Welcome to Autostraddle’s Pluribus episode 7 recap! It contains spoilers for episode 7! You’ve been warned! Go watch the episode and then return to discuss with me in the comments.
Even before I knew this week’s episode of Pluribus was titled “The Gap”, my reaction to Manousos Oviedo hopping in his tiny car and driving away from home was “but girl, THE GAP!”
I’m talking, of course, about the Darién Gap, a notoriously dangerous roadless stretch of jungle between Panama and Colombia. It seemed a given Manousos intended to drive to Carol, but there is no drivable route from where he lives in Paraguay and Albuquerque, or anywhere north of Colombia for that matter. It is one of the most perilous migration routes in the world. More than 500,000 people trekked through those perils — summed up partially in this episode of Pluribus by a member of the hive for Manousos, including extreme heat, lack of marked trails, venomous creatures, spiked chunga palm trees — in 2024. As with many migration paths, perfect data is nearly impossible, but one report found that 253 migrants died or went missing in the gap from 2014 to 2021, according to Human Rights Watch. The real number is likely much higher than that. Drowning is the most significant cause of death, though illnesses and exposure were also common causes.
What I love about Pluribus is how the show lends itself to many interlocking readings. I know some folks have read my recaps and concluded I must think this show is expressly and exclusively about AI, but that is not the case at all. Unpacking the series through the lens of AI is just one of the many ways I’ve responded to and engaged with Pluribus. During “The Gap”, I naturally found myself thinking of the parallels between the hive and settler colonialism and the concept of assimilation, especially as its thrusted upon immigrant populations.
The hive can be seen as representing a very extreme form of assimilation, one in which all cultural differences are replaced with a homogenous monoculture. You know, that melting pot bullshit we were fed as kids in American schools, a metaphor that doesn’t celebrate difference but instead attempts to boil it down into sameness. Manousos’s journey is different from that of displaced and desperate people crossing the Darién Gap in search of asylum, opportunity, and survival in our harsh reality, but there are also parallels. He is attempting to escape circumstances beyond his control. He is attempting to survive. All the while, he’s being told he should do it a certain way, the “right” way. This is what asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants are told all the time in real life — to do it the “right” way, as if that is something that is easy and accessible for everyone. The hive presents a supposedly “easier” path for Manousos to get where he wants to go, but it comes with all sorts of strings attached. The hive functions a lot like bureaucracy; there are strict codes for how they operate. Yes, the Darién Gap is a nightmare to navigate, but let’s not pretend our immigration system is any easier.
I am struck by the stark contrast between Manousos’ and Carol’s behaviors in this episode. It is no coincidence that we see Carol behaving at her most self-indulgent while we also watch Manousos suffer the horrors of navigating this world alone. Manousos has accomplished what Carol failed to do; he is actually self-sufficient without any help from the hive to survive. Carol has been living in a sci-fi version of the end of the world, still able to call up anything she wants any time. Manousos is living in an extremely realist version of the end of the world. He has to use real survival skills. When faced with needing to feed herself, Carol went to Sprouts, saw it empty, and requested it be filled. Manousos ate dog food. The hive keeps trying to help him in his journey, and he keeps turning them away, relying on maps, stolen gasoline, and cassette tapes teaching him English to aid him in his journey to find Carol Sturka. As he travels the Darién Gap alone, he repeats a mantra to himself: My name is Manousos Oviedo. I am not one of them. I wish to save the world.
Carol, meanwhile, calls up the hive to deliver her an ice cold fruit punch Gatorade. When it’s delivered room temp, she leaves a message to complain. She might as well change her name to Karen Sturka in this episode. I know, I know. She has every reason to feel defeated. The hive has cut off all her contact with the beings who resemble humans; the actual humans that ARE left want nothing to do with her. And she isn’t actually yelling at real customer service people but rather alien virus-infected humans who have destroyed the world as she knows it. But still, there’s something off-putting about Carol’s behaviors in the episode. Her Gatorade request evokes the sort of instant gratification and emphasis on convenience that capitalism and mass consumerism indoctrinates us with. The type of “convenience” offered by Amazon, by fast fashion companies, by Google, AI, and big tech — it almost always comes at a cost, whether it be environmental, humanitarian, or, usually, both. Amazon made it so people could push a button and get pretty much whatever they want, in two days or less. This way of moving through life has caused irreparable damage to society and to the ways we move through the world.
Carol sees herself as inherently different than Diabaté, and yes, she isn’t using the hive for sex. But while she might not be enacting elaborate fantasies (is she not though? putting a Georgia O’Keefe original in her home and setting off fireworks in her cul-de-sac doesn’t exactly have James Bond glitz to it, but she is doing her own version of Living Large), she is undeniably relying on the convenience of the hive in a way that mimics hyper-consumerism in her previous life. Carol lived a very comfortable life in the beforetimes. Look at her house, look at the meals she was used to for special occasions, look at her golf drive. She has said she wants to save the world, too, but when Manousos says it on repeat, I really really believe it. Carol hasn’t been so willing to give up certain comforts, and she’s having a hard time untethering her previous life from her new reality.
