Vince Gilligan’s ‘Pluribus’: Episodes 1-2 Breakdown

28:05Like, what does that mean? What does that look like? Like, what is the polar opposite of division? And is there anything even remotely human in that kind of universal agreement?

28:14Joanna Robinson:I love that. I think that, so that tribalism idea, the us versus them, right? We get that very clearly here, but except for, you know, the other old school people that that carol meets with are like well we have family members who are part of the others so for us it's different you're all alone you had one person she's dead you're a slightly unpleasant person carol is a slightly unpleasant person that's not great by design you know and so you had the one you're one person your one person is gone because because there were adoring masses who wanted to have connections with with carol and she sort of held them at bay right because she's just sort of like rolling her eyes at them so there was like people wanting to be in community with carol already her her readers um but she had her one person or one person's gone and so she's like oh it's an us versus them and then the other people are like it's it's the us is them that this is our these are our family members how sad for you that you don't have any family members here to show up with you like that's that's tough and that that goes back to the leftovers uh comp when you have a character like carrie coon's character nora whose entire family disappeared in the event that that instigates uh the leftovers versus other people lost some people but not everyone and so i think that's a that's a really interesting thing it puts you in a totally different kind of purgatory right like if you are that isolated within a world that is already so isolated but i like i love to kind of like thread these these ideas together joe like you bring up earlier you know the the sort of like gender swapping in the script of this initial or the idea of this initially being a male character and yes we've made carol a woman but she's like she also exercises a kind of like i dream of genie wish fulfillment professionally like anchoring this in like a romanticy author who is catering to the whims of these women who she like has a lot of contempt for yeah it's just like such a an interesting place to start this story and then have that character have to interrogate what it means to have her own wishes fulfilled and if she even wants any of that and if she wants to be a part of any of this with any of these quote-unquote people i love that i it's interesting um uh i was talking to someone who had watched the episodes before they came out and he was asking me like do you think the romantic contingent will be offended by the way in which they are sort of portrayed in this episode and i was like i don't know i i think carol carol is very clearly like i think helen is a voice of reason you're bringing pleasure and happiness to these people yes that's not a bad thing to do that line has to come back right like the like if you can make one person happy concept that it feels like it's spiritually going to be a part of this absolutely so i just think that like i don't i think carol is sort of being positioned as being in the wrong there though the comedy of the book signing it's very funny genuinely great the guy with his like rapier well actually like the schooners and all that sort of stuff was really really fun but that's how you get to have it both ways like you get the comedy and then you get back to the car and it's like oh like this woman is terrible in her treatment of like she's putting on this facade but like this is what she really thinks of them and then you have incredible empathy for even the guy with the rapier yeah um the to go back to your in these divided times point that's really interesting and i think that like um yeah what is the danger it goes back to this idea of tribalism which came up a lot in the last of us who who is the us inside of this and the fact that like when helen collapses carol's entire purpose from then on out is just sort of like, how do I help Helen?

32:02Joanna Robinson:Right? She's not, how do I help anyone in this bar? How do I, she's just sort of like, I need to get this one person help. And that is - Not only Joe, is she like, how do I help people in this bar? She's bowling over people in the bar. She's running over people in the waiting room with a stretcher. It's like, these people basically don't exist. She does say sorry, but yeah, it's - I guess. But yeah, that's sort of like, where do you circle the wagons? And also, like, can you be an us of one? Like, you can't, like, the way that episode two ends with her running after Zoja, someone who she resents and all these.

32:39Joanna Robinson:And yes, they have handpicked the person who's most likely to appeal to her. It's so gross. Physically. It's so gross. Like, all of that. But also just this idea of, like, she needs someone to talk to. not just for us viewers at home um but you know just in general like you she can't navigate this alone so she might as well have this person with her and it doesn't hurt that that person looks like her physical ideal of a person but you know yes or at least her physical idea of a space pirate there you go um also shots fired at brandon sanderson i gotta say because a ship that runs on colored sand is the premise of trust of the emerald sea and i was like oh i was like is that a Brando Sando direct hit.

33:22Did you sense a parallel? I was very curious if this was like a thing that people would have the call out for that I don't understand. When we do the book swap at the airport. Oh, Diana Gabaldon. Yes, the Diana Gabaldon text. Is that a reference I should know or could know?

