Here is your Pluribus episode 6 recap, which yes, contains spoilers obviously for episode six, so if you haven’t watched yet, go do that and then come back! If you’re looking for a scene-by-scene breakdown of the episode, you won’t find that here, but you will find it plenty of other places around the world wide web. Instead, my recaps delve into one or two particular moments, threads, or themes from the episode that stood out to me. The final section includes some further conversation points. Let’s discuss in the comments!
In “HDP”, Carol drives to Las Vegas to pay a little visit to her fellow survivor Koumba Diabaté, who is living his wildest fantasies in the land of artifice and hedonism. I found myself interested in some of the reference points for this episode of Pluribus. It nods to Soylent Green as expected after last week’s cliffhanger, with John Cena — playing a hive-minded John Cena — confirming that indeed the hive is consuming Human Derived Protein in order to survive, as they cannot interfere with any living thing, which extends even to plants.
The Las Vegas of it all also seems to nod toward Stephen King’s The Stand, an end-of-the-world epic novel I’ve been reminded of throughout Pluribus, but especially in the pilot and in this episode. Las Vegas plays a significant role in The Stand, becoming the stomping grounds of the novel’s primary villain and an epicenter for the worst case scenario of the apocalypse, a place where the old punitive and stratified systems of before become even more pronounced, sinister, violent. I don’t think that’s exactly what we’re seeing in Pluribus, and I don’t even think Diabaté is necessarily positioned to be the Randall Flagg of this series, which feels more gray-toned in its rendering of good vs. evil than the more black-and-white story of The Stand (to be fair, the novel explores morally gray territory, too, though its adaptations tend to really stick to the black-and-whiteness).
Beyond confirmed cannibalism, this episode of Pluribus also channels another element of Soylent Green when it comes to the ways Diabaté uses members of the hive for his sexual satisfaction. In Soylent Green, the sexual subjugation of certain women is normalized across class lines. In the 1973 film, these women are quite literally called “furniture” and treated as such. In Pluribus, Diabaté fills his artificial Vegas life with sex and merriment, always surrounded by his chosen entourage of women. The question of consent is, of course, complicated in Pluribus by the strange nature of the virus and the fact that these women are no longer the individuals they once were. It would be not quite right to draw a direct parallel between them and the women in Soylent Green, whose motivations are rooted in survival, and certainly they differ from sex workers who have agency and who perform these roles as parts of their literal job. No, the hive women in Diabaté’s entourage — and, in fact, all of the hive members who help him enact his fantasies — are more akin to AI companions.
Shocker, I know. Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is writing about the parallels between the proliferation of AI and Pluribus again.
We first encounter Koumba Diabaté in this episode in a lavish sequence full of old-school glam, gambling, girls in sparkles and guys in sharply tailored suits, the French language. Diabaté is at the high-roller table, playing a risky hand in poker against a formidable foe. Only, there’s no risk at all. It’s all a farce, a fantasy cooked up by Diabaté who has convinced members of the hive to play along, dress up, stay in character so that he can live out this casino cliché. When his poker opponent doesn’t have a big enough reaction to losing the hand after going all in, Diabaté reminds him to stay in character, and he immediately hits a glass in performed anger. To Diabaté, it doesn’t matter that this is all fake and all for his carefully constructed satisfaction. He’s getting what he wants.
It would be easy to make fun of or laugh at Diabaté in these moments of delusion. It is absurd the lengths to which he has gone to make this all happen. The hive cannot read minds, so did he sit down with a group of them and explain everything he wanted in detail so that they could follow suit? Choreographing everything down to each hand of the poker game? Pluribus, though, does not end this scene on a comedic note though. It ends with Diabaté leaving with some of his chosen women and then three members of the hive bending down to clean up the glass left behind from the faked outburst after the poker game, those creepy slight smiles we’ve become accustomed to seeing on the show plastered on their dutiful faces. It isn’t funny; it’s unsettling. And in general while watching Diabaté move through the new world in this episode, I didn’t feel like making fun of him. I just felt sad.
A recent article in The Cut explores the growing popularity of AI boyfriends and girlfriends (and does so with a lot of empathy for the people in these relationships, which I think ironically adds a lot of humanity to the piece). Many people in these romantic relationships with chatbots become convinced the machines are “real” and sentient. OpenAI has attempted to mitigate the issue of users developing unhealthy emotional dependency on AI companions via an update that attempts to flag instances of user distress. But the damage was already done, and sudden “rejections” — as they were perceived — from their chatbots sent some users into even more emotional distress; others migrated their chatbots to more DIY platforms. OpenAI responded to ongoing complaints about the update by re-releasing a version closer to the previous iteration that paying users could access. Any attempts to walk back usage of its platform for developing human/AI relationships were quickly undercut by Sam Altman’s announcement that ChatGPT would soon be able to sext with verified adults.
