive mind.
Speaker 3: But I think that freeing them is.
Speaker 4: Going to become more important to her than not getting assimilated,
Speaker 4: and that's going to be that personal journey for her.
Speaker 2: What do we think is going to be the reason
Speaker 2: that she is immune?
Speaker 6: Ian, Oh, it's still like up in the air for me.
Speaker 6: I have no idea what it could be. I have
Speaker 6: a feeling it's going to be something that we haven't
Speaker 6: even clocked yet, or maybe it's never even explained. I
Speaker 6: don't know, but I think it's still too early to tell.
Speaker 2: I think there're so few survivors. There's nothing that I think, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there are only twelve people in the world who have
Speaker 2: this sequencing of DNA, or only twelve people in the
Speaker 2: world who went to conversion therapy survived, Like, I think
Speaker 2: it's random. I can't think of anything that truly is
Speaker 2: going to be like, oh, because she happened to eat
Speaker 2: this one packaging of ring things twenty years ago that
Speaker 2: were yeah, she's okay now, or something I would say.
Speaker 3: I do think it's that you're probably right, Aaron. I
Speaker 3: think that it's going to be.
Speaker 4: Such a specific series of events that had to happen
Speaker 4: for people to become immune, the same way is that
Speaker 4: people come immune to any illness.
Speaker 3: You know that. I think that you're right.
Speaker 4: I don't think that the why is necessarily going to
Speaker 4: be the most important, because lots of people are traumatized,
Speaker 4: lots of people have had terrible experiences, way too many
Speaker 4: people have gone to conversion camps, you know, ban that
Speaker 4: shit banned in most places. But like, I also think
Speaker 4: that something really interesting here is the way that this
Speaker 4: does seem to also keep tying back to like AI
Speaker 4: and data centers. Even though I know that this was
Speaker 4: a show that he made ten years ago, the show
Speaker 4: like he started to make and he started to plan,
Speaker 4: But this idea of how chat GPT always uses other
Speaker 4: people's memories and regurgitates them and kind of everything is plagiarized,
Speaker 4: that is seeming more and more like an important plot
Speaker 4: point here. And also if we're talking about how they're
Speaker 4: staying connected, that notion of you know, wi fi or
Speaker 4: the amount of energy it would actually need for the
Speaker 4: hive mind to be able to communicate against each other.
Speaker 4: Also seems like a resources game, you know. So I'm
Speaker 4: very interested to see how those threads tie together.
Speaker 3: Ian, what are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 6: Well, I have an interesting question that I wanted to
Speaker 6: post to the group actually sure related to the truth
Speaker 6: serum sequence at the end, where clearly Carol's trying to
Speaker 6: compel Zosha to reveal this information that the hive mind
Speaker 6: does not want to reveal, and it clearly causes her
Speaker 6: to have a physical reaction. You know, why do why
Speaker 6: do we think it's so painful for them to they
Speaker 6: they they're not lying, but they can clearly withhold information,
Speaker 6: but like when it's forced or they're compelled, it like
Speaker 6: causes them harm. I wonder why why do we think
Speaker 6: that's happening? And then the other question that I was
Speaker 6: wondering is like our is the highline capable of experiencing
Speaker 6: negative emotions? Are they capable of getting upset or angry
Speaker 6: with Cary?
Speaker 2: They're all crying at the end, right.
Speaker 4: So, well, I would also want to say, like, now
Speaker 4: we know why it's so horrible to Carol. Can I
Speaker 4: pose something incredibly depressing, like are they doing this because
Speaker 4: she hates it?
Speaker 3: Like do they know that because of Helen?
Speaker 4: Like is the whole we are so happy all the time,
Speaker 4: we love everything.
Speaker 3: It's great, that's like an act.
Speaker 4: I wonder that because I do think that it is
Speaker 4: now so specifically reminding her of that. And we know
Speaker 4: they have all of Helen's memories, so it seems a
Speaker 4: random that that would.
Speaker 3: Just be the specific version of it. So I wonder
Speaker 3: that also.
Speaker 4: Ian The thing about the compelling I think is really
Speaker 4: interesting because it proves that there is a hive mind,
Speaker 4: but it is being controlled by someone.
Speaker 3: Because if it was.
Speaker 4: Just a soul hive mind where everyone was you know,
Speaker 4: equally high vy or whatever, you would probably be able
Speaker 4: to tell. But there's something stopping them, like a compulsion.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's a biological imperative, maybe it's part of their
Speaker 4: Ilien programming. But yeah, also as well, just traditionally, that
Speaker 4: kind of sodium penthole like truth serum is like a
Speaker 4: horrific experience as well, like it's made to make you
Speaker 4: feel fucked up and and and kind of stops.