33:37Joanna Robinson:Us Outlander. So, I mean, you know Outlander, right? Sure. Time traveling romance. I didn't even realize what the subtext of that might be. I mean, well, what I will say is that Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is like not the first romanticy, but like also she insists it's shelved in fiction. Diana Gable is a very interesting person. But anyway, that's like, gosh, what's the comp? What's the comp in like the sci-fi section? Like moving Michael Crichton out of the way for your book or something like that. So yeah, that's a very dusty reference, Michael Crichton. But there we are. Okay. So back to the COVID idea, which was something that our pal Miles, sorry, wrote in his review on the ringer.com what a great website uh isolated locked in your house nobody's around um does any of that strike you as specifically covet or specifically interesting to you a little bit i think the part that struck me as covet is the same part that you know you know i want to talk about like where does the money show up in this show and for me it is the empty space it is like Like we cleared this area the fuck out.

34:46And we like not just are like descending on a set to shoot there. But it's like it has that 28 days later kind of feel of like where are the people? And then they're all in their houses coming out in unison in a way that is like terrifying. Again, another thing that's kind of in the ether and in the air with this show is like you get a lot like Stepford wives. And some of that is because it is suburban. and some of it is like the killing with like kindness and compliance for like like very suburban kind of conformity that is happening with this group but ultimately for me like that's where it felt most coveted was just like looking out on a street that you're used to seeing full of life and people and there's just nothing there because it's been meticulously scrubbed clean by all of these people who are picking up the bodies and moving the cars and putting out the fires like they're all perfectly good little worker bees but the result of that is something that doesn't much resemble normal human life anymore.

35:37Joanna Robinson:Where do you think they sleep? And do you think they sleep? No, they don't. They don't sleep. They just keep working. They like Donald Gleeson style or just like eyes open in a closet somewhere, you know? Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

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38:21Joanna Robinson:this is something that we're going to check in with every week um i decided and rob agreed which is that this show has a 15 million dollar budget per episode which is not as big as like thrones or something like that but no but it's a lot it's massive yes um and so the question we want to ask ourselves every week and and i think we can do both episodes here pick your moment like what is the moment where you looked at this and you said is it is it the empty streets this this costs 15 million dollars that's maybe it was maybe it was trick or i'm sure this is like a trick of cinematography too but even seeing like the plane simultaneously pull up to five consecutive gates like i'm sure that is a trick or an effect of some kind but i'm like here's what i don't know this feels expensive to me planes was initially my answer uh and then i have another answer but listening to them talk about the podcast here's what i know the c-130 which is the plane that zoja flies from from tangier to albuquerque the big old cargo plane was a plane that they uh flew in from malaysia so that's a real plane that they got she uh carolina who plays zoja learned how to taxi the plane not fly but taxi it so that is actually her in the plane on the like tarmac of albuquerque airport like taxiing the plane um so that's one thing um i don't remember if they talked about the other planes all sort of landing together but as for air force one they built that um so they built not a whole plane i think when she's standing in front of the nose that's uh digital effect that looks like an effect for sure but in terms of and this is this is what we're talking about in terms of like seeing the money on the screen vince gilligan wanted they're all on the ground they see it sort of roll into frame he wanted that the production designer was talking about how usually when you do something like this you just have to build the door and we can go from there vince gilligan wanted the whole thing so they built this enormous metal it's a it's like a facade it's like a metal facade uh front that has set built into it so they can walk up the stairs onto set but like a metal facade this so it's like uh they're talking about the albuquerque winds because it's just like sheet metal like flat sheet metal because it's just one side of the plane, like rolling in the view and stuff like that.

40:37Joanna Robinson:So, but that's astounding. But here's what - Looks amazing. Here's what's even more astounding, Rob. This is where I think I would put the, I can tell this cost$15 million. They built that entire cul-de-sac from scratch. Wow. They built houses. I mean, I'm not saying those houses are full or furnished, but - They built houses, they poured concrete, they bought some land and they built houses on that land so that they could film there and do whatever they wanted there. I think Vince Gilligan is still scarred from the Breaking Bad house becoming this national monument that people - Throw pizzas on the roof of.