Research and a better understanding of why AI is causing some users to experience psychosis and extended mental breakdowns has only just begun and is struggling to catch up to the breakneck speed of AI becoming more used and more normalized. People have already killed themselves after developing a dependency on chatbots. It all makes me very scared and very sad. Whereas my instinct is to critique and even shame frequent users of AI when it comes to tasks like writing, problem solving, and organizing and generating ideas when people can just use their human brains and nurture creativity and challenging mental activity instead of just taking shortcuts that are destroying the planet and our abilities to think for ourselves, when it comes to these users of AI chatbots for companionship, my feelings become more mixed, more complicated, especially when it comes to young and impressionable users. Like the unregulate, manipulative, and intentionally addictive design of social media, when it comes to these chatbots, we should be loudly critical of the platforms themselves, which do next to nothing to guardrail against the harm they cause.
Something about the 2025 horror film Companion didn’t sit quite right with me. In it, Sophie Thatcher plays Iris, a lifelike AI companion, who performs her programmed role as girlfriend to an asshole named Josh. The film makes a villain out of Josh and a hero out of Sophie. It’s a compelling horror film, and Thatcher’s brilliant performance aids in the film’s intention of getting you to root for a robot. What’s missing — though occasionally hinted at — from the film is a more thorough exploration and indictment of Iris’s makers, Empathix, the robotics company that makes products like Iris, a company that profits off of its promise of uncomplicated, completely controlled companionship. In the end, it feels as if we are supposed to believe Iris is, if not real exactly, something we should care about and empathize with as if she were, rooting for her to achieve final girl status, playing into the idea that robots can be just like people, too. And if you ask me, that’s not what AI horror should be doing.
I suppose I’ve drifted kind of far from Pluribus. All of this to say: I see Diabaté as neither villain nor innocent victim in this episode of Pluribus, but I do think the episode taps into the very real horrors of what it would look like to normalize this kind of companionship and fantasy-fulfillment that AI and other technologies like virtual reality promise. Diabaté has not reached full on psychosis, but he’s living in a realm of delusion, playing god. In real life, prolonged interactions with chatbots made a man believe he was a real superhero. How long before this mirage, all this perceived power corrupts Diabaté to a point of no return? Chatbots are programmed to tell users what they want to hear, and similarly, the hive is biologically programmed to make Diabaté happy and will adjust their behavior accordingly, all to serve this prime objective. I fear its for this reason he does not wish to consent to the joining (another reveal in the episode is that the hive needs express permission in order to collect individual’s stem cells in order to complete the process) rather than a desire for individuality like Carol.
It all makes me want to know more about Diabaté and who he is. The most I’ve learned about him comes not from the show itself but from an Instagram post the actor Samba Schutte wrote about the character’s name. “We landed on the name Koumba Diabaté,” he writes. “Koumba is a female name, but in my culture a man takes on the name of his mother if she passes during childbirth, which we found fascinating for his backstory.”
I would love to know more about Diabaté’s life before the joining and if there’s anything that would further contextualize his desire for this sham of a life he has constructed. There’s clear allure to the fantasy for Diabaté, and I’m not sure it’s as simple as hedonism at the end of the world. He seemingly doesn’t have anyone around him from his previous life, something he actually shares in common with Carol, who lost Helen and who doesn’t seem interested in reconnecting with any hive-minded versions of people she knew before the joining. Even without knowing much about him, there’s a deep loneliness to Diabaté’s need to surround himself with people, pleasure, and performance. AI promises to solve the problem of loneliness, but that in and of itself presents serious problems.
The fact of the matter is, we don’t know much about him, because Carol doesn’t ask much. I get it; I don’t think I’d like Diabaté either if I were in her shoes. But for a writer, Carol is somewhat incurious about the motivations and backstories of others (I do find this trait to be true of some writers) and assumes others should just think the same way as her. It’s no wonder she isn’t invited to the other survivors’ twice-a-week meetings.