Watching the episode, you get the impression Manousos knows a bit more about what it means to fight to survive than Carol does. How Manousos and Carol each talk about the hive diverges in ways that reflect different worldviews and lived experiences, too. When Carol speaks of the hive, she is focused more on their lack of originality, their lack of individualism. This is reflected in the types of questions she asked Jeff Hiller about her own art. She wants to be able to think for herself. And while that is all indeed a good position to have in the face of intense pressures to assimilate, as commenter Olivia pointed out in last week’s comment section, it’s interesting to consider how this show might also offer a critique of how the Western world glorifies and emphasizes individualism. I do think Carol is right to question the hive’s homogeneity; I also still think it was ironic then that she pompously dismissed the other immune survivors for not immediately adopting her worldview during their first meeting. Carol sees the hive as a threat to her individuality. Manousos, on the other hand, articulates explicitly in this episode that his issue with the hive is that they are, essentially, violent settlers.
“Nada en este planeta es ustedes,” he says. “Nada. No pueden darme nada, porque todo que ustedes tienen es robado. Ustedes no pertenecen aca.”
Nothing on this planet is yours. Nothing. You can’t give me anything because everything you have is stolen. You do not belong here.
Manousos isn’t worried so much about individuality as he is about the threat of invasion. He is steadfast in his resistance. At so many points, he could cave and allow the hive to help him, but he does not, risking his life in the process. When he finally does collapse in the gap, it’s implied the hive finally does swoop in to help, but they do so without his permission. I’m so convinced Manousos would have readily died in his quest to save the world, willing to risk his life for it. I do not see that same conviction in Carol, who yes, tried to collect what she knows about the hive and also to find a scientist to help her, but still does rely on the hive to not only allow her to live comfortably but also in somewhat of a state of luxury, swapping her cruiser for a Rolls Royce and golfing her way through the apocalypse.
Whether looking at the hive as big tech, AI, capitalism, the ruling class, the far right, settler colonialism, one thing is for certain — it is an overwhelming force meant to make anyone else feel powerless and inconsequential in the face of it. It is something to be resisted. It is something to be fought. Manousos understands this well. Carol does, too, in her own way.
Saving the world will require discomfort, will require risk. I’m not even talking about Pluribus anymore. I’m talking about our reality. Resistance is not an easy road. And the journey Manousos is on is not the stuff of science-fiction but rather a real route many must take in the name of survival. The end of the world rattles Carol, but there are people who experience apocalyptic stakes all the time, who are in many ways more ready for the end of the world. Manousos and Carol are wildly different, and I cannot wait to see what happens when they eventually, hopefully, are able to team up. Because neither of them can do this alone.
More things to discuss in the comments:
- Transcribed the Spanish by ear but my Spanish is a tad rusty these days, so please correct me if I got it wrong. On that note, off topic, but what language learning tools are we using that do not rely on AI at all because fuck Duolingo? I am open to recs!
- I haven’t had a chance to make it the focus of one of these recaps yet, but I AM very interested in the ways the natural world is responding to this new reality. It’s like an even more extreme version of the whole “nature is healing” meme from Covid lockdown, because in this case, the virus has also made it so that animals and plants cannot be harmed by the “human” population.
- I love that Manousos leaves cash on every car he takes gasoline from. Both he and Carol gesture toward the way things used to be, grasping at it for comfort, in their own ways.
- Yes, Rhea Seehorn for all the awards, but also? Carlos-Manuel Vesga for all the awards! Both give tremendous performances throughout this episode, especially considering they mostly don’t have anyone to play off of!
- I love Carol singing to herself throughout the episode.
- I know I’m quite critical of Carol, but I do understand and often empathize with her, too. Her overwhelming relief from seeing Zosia at episode’s end almost made me cry thinking of the isolation of lockdown and the first time I was able to hug my friends.
- ZOSIA BACK!!!!!!!!
- Much like Carol, I have a perfect memory for every special meal I’ve ever eaten.
- I forgot to write about my FAVORITE moment last episode, which was Diabaté mimicking and then enjoying Carol’s approach to a breakfast sandwich. Thank you to the person who brought it up in the comments anyway! And if anyone else would like to discuss it here, we def can! Always feel free to comment on previous episodes if you have something new you’ve thought of!
Carol is acting the way she is because of two things:
1) they literally took her survival methods away from her. She’d gladly shop, trade, and do her own handiwork but they took all those social resources away. Just because she’s not a manual labor type of person doesn’t mean she’s a dependent because…
2) Carol is a *creative* person. She’s the type to add originality and creativity and critical thinking to problem-solving. Manousos is a *manual* person. He’s the type to pitch in and physically do work that needs doing. They *need* each other equally. Manousos seems the more heroic because of the particular thing he’s doing right now but before he realized Carol existed, he wasn’t doing anything remotely heroic; he was being a fool. You could easily argue he was a fool to brave The Gap the way he did (no first aid kit? no extra boots? No protection for his body?) He was willing to starve to death rather than question anyone. In that time, Carol learned a lot of valuable information.
I have to appreciate Manousos work ethic and holding on to his values. I rewound the scene he tells the Hive off multiple times because hell yeah! That’s the kind of fight humanity needs.
Can’t wait to see how Manousos will interact with a Carol who has welcomed back the Hive to her life. Incredible final scene.
When Zosia was initially shown after her heart attack I held out a bit of hope she was free from the Hive since she had a tube down her throat. Mark that one off the theory list.
A fact only I care about: Tarzan Boy is the song Carol hears playing in the gas station. It is also the entrance music for All Elite Wrestler “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry (Luke Perry’s son, RIP). I swear I went from never hearing the song to having it pop up in the most random places.