41:18Joanna Robinson:So he's like, we wanted to do whatever we wanted to do on the street there, so we just built this entire cul-de-sac. If you go rewatch those episodes and look at those houses, which are not tract housing, They're like intricate, interesting houses that they built from scratch on this street. Astonishing stuff. That's like some Deadwood level production happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good stuff. Anything else you want to talk about in a big picture way before we maybe go through some of the episode stuff? Maybe let's iron out just like the nuts and bolts of what exactly happened in terms of the invasion itself.

41:55I want to make sure we're all on the same page, namely me. And in particular, the one jump, right? Because we get the information that like this message has been transmitted through the cosmos. They're trying to figure out what it is. It's clearly like this formula for an RNA strand that is then tested on the rat among other animals, which I guess like fakes its own death. Goes rat playing possum to get out of the cage to then bite a person.

42:17Joanna Robinson:Is that what it does? I thought it was sort of like it's the sort of like everyone's frozen version of like the rat version of everyone's frozen. You think it was having a little mini rat seizure? Yeah, maybe. it's adorable and very sad see i thought it was doing it on purpose to get the only way it could spread would be to get out interesting and if it is that cunning you know that i have questions about you know the nature of this virus and what it is trying to do but clearly it needs to spread it needs to you know bite the nearest hand and then make out with somebody and then lick a donut yeah um and then clearly the plan is accelerated by we learn or are told like quote unquote the military has found out about the spread of some issue or this virus um one of my favorite bits of choreography are like the eight simultaneous jet stream jets flying overhead which i is this the mechanism that is that is leading everyone else who has not been licked or kissed all the people you know helen all the people in the restaurant like is that what is ultimately triggering them to uh to join the others i don't know but i had that question too like is that But is that actually just indicative of people are flying the plane in concert?

43:30Joanna Robinson:Like you don't see chemtrails like that because you don't usually have planes flying in formation like that outside of when the Blue Angels come to San Francisco. But like, so is it that or is there something? I mean, chemtrails is just sort of feeding right into the QAnon folks. So perhaps. But I think it's, I don't know, because, yeah, because it hits everyone at once. like everyone in that bar but my thought about the bar was sort of like was it in everyone's drink or something like that but it hits them all simultaneously so is it sort of sort of drop somehow from the chemtrails and if so like uh how what's the smooch version of that like you know is it like droplets like what do you how do you how do you do that it's gotta be dropped droplet the droplets per smooch are obviously off the charts but the droplets by aerodrop from chemtrail much more complicated okay uh licking the donut at gmail.com if you are working infectious diseases and you know how this might work um but yeah i i really love the opening we get this sort of like contact-esque sequence right with uh first we've got the astronomers and and i love the comedy of like it's two guys and then it's like a group of people and then it's like you know the guys all all the cars and trucks piling up outside as people come to check it out um alan mcleod who plays like the first guy uh who is a real that guy for me from you're the worst uh and then in the u.s army medical research institute of infectious diseases which is emrid i think is how you pronounce that acronym uh i don't know uh karen sony who plays like the second the guy who the other guy in the lab who like then sort of waltzes down the stairs to smooch the janitor another actor I always love to see.

45:18Joanna Robinson:And I just really loved his whimsical approach to assaulting and assimilating the janitor here. Well, see, that one is assaulted. But then, look, we already know that just as a species, we are vulnerable to, I mean, a species-level alien invasion and under-the-skin type of alien invasion. My main question was the speed at which we go from assaulting one janitor to now an entire squadron of military police have been smooched and brought in to swab and box? I think our smooch defenses just leave a lot to be desired. I think that's true. Or do you think they were offered donuts? That's a question.

45:58Joanna Robinson:Oh my God. You just walk around the donut. I mean, who among us, simply? I would be incredibly susceptible. Be careful. Look for glistening saliva on your donuts from now on. It's not always glaze sometimes it's infectious diseases um okay any part of part of what we should talk about here in terms of like this moving through various scientific disciplines into the outbreak is we have this clock that i'm actually a little confused by because it's counting down it feels like it counts down yes and then it counts back up right so which is fine right we go to like zero hour when everyone except for the 12 are infected the takeover right and then and then the after i'm just a little surprised there isn't like a bce like you know like before or after or like it's a different color or like something like that i was just like i guess now we're going back up but um i think the thing that confused me about that was that as zoja tells it like this wasn't the exact plan so it's not like you know the hive mind itself had the countdown clock of like we are all working to this time to take over it's like oh no we had to jump our process by eight different steps right uh which that is kind of confusing from a countdown perspective we've already talked about the book signing scene i don't think there's anything else anything you want to say about this sort of like so uh shout out bitter chrysalis by the way as like a name of a of an unpublished novel great you're very serious novel that you're terrified to actually publish when when helen says talking about Finnegan's Wake.