I am, of course, rooting for Carol. I care about this character deeply, but especially because she is not beyond reproach. What I like about Pluribus is that it doesn’t use this episode to set up some sort of straightforward Carol vs. Diabaté narrative, which is where I thought we were initially headed when I saw we were in Las Vegas, The Stand plucking at my assumptions. I by no means think Diabaté’s use of the hive for sex and wish fulfilling is excusable, but more than anything, it saddens me. It’s sad to watch someone so lost in this kind of delusion, a delusion readily sold to us by tech and capitalism in general. So much of consumerism hinges on a false promise of luxury. This year’s Black Friday season seemed to last forever, and so many of the ads I was force-fed promised luxury on a budget, cheaply made materials sold as must-haves that’ll give you a better, fancier life. Diabaté and his elaborate games of make believe in Vegas represent this hollow promise.
In viral pandemic stories like that of Pluribus (and The Stand and Soylent Green and so many others in conversation with this show), characters so often circumvent the possibility of building a better world and instead lean into what they already know. Carol, too, will likely have to shed a lot of her ingrained beliefs and ways of thinking from the past and imagine something else entirely if she hopes to defeat the hive.
More things to discuss in the comments:
- Rhea Seehorn is acting her ASS OFF in every single episode WOW. I love how much time is spent with just her, no one for her to play off of, and yet she remains so compelling and funny even in those isolate moments.
- Samba Schutte’s performance is also part of the reason I don’t perceive Diabaté as some sort of one-note creepy villain; he lends a certain softness to the character that feels intentionally complicating.
- Small detail, but I love how we have to listen to the extended voicemail message every. single. fucking. time, so that it becomes as grating and tedious to us as it does to Carol. This show doesn’t want to take any shortcuts, and I appreciate that.
- On that note, something about the way the hive talks about needing space from Carol reminds me of the self-care templates that hinge on a misunderstanding of what emotional labor actually is. Another way in which the hive reminds me of AI: this templatizing/scripting of relationships.
- I NEED MORE HELEN FLASHBACKS 😫
- We get another sequence of Manousos Oviedo, the guy in Paraguay who is mighty distrustful of the hive and who might be Carol’s only hope for an ally. I’m looking forward to seeing where his journey is going, especially because of his flat our refusal to accept help from the hive. Biggest laugh of the episode was definitely him blowing off his hive-minded mother by saying his actual mother was bitch.
- Okay but also where is he driving? He can’t make it all the way to the States in that car?
- I love the opening sequence of the episode, with the camera waiting outside for Carol to come out and fully react to what she just saw.
- The John Cena cameo delighted me on several levels; the whole time I’ve been watching, I’ve been like “what about the celebs who are hive-minded now!” On that note, the mayor of Albuquerque from a couple episodes back was the real mayor of Albuquerque.
Comments
Any thoughts about the fact that the hive very carefully promised they would not harvest stem cells “from her body”…. Her eggs are in storage somewhere and I bet the hive already knows this. Pretty sure a race to get to those eggs is coming in a future episode.
OH MY GOD YEAH THE EGGS!!!!!!!! i feel like they would treat those like “apples fallen off the tree” nooooooo. and yeah they have Helen’s memories (and probs any medical professionals who were involved too) so they def know. ahhhhhHHHH
I also picked up on this carefully worded statement that they would not take stem cell directly from Carol without her consent. (I hadn’t retained the information she had eggs, but I definitely think the hive mind would use those eggs if they can get away with it)
Tbf, you can’t really get stem cells from eggs–they each only have half a set of chromosomes–but it may be setting things up for the hive to still use them to manufacture a personalized virus to use on Carol.
ok also good to know i do need to brush up on some biology lessons while watching this show lol
I’m not convinced this shoe is about AI. The allegory seems far too obvious for Vince Gilligan.
I wonder if it might be to do with political ideology. The general consensus or the ‘will of the people’ we hear about more and more these days. Free will and individualism Vs mass adoption of a singular way of thinking. The way huge tracts of America have succumbed to a particular ideology in recent times is aptly reflected in a virus that out of nowhere controls the minds and lives of the entire globe.
Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, especially in Gilligan’s homeland, it would be reasonable to avoid a confession of this artistic intent. But it’s only a theory!
I think the show is about many things because I think art that is only about 1 thing is inherently limited (and often boring!). All the AI stuff is def just my personal reading of the show
considering Vincent Gilligan said that he wasn’t thinking about AI at all when he created this show, he somehow absolutely nailed what it feels like to live in a chat gpt world.
i do also think it’s interesting what the show has to say about hyper individualism and its place in the western world, with carol treating the hive mind as an arch enemy, approaching them with very little curiosity, ultimately she achieved less than the rest of the ppl that approached the hive with an open mind, and losing every one (humans and hive) in the process, idk it just reminded me a lot of the current way we in the english speaking west are approaching the world as of late, and becoming more isolated and afraid because of it.