Speaker 3: There's no such thing obviously as like a real truth serum.
Speaker 4: It's more about how much can they fuck up your
Speaker 4: body and brain till you just start going holy, this
Speaker 4: is how I feel, This is how I feel, This
Speaker 4: is how I feel.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I thought that was also a very interesting because
Speaker 4: again it's about Carol kind of she's going to start
Speaker 4: to learn their humanity as she goes oh with.
Speaker 1: The Zosia heart attack. It's unclear to me whether it
Speaker 1: was pressing her on the way to reverse it or
Speaker 1: her disconnection from the hive mind that actually caused her
Speaker 1: to collapse.
Speaker 5: It might be a combination.
Speaker 4: I wondered that too, Like, did the hive mind actually
Speaker 4: want her to collapse because she was gonna break because
Speaker 4: they would be able to feel, or it just.
Speaker 2: Might be that it might be that, you know, like
Speaker 2: we don't know how this thing works.
Speaker 5: Right, but it might be there.
Speaker 1: Her unconscious you know, biological rhythms, her heartbeat, her breathing
Speaker 1: are somehow managed or shut or or woven through the
Speaker 1: hive mind, so that disconnecting them actually makes it so
Speaker 1: her body doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 2: I mean, her body also took the brunt of a
Speaker 2: grenade like three days ago, so.
Speaker 3: She's going through it. She's going through it she's going through.
Speaker 2: It's been a rough weight for zosh I do have
Speaker 2: a question for everyone about sure kind of Carol and
Speaker 2: Zoshia hive mind. It's you know, I think Carol is
Speaker 2: getting less angry, She's becoming more focused and trying to
Speaker 2: be a little more strategic, I think, whereas I think
Speaker 2: the hive mind is becoming more menacing. So like early on,
Speaker 2: you know, the power outage, Sure, maybe that was random,
Speaker 2: but maybe that was like a shot across the back
Speaker 2: of like, hey, look what we can do. Oh, your
Speaker 2: grocery store is empty, you know, not a not a
Speaker 2: coincidence that we're showing you again how much you do
Speaker 2: rely on us. And then this time felt like the
Speaker 2: most menacing, with them circling her and they know they
Speaker 2: can't do anything, but they're there and they keep coming.
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if next episode, when Zosha recovers doesn't recover,
Speaker 2: at what point do they change and stop playing so nice?
Speaker 2: Like because I think never, I think you never, really,
Speaker 2: she she I think the rules that she wrote down
Speaker 2: are not just for her, there for us. They can't
Speaker 2: do these things, they can't lie, they're non violent, they're
Speaker 2: just but it's gonna work within those rules somehow, which
Speaker 2: is a wonderful, like creative thought starter. I think for
Speaker 2: how this is gonna work because I.
Speaker 1: Don't think the way you're talking about, like if it
Speaker 1: goes more in a more confrontational route, she's screwed, then
Speaker 1: we could she's one screwed and then you go in
Speaker 1: the realm of like you know, guns and attacked. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's ever gonna go that way. I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna I think it's gonna stay nonviolent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 4: Boo just made a really great point in the chat
Speaker 4: which I think is really more creepy almost, which is
Speaker 4: like he said, I think people want the mind virus to.
Speaker 3: Be menacing, but it's not. It just is it's nature.
Speaker 4: And I do think that is really scary in itself
Speaker 4: because then you cannot contend with it, you cannot emotionally
Speaker 4: communicate with it. You just have to fight against essentially
Speaker 4: Darwinism and evolution and nature, and that is kind of
Speaker 4: a crazy battle to take on.
Speaker 1: And with regards to the like the the blackout and
Speaker 1: all this, I think that the hive mind has a
Speaker 1: thing that it is programmed to do, and it's whatever
Speaker 1: that is. It needs power, it needs food resources centralized
Speaker 1: so that it can do the thing, like whatever the
Speaker 1: thing is. And Carol and these other immune people are
Speaker 1: really just kind of like a side note to accomplishing
Speaker 1: whatever the main mission is. And so we still don't
Speaker 1: know what that main mission is. But I think all
Speaker 1: of these other things going on around Carol that seem
Speaker 1: ominous are just basically the fact that the Hive mind
Speaker 1: is getting on with whatever its main plan is.
Speaker 4: Does the Hive mind the energy that they need to
Speaker 4: do whatever they're going to do, does it need exactly
Speaker 4: you know, eight billion people? And that is why the
Speaker 4: last eleven is so important, Like have they worked out so?
Speaker 3: Like I'm so interested why they need them.
Speaker 1: I don't think they need them. I think they're just
Speaker 1: a threat. I think they could like clearly we know
Speaker 1: that there's a way to reverse it. You don't want
Speaker 1: a handful, you know, any amount of people immune one
Speaker 1: pulling resources away from the hive mind mission with like
Speaker 1: gallivanting on air Force one and creating vast harems and
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck.
Speaker 2: Else they're deciding to do.
Speaker 1: And two, you don't want people working on a cure.
Speaker 1: You want them, you want it just like you want
Speaker 1: your your you know, your flank completely guarded. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why they care, is that it's just too
Speaker 1: dangerous to like leave them out. I want to ask
Speaker 1: about the the uh, the interview with Larry, because it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would stop yourself from asking
Speaker 1: these questions like hey, what is X?
Speaker 2: What did they really think about me?
Speaker 5: It's like so stating feeling so what did Ellen think of?
Speaker 5: Writing answer? She was absolute worst? Rosie Ian. Could you
Speaker 5: if you were in.
Speaker 1: This situation, would you be able to resist asking the
Speaker 1: hive mind?
Speaker 2: Hey what did they think of? What did people say? I?
Speaker 4: I would have to ask them to just get me
Speaker 4: so much weed that I would just not think.
Speaker 2: I would just be like I would just be in
Speaker 2: my house smoking.
Speaker 4: Weed and like watching movies and shit, though I will
Speaker 4: say aboot it, just say I can't believe she hasn't
Speaker 4: asked about Area fifty one yet?
Speaker 5: That doing Yeah, I like.
Speaker 3: Who Yeah, It's like, uh, and that is what I
Speaker 3: would be doing. I could not. I think if I
Speaker 3: if I got into.
Speaker 4: The asking about personal people in my life, they wouldn't
Speaker 4: need to like get rid of me. I would just
Speaker 4: go crazy, So I think I would have to stop myself,
Speaker 4: but I would be asking, like, tell me every redact,
Speaker 4: every file, tell me about mk Ultra, what with the government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it really seems like we're heading towards the
Speaker 1: place maybe in the finale, where the hive mind is
Speaker 1: ready to assimilate them. Do we think we see that
Speaker 1: this season where the hive Mind's like, we crack the code,
Speaker 1: we figured it out, we got youa Carol come in
Speaker 1: for a meeting, or they show up at her house
Speaker 1: or however they managed to do it.
Speaker 4: What do we think I feel like, realistically, it's not
Speaker 4: going to be this simple, because this is a little
Speaker 4: bit like Paraguay x Macana. But I do feel like
Speaker 4: maybe we're when that happens, he is going to have
Speaker 4: the place or the plan or the next step, like Aaron.
Speaker 4: If if it was to do with a you know, signal,
Speaker 4: I could imagine him showing up outside wherever the office
Speaker 4: is with like a crazy guitar, you know, playing an
Speaker 4: insane like off sound register that kind of disrupts the
Speaker 4: signal and allows her to run away or something. I
Speaker 4: feel like Paraguay guy is gonna be a big paw
Speaker 4: of stopping the assimilation and getting us to season two.
Speaker 3: That's that's my guess.
Speaker 2: He seems more hopeful than Air Force one guy.
Speaker 5: I'll give him that.
Speaker 4: Yes, definitely, it would be funny if that ended up
Speaker 4: being Carol's ally for season two and they just totally
Speaker 4: twisted us.
Speaker 3: I don't believe it. I would believe.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, because if we do move
Speaker 1: to a place where they have to go on the
Speaker 1: run from the Hive mind or whatever, you know, because
Speaker 1: they're going to assimilate them. I it's like when she
Speaker 1: wheels Zosha out, I'm like, that's not far enough. You
Speaker 1: gotta go so far because all of the resources of
Speaker 1: Earth are like being used right now to There's probably
Speaker 1: five satellites that are watching where Carol goes, multiple Reaper drones,
Speaker 1: like I don't know how far.
Speaker 5: I don't know. You could go anywhere to get away
Speaker 5: on Amazon or something maybe I don't know, but.
Speaker 2: They have to fly you, Like, how do you get there?
Speaker 4: The surveillance state is being used against you in the
Speaker 4: world's most horrible way, which again I feel like is
Speaker 4: another great Vince Gilligan thing here where he's established what
Speaker 4: you know in the seventies would have been a really
Speaker 4: sick paranoia thrillery, like the seventies, the amazing seventies versions
Speaker 4: of Invasion of the Body snatches, but like because of
Speaker 4: the state that we live in and the way that
Speaker 4: we are so based on convenience and stuff, it takes
Speaker 4: away a lot of the usual We're going to run
Speaker 4: away because now there's surveillance cameras everywhere, there's ring cameras,
Speaker 4: there's Amazon. All these things that we have been using
Speaker 4: for convenience are now being turned against Carol and used
Speaker 4: to surveil her, which I think is really creepy and interesting. Okay,
Speaker 4: Aboo says, doesn't think this is about running away or
Speaker 4: escaping the hive, Mike. He thinks it's going to be
Speaker 4: out smacking it. How do you think you out small
Speaker 4: a hive mind?
Speaker 1: Though, Well, this is where we're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: put ourselves in the hands of Vince Gilligan. If there's
Speaker 1: thinking about breaking bad or better call Saul and how
Speaker 1: many times in the middle of seasons heading towards finales
Speaker 1: were their intractable problems to me? This is Vince's trademark.
Speaker 1: He himself, he paints his characters into corners where you're like,
Speaker 1: I really don't know how it is possible to get
Speaker 1: out of this, and the times as we've you know,
Speaker 1: he's done a lot of interviews, for instance about the
Speaker 1: final season with the cold open with the M sixty
Speaker 1: machine gun, where he's like, I wrote that scene and
Speaker 1: I didn't know where the machine gun was coming back.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was going to be used for.
Speaker 1: And I think that we're we're headed for the same
Speaker 1: kind of experience here where I really don't know. And
Speaker 1: I agree with Abou in the kind of like in
Speaker 1: the larger sense that this is going to be outsmarting
Speaker 1: them using the physics of the hive mind against it,
Speaker 1: the fact that it can't lie like as we saw
Speaker 1: Carol kind of doing in this episode.
Speaker 2: But in terms of defeating it, I got no clue.
Speaker 1: I really don't have any clue how it would be possible.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe they could strategically try and cure people
Speaker 1: that they think could help them.
Speaker 5: Once they figure out if they could do it, she.
Speaker 2: Would have to figure out what makes her immune, because
Speaker 2: you can't just cure someone. We're going to have to
Speaker 2: figure that out, Yeah, and then risk them just getting
Speaker 2: infected again. All it takes is another box of donuts
Speaker 2: and ear out.
Speaker 4: I think my favorite thing about this show is after
Speaker 4: last week, I would have never seen this week's episode coming.
Speaker 3: And I think the best thing is that next week
Speaker 3: we could be in.
Speaker 4: A situation where so much has changed that all of
Speaker 4: this conversation where like you know, either two weeks ahead
Speaker 4: or two weeks behind of whatever's gonna happen, because he
Speaker 4: does build these things in so well. So yeah, I mean, Vince,
Speaker 4: you're doing it again, and I'm glad everyone is loving
Speaker 4: the show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I've.
Speaker 6: Watched ahead a little bit and the status quote does
Speaker 6: continue to change, is all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1: Who let me ask you this, But could we be
Speaker 1: going to a place where like Paraguay guy is like
Speaker 1: an alien, you know, like from a refugee a thing,
Speaker 1: or like yeah, refugee from this titheline somewhere, or just
Speaker 1: because it does appear that he was ready for it
Speaker 1: and had hunkered down knowing it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I love that possibly before it happened. And then the
Speaker 1: question is how.
Speaker 4: I think my favorite thing about that theory is something
Speaker 4: that this show is playing in is scope the horror
Speaker 4: of eight million, eight billion people. They can all be
Speaker 4: used to hunt you down. You're the only one left.
Speaker 4: So in that way, the notion of there being many
Speaker 4: other planets with life fits that scope. So I would
Speaker 4: also be interested if he is either a survivor of
Speaker 4: a previous hive mind attempt, or if he was a
Speaker 4: refugee from that planet, or if he's just another alien
Speaker 4: who had come to Earth for whatever reason but could
Speaker 4: sense that something off was going on. I think that
Speaker 4: a lot of shows with this tone would not be
Speaker 4: able to pull off like a different alien character.
Speaker 3: But I can absolutely.
Speaker 4: Imagine Vince making the world's weirdest body couple, just like
Speaker 4: he did in Breaking Bad, or in Betters or Corseul
Speaker 4: and it's like Carol and this cranky old alien who
Speaker 4: is just trying to retire on Earth or whatever comedian
Speaker 4: in twist.
Speaker 1: To your point, Rosie, it really feels as if it
Speaker 1: could go anywhere. I don't It could get huge. We
Speaker 1: could end up in space, it could end up half
Speaker 1: the planet dead. It could get tiny, they could live underground.
Speaker 1: I don't really know. I have no idea where it
Speaker 1: could go. Well, the show continues to fascinate us and
Speaker 1: we're gonna be following it all season. On the next
Speaker 1: episode of x ra Vision, we're diving into Welcome to
Speaker 1: Diry episode five.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie
Speaker 1: Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 4: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Klefman.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Abusafar.
Speaker 4: Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bai Wag.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to Saul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi.
Speaker 3: Our discord moderate, though