47:33Joanna Robinson:I tried it in grad school. It's probably great. Very good stuff. This is how I feel about most fiction, Jill. It's probably great, I'm sure. It's good for you. Rob, don't remind me of your one flaw. Okay. So we go through all of that and then the outbreak. So anything you want to say about this outbreak sequence? I mean, I think it's incredibly thrilling television. The moment in which Carol gets clear of the initial bar and is trying to get to the hospital and you have the overlook moment of seeing albuquerque and flames like a legit goosebump situation for me of just like that kind of zoom out i think plays perfectly there of like we know instinctively that it's obviously not just this bar like there's going to be wider implications but seeing just how fast everything has gone to shit and how isolated carol already clearly is you know you have that you have all of these slow moving extras in the background you have the jet streams even just like the very particular way that the cop car has flipped over in the middle of the road like almost on its side pinning someone underneath like there's just something so evocative about so many of the visuals in these first two episodes specifically in this takeover before the cleanup really comes in full force i also think it's really interesting we get a couple moments here in the escape that sort of flipped uh i think it's an ambulance it might be a cop car but anyways it's something like where when she first hears the siren and sees the light, she goes, oh, thank God.

48:57I think that's the cop car.

48:58Joanna Robinson:Rescue is here. And then it's like, oh, no, that's not going to help me. Oh, no, this Dr. Nguyen's not going to help me. In fact, he's going to try to smooch me. I mean, this ain't a pit, Joe. And a reference I now get. And then, fuck yeah, like God bless America when she turns on the TV and she thinks someone authoritative is there to help her. So like all these moments of like someone will come, someone official, the system is here to come help me and save me. And the escalating realization that none of those infrastructures are in place anymore. In fact, they all belong to the other side. So what do you have now?

49:40Joanna Robinson:Only their do no harm sort of ethos. They're very insistent. Yeah, exactly. so you know what if you have to tell people what we're doing i we promise is the antithesis of slavery like i don't know if you have to make that pitch it's not great tough it's really tough i do want to give a special shout out joe to whichever pod person over at c-span is updating the chyrons for the broadcast that your life is your own we are one cycle i have just laughed every time it changed uh we are not aliens was just like creme de la creme really really good and the actor playing that really good stuff so I want to note something else in her escape after the hospital we are the camera's on her and we're seeing her react to things but we don't get to see what she's reacting to until it's in her rear view we see it on the back which I thought was really cool and unusual and this is where sort of a a topic I thought we might do every week is like tiny detail you loved or something like that.

50:49Joanna Robinson:I'm going to go with the person being helped into a car was missing part of their leg. And then someone running up with the leg, uh, helpfully afterwards to like get in the car. Like she has missing part of her leg. And he's like, here's the leg. I have it is like pretty, pretty top tier visual gag in the background. The background stuff in this show is so good. And yeah, that's another area in which like a lot of TV, even high budget TV, there's just like there is nothing happening in the background of screens. It's so static. This feels like a world that is constantly shifting in, again, like a very alien sort of way that is alarming and is unusually helpful and compliant in a way that I think puts a twist on that whole formula.

51:33Like we have seen these movies. We have seen these stories. I don't know that I've seen one that's quite this helpful before that that is like so insistent on like please let us service your every need as you alluded to with the premise like it gives this basic idea a totally different kind of life.