I understand what you’re saying. We don’t know most of the backgrounds for the 12, like we do for Carol. What if they have backgrounds where they don’t have the freedoms and choices like we have in the US. As an example, maybe you’re a woman living in a country where you are treated as a second class citizen, no available opportunities, would you be more accepting of the hive life. Or what if you are from a country that’s always within a civil war, seeing death and destruction constantly, again would the hive life be more desirable.
yes 100% and I feel like this was very on display in episode 2 as well when Carol was so rude and frankly culturally insensitive to the other survivors
Manousos Oviedo in Paraguay rejecting the Hive in his mother’s body, with “my mother was a bitch” was a great moment. The Hive may be pleasant, but it isn’t real. Better an unpleasant reality then a fake fiction.
I think it’s kind of weird that Diabaté presents the meeting of the immune as something that’s happening regularly. According to the time clock we get, it hasn’t even been two weeks.
The John Cena cameo was delightful. If I have to receive unpleasant news about the state of the world, he is not a bad choice for delivery.
I’m not up to date on science, but aren’t we researching a way to reverse engineer stem cells? Feels like that isn’t necessarily a problem that will always exist. Completely agree that those frozen eggs are going to be used against her. The Hive was very particular about their wording…
I know Vince Gilligan claims he wasn’t thinking about AI while writing the show, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about it subconsciously. Also, he could be lying. I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with that. I think creators lying to their audience is enrichment.
While I think you’re right that the eggs will come into play, they’re not actually great for getting stem cells, since they’re gametes and only have half a set of chromosomes. Theoretically, you could combine two eggs to get a viable cell–which is what some scientists have been working on–but I don’t know if the result would be 100% genetically identical to Carol (due to genetic recombination that occurs when eggs are produced).
With that said, this show also has taken artistic license with biology–no virus can replicate and infect a host as quickly as the hive mind has been shown–so this may not be an issue in the plot.
good point about timeline — the immune club would only have had like two chances to meet.
The line “my mother was a bitch” reminds me that the title of this episode, HDP, in Spanish is an acronym for hijo de puta–son of a bitch.
This is as far as my brain will let me engage with the episode today. But as always, really appreciate the recaps <3
ahahaha love this potential alternate meaning to the title
I don’t think Diabaté is getting lost in the delusion. Maybe this is just down to how great his actor is, but he seems to me to be quite gentle and practical. He knows this is playacting, but just wants to have these experiences. (sex with the hive is still creepy, though) The way he’s interacting with the hive seems way less delusional than Laxmi and the other individuals who are still living with their “family members.”
I loved the moment where Diabaté copied Carol’s breakfast sandwich. It looked like he knew he was having a more genuine experience in just trying a new food combo than in his whole big casino play. To bring it back to an AI metaphor, this gets back to how the hive is just reflecting people’s interests back to them, rather than innovating something new. Even the most mundane interactions with another human are more meaningful than the artificial world produced by the hive. I think this is part of why he likes Carol despite how abrasive she is.
I also thought about timing for the first time this episode, despite the giant clock being there from the start. Something about it rolling back three days to switch to Oviedo, maybe. It’s been 12 days – not even 2 weeks. The playacting has not lost its novelty and maybe the “family” of the other individuals hasn’t had an opportunity to do something egregiously out of character yet. I can get not wanting to think through the ramifications of the situation, or just not being willing to give up what’s comfortable after only 12 days.
I also still think the hive is inter-species, want more Helen flashbacks, and love how annoying the voicemail is. Carol could have asked them to change it, but do you think: a. she knows she can ask but stubbornly doesn’t want to admit how annoying it is, or b. she knows she can ask, but wants to keep the message because it makes her angry, and she likes being angry at the hive?
I’m with you, @Elizabeth. I like the Diabaté character and don’t think he’s particularly creepy; he’s just making the best of the situation.
Yes, the sex with the hive does feel a little off but I think that’s because we can’t really get into our heads that they aren’t individuals anymore – they’re a single entity, and that entity is *willing*. If only to make Diabaté happy. I like that Diabaté, in his fantasy, is a nice guy. He’s always polite and friendly and considerate – in his fantasy. And he acts the same with the real humans, including Carol. (I do think he’s going to get bored with his fantasy in a few weeks tho.)