51:48Joanna Robinson:I love that. Anything else you want to say about this sort of like escape to the house or and maybe anything else in episode one. Well, here's something I want to say. A little detail we get in the pre-pan is the breathalyzer on Carol's Range Rover. That is not a default thing you can get on a Range Rover. That is ignition interlock devices required after a DUI conviction, usually. so just a detail we get about carol we see this is something i i also want to start tracking which is alcohol consumption because like who among us sure would not wake up on the floor with a drink a dripping whiskey bottle uh in episode two or guzzle uh a lot of chablis or whatever it is that she is enjoying um that's another place where the the budget is evident they like actually went to basque country for that sequence for their outside i mean why not frankly they're like we saw succession do it we're just gonna globetrot if we want to um so enjoy your vacation vince gilligan you've earned it but um carol had a drinking problem before this and so that's just something to know about her character yes which is interesting i mean she has this drinking problem even separate from it she's incredibly self-absorbed like you know it's called out in this episode in a way that honestly i'm a little on her side about about like maybe you don't ask the drug dealer about the heroin pitch yes that part makes sense but she is not someone who has a lot of questions or interest in other people other than helen you know as you as you mentioned you're like her us has been ripped from us or ripped from has ripped from her and all that she's left with is everything that's bouncing around in her head this kind of contempt she has for the rest of the world and yet she's the one trying to save the world it's such a great juxtaposition for that character i love that i think that i think that's another thing that i'm really interested in in terms of like who carol is um something that they said on the official pod is she's the kind of person where even if she's enjoying something she has to make it negative right this is something helen calls her out for where it's like oh poor you how horrible be surrounded by adoring people who give you a lot of money you know she's like book tours are hell and she's like oh poor you so like you get to go on a book tour in 2025 ma 'am that's pretty good um so i think that like this this natural tendency she has to yuck her own yum like that pre-exists this idea of this psychology of like and you know vince gilgan has talked about this in interviews where he's like he is famously like one of the most genial people that has you know if you've ever heard him talk if you've ever talked to him or whatever it is he's just got this very aw shucks accent you know he is constantly giving credit away to other people like he's just like a very very genial guy and in interviews he's like actually i'm quite dark when i'm on my own you know so like this this uh something he said about this show is that he wanted he was tired of writing bad guys and in these divided times rob he wanted to write uh a good guy so he sees carol as a good guy and i think we all do maybe lakshmi lakshmi certainly doesn't but um but also a good guy that like reflects his inner darkness i guess i don't know that's interesting well i mean like a true author he's reflected by all of these aspects like the the gino part of him is zosha right like there there is a part of all of us that is like wanting to be helpful and compliant and some of us service that part and some of us quiet that part it just like depends on what you want to channel into but But that to me is kind of the fundamental tension of the show.

55:27I mean, we talked about this overarching, like, just a way of thinking that has now descended upon the earth and is surrounding Carol and these other like survivors, basically. And it's like that part of thinking is not human, but is also maybe in the best interest of humans. and one thing I also kept coming back to with this show is like the pitch from these like infected people is not like drastically different from the pitch that we ultimately get to in a movie like Arrival for example which is like we want to fundamentally alter something about the human experience in a way that in this moment you need to survive and maybe that is true for us maybe it's not true for us but we're just kind of pushed and pulled through them and Carol God knows is

56:11Joanna Robinson:pushed and pulled through them what do you make of what do you make of the increasing lore info that we get in in episode two that carol's negative outbursts have these global death toll ramifications i mean real like you're not allowed to be angry at me like again just like a very insidious form of control that i think is echoed in you know creating like bringing this woman who as you said is like the closest approximation of the love interest she almost created for her own novel there's all of these aspects in which even if the intentions of this virus are pure which who's to say the way in which it's going about it it's incredibly manipulative and incredibly manipulative in a way that it just like activates that like very allergic reaction in you as a human where you feel like your free will is being slowly stripped away like i'm not allowed to yell and yet another moment where i thought ray seorn was just incredible it's like her first explosive outburst carols at zosia in which she yells and then she as a character has that moment of like i don't know how these people will respond to this like she is waiting for like the pushback and then it's just a full-on collapse yeah um in a way that again like it's hard to watch these first two episodes and not feel like these characters even as they're being told we will give you anything you want we will take you anywhere you want we we will provide for your every need but you just feel the box being closed around them well and there's the the seduction of that frictionless life you can have anything you want but now you kind of belong to us or you're distracted you know talking about it's gonna take us some time to figure out how to fix you so there's there's a clock on that right where where carol's not something someone wants to here right you know um and you know these other people are distracted by we could go in we can go to the guggenheim we can go you know we can go to vegas we can plow as many supermodels as we want like you know all this are like distracted shout out to the harem yeah distracted by these these pleasures that are provided to them by these uh this benevolent quote-unquote force that carol's the only one carol and it seems like perhaps one other um on the other side of the the phone call like is is committed to rejecting this uh which i think is interesting but the the person that she calls the one other english language speaker that she calls um he seems like he's like one more degree removed because he's not even like wanting to find common cause with the other survived unless he like doesn't believe thinks he's being lied to i don't know that's interesting to me that's an interesting little seed to plant you know how could you not in light of everything else that is happening not think you are being lied to in some way even if it's just by little bits of omission right like they don't want to tell carol that she killed i say she killed they killed millions of people through the specifics and logistics of their takeover and her not being allowed to raise her voice a single time i love that um i wanted to ask you about that because zoja all of them but like zojas are the most time we spend with someone who's like this there is this almost is there any sort of individualism left in the us is there something in zoja that's different from the chick from tgi fridays who's flying the plane you know what i mean like there is very good at all her jobs there is there is the we there is the we all have access to the same expertise we're all the best at everything that we do we all have the muscle memory of what it means to perform open heart surgery or whatever it is um but is zoja i think this is a question that the show wants to ask is zoja capable of like forming an attachment to carol like you know like some of her reactions there is the we care that you're okay carol sort of like blanket mantra but is there room for a character like zoja to have like an individual uh affinity for carol you know i mean that's something i'm interested to watch i mean can you have any choice at all if you are only working in service of humanity as a whole like i think the answer to that fundamentally like on a on a black and white level is no and it's it's why like Someone like Carol would push so strongly.

1:00:46And not only is it good that Carol has all of the flaws that she has as a human being, but also very fitting that she's an American who's pushing back against this idea. It's like we are the most resistant to any kind of communal responsibility. And so the fact that she would give up everything that makes her her just would never happen in a million years for a character like that. I think as far as will be been presented so far, the answer would suggest no. But because this is a TV show, I think maybe we'll see a little daylight there. And certainly, you know, I think if you are somebody like Kumba, for example, he sees something in Zoja.

1:01:21He sees many things in Zoja and that he would like to be in Zoja. But I don't know that he's entirely right about it.

1:01:28Joanna Robinson:I love that. Anything else you want to mention specifically in episode two that happens that felt particularly striking to you? I do have something, Joe. Yeah. And we've actually already gotten an email. So I'm going to raid the inbox for an email we got from Sarah flagging Chekhov's nuclear football. Oh, yes. Pops up on Air Force One. Very good. You know, anything that could change the fate of the world, you want to have that kind of heft to it. So I'm glad it has its moment. I'm glad we're introduced to it. But as we're talking about big global solutions, I kind of am with Sarah that I think this might come back into play.

1:01:59Joanna Robinson:Are you really excited that Kumba is the one who has control of it? He at minimum seems to know the plot of Air Force One in and out. you know so he's he's up on i would say current events but at least on pop culture some films um all right anything else you want to uh mention we have a couple other sort of like categories you want to get to i mean just one really important thing joe on hands and knees he scrubbed his sinewy forearm stretched taut as he washed away all trace of the day's fight with a languid nod lucasia bade him to follow her to her cabin little did this callow deckhand know that serving it as captain's pleasure might take on this sweet meaning that's it that's all i got for you that's one for the listeners thank you rob all right um let's talk about most sort of gilligan versus so so vince gilligan directed the first two episodes he's not directing every episode this season so i wanted to call it like the gilligan shot but famously if you were not watching breaking bad or battle cross all i'll let you know that like the cameras inside of those shows increasingly found unusual ways to shoot things up through the bottom of a glass table yes you know famously etc etc so what is the most sort of like gilligan verse-esque shot in these first two episodes i'm torn between two so i'm gonna i'm gonna try to steal an extra one in here the shot of carol returning to the bar seeing the glass like the glasses of beer on the waitress's tray shaking yeah that perspective shot i think is like absolutely gorgeous stuff it's so great in that moment as we're all trying to get our bearings together.

1:03:31Joanna Robinson:With the audio of the singer just breathing into the microphone. Very good. Grunting into the microphone. Everyone kind of struggling to stay upright. But it's also hard not to pick the camera attached to the crane as Carol drags a dude across the side of a building while trying to save him. Wonderful. Very good. Very good. Really wonderful. I love all that. I do think in terms of pandemic outbreak stuff, I think the first infected, the fact that she's like in soft focus behind her fellow scientist and she's at the sort of sink that's full of water so you hear like that you see her shaking you hear the splashing that's very good but that's not the one that is more gilligan estomy is episode two open not opens on after some of the zoja stuff we get tight in on the whiskey dripping slowly out of the neck of the whiskey bottle as we pan out and then we see carols on the floor uh and helen's also on the floor but like that that just like we're in so close and tight on the neck of the bottle and then we we build out from there it was just like very he loves an extreme close-up of an object he does he really does but but this show lends itself to it so well you know obviously like someone would create the show that serves their sensibilities but in terms of vince gilligan's like directorial style and visual flair the combination of the very precise choreography that's happening with all of these people working wordlessly in unison like the the zoja handoff that opens episode two you talked about it of you know truck to motorbike to plane to landing to getting in the shower as someone prepares your mate it's like all of that choreography i think is so in his bag and at the same time the fact that this is a world where at any moment something could be left teetering on an edge because somebody went into a seizure it's like that object whatever got left whatever fell over yeah it's just begging for these kinds of shots i i really agree with that i also in that in that um the shower waiting for zoja moment i found you know there's the opening of the of the makeup palette which is just like a beautiful i've never seen something like that but this like eyeshadow flower thing that's like incredible but someone is like curling extent the extensions were so insidious to me of like the attention to detail of like we need her hair to be longer in order to maximize appeal is just like well she's got to be ready for a romantic cover you know like if it can't flow in the wind is it even worth hot pirate lady gotta love it okay um the other i will mention the shot that that vince gillian himself mentioned which is the introduction of ray seahorn where we get he calls it a slider i confess i don't know exactly what that is and how it is different from a tracking shot but uh you slide across the crowd and you get the back of her head and he called it wanting to give her a movie star entrance and ray sehorn on the podcast was like but you don't see my face and he's like yeah that's how we meet indiana jones he's like that's a really cool thing to do he's like you just don't like we wait to show them the face and he's like but you know that this is the person and then ray sehorn was talking about how what she loves about that shot is um if you did not watch better call saul ray sehorn incredible on that show her character kim wexler was like very famous for this ponytail the kim wexler ponytail and so the fact that you like open on the back of her head and it's like this ain't your kim wexler the ponytail is gone it's someone else here the ponytail days are well and truly over joe it's true all right another category uh we're gonna do is most great i'm changing the most grading smile that's what i've decided to uh call it specifically because i originally called it most punchable smile but my nomination is one of the kids and so i just feel a little like weird about saying punchable so i would say small male child uh helping with the the the key is he was so helpful my most grating smile do you have a nomination rob see i thought this was going to be unanimous i thought there was not going to be any conflict at all i think it has to be davis taffler the undersecretary of agricultural farm production and conservation like that that smile is plastered on in a way that demands to be punched.

1:07:35Joanna Robinson:I love him. I think they said that's a soap opera actor and it's perfect. It is. It's perfect. I love that. And then last but not least, and this is something that I, this category kind of reminds me of when we were asking people during severance, like, what would you sever? I think this is a good prompt for our listeners. So please recall, lickingthedonut.gmail.com is where you can reach us. Rob, what would you do or where would you go if the hive mind was at your Beck and call? Thank you for asking me this, Joe. You're welcome. It really sent me down a rabbit hole. Did it? Because I would say the premise of this show invites what, to me, I personally call, based on personal experience, the time crisis problem.

1:08:14Are you familiar with the arcade video game Time Crisis? No. It's a classic, like, you have a little plastic gun, you point it at the screen, you shoot the guys kind of game. I once went to a video arcade where it was like they had unlocked all the games, all the games are free. Yeah. And you would never believe how fast the life is drained out of that game when there are no stakes or consequences for dying. It's like you could sit and play this game for a solid 30 minutes pumping quarters into it. But as soon as you don't have to pump the quarters in, is any of it fun anymore? And I think there is part of that in a world like this where it's like if there's no cost, does it mean anything?

1:08:48If there's no scarcity, does it feel special at all?

1:08:51Joanna Robinson:And I think most importantly, if you are alone, does it register with you at all in any meaningful way? Yeah. Do you have an answer? I do have an answer. Sorry. That was a lot of preamble. No, no, no. I like the preamble a lot. And I think especially your point of if you don't have someone to share it with, does it hit? Yeah. So because I don't have those things, my brain went to two places. One, should I try to go somewhere that I wouldn't