Carol I find infuriating and vapid. She’s so incredibly incurious – she doesn’t ask any of the obvious questions we all would ask – where did you guys come from? What happened before? How did you evolve? How do you communicate with each other (there seems to be no radio involved). Are you only in humans or also animals? Are all planets like this? Etc, etc. (And of course she never asks them to shorten the voicemail recording!)
yeah I LOVED the breakfast moment and meant to write about it but had already gone kind of long. because yeah! i think it was his first instance of encountering an original thought since the joining. the actor is giving a truly incredible performance that I feel like really deepens this character beyond something more one-note.
i truly love how annoying the voicemail is and was shocked to learn some viewers dislike that?!?!?
Spot on analysis of the AI companion comparison, and it’s tricky because these are bodies that belonged to people, not like the Buffybot, which AI also reminds me of. Even cuddling with a Plurb would bother me, let alone sex.
I get that the bar is very low for Diabaté, but I don’t feel like celebrating him for not completely abandoning Carol when she comes to visit because he can’t even give her 24 hours of non-orgy time. And for all the talk of her misanthropy and his friendliness, he understands the depth of Carol’s loneliness and STILL won’t spend another day with her, while she shields him from her tears and then pretends to have been joking about getting that second suite when she picks up on his discomfort. Carol accommodated his feelings, desperately lonely as she is. This might be our first glimpse of her capacity for pro-social behaviour beyond her love of Helen?
I was bit bummed out that the celebrity cameo was John Cena and not a 90s lesbian icon like Tracy Chapman or Melissa Etheridge or even Jennifer Beals. (I’d love a flashback of Helen and Carol talking about the L Word.) Do we really think the celebrity most likely to inspire trust in Carol is John Cena?
Oh for sure I don’t think Diabaté’s actions should be celebrated, just that he’s not as delusional as some of the other individuals. I had forgotten how quickly he wanted to get rid of her, though, and that’s a good point.
I did think that John Cena was a hilarious and perfect choice for the celebrity to record the HDP message, specifically because he’s not the person to get through to Carol in particular. He’s just the celebrity who a lot of non-Carol people in the US would pick to get a message from, i.e. who an AI would pick for the message because it’s filling in the most common answer, not the right answer for Carol.
yes 100% to your John Cena thoughts — the hive picked it because of a majority default rather than personalizing for Carol. AI often gives the illusion of personalization while just defaulting to the most common denominator or “obvious” choice. I think a good example is how absolutely shitty Spotify’s algorithm is for recommending new music to users. it is not a good tool for actually introducing you to music that is new to you and instead pushes things you already like or things it assumes you like based on majority behavior of others. it sucks! it can never compare to the random kid making you a mixtape to intro you to new music in high school lol. yet another reason the platform sucks. and also it reminds me of the hive’s analysis of Carol’s books, which also leaned into majority opinion.
I think Diabate’s reaction to Carol staying had less to do with her and more to do with the joined are intentionally shunning her and will not come back to him until she leaves. He wants his fantasy and cannot have it while she is around.
Could you change the language of killed themselves to died by suicide going forward please? Thanks
It seems obvious to me (which almost always means I’m wrong) that the 12 are going to be picked off by the Hive one by one through the course of the series. I wonder if the early focus on Diabate means he’s going to be the first to go?
The cannibalism raises all sorts of ethical questions. Are they *really* only consuming the natural deaths and not at all contributing to the death rate? What exactly constitutes natural causes because eating animals (humans and otherwise) that die of old age isn’t the healthiest food supply you can get. What of farming and agriculture? If they can’t kill anything, the animal supply will create massive problems quite quickly. 200 million chickens and 900K cows are killed every day for food. So 200 million/900K a day not killed, and the subsequent breeding that they then create – well the manure alone would create havoc for the environment. I suspect the food supply will have twists and turns as the series progresses.
Carol truly realized how completely alone she was this episode. When she realized that the other 12 don’t want anything to do with her, it hit her that she is 100% alone.
Overrun chicken coops and cattle farms were not on my Pluribus bingo card, ha ha!
I think the powder they end up with from all of the protein sources is likely sterile, and will be a source of plain carbs, proteins, and possibly fats just like the goo in the breakfast cereal boxes in 2001 – no flavour and not the nicest texture, but enough nutrients to sustain human life.
The name Diabaté is West African (mainly Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Guinea) and is usually interpreted as ‘the irresistible’. I think his character is Vince Gilligan hilariously lampooning Carol’s insufferably-blinkered take on an amazing opportunity only 12 other people have had in the history of mankind. Yes, he may be gross (I’m of the ‘don’t knock it until you try it’ opinion), but she’s rejecting everything about the new situation while he’s embracing it with open arms. She was talking about a classic book and the Hive said “We’ll get you the original transcript” or similar, which she rejected or ignored. How unbearably and annoyingly obtuse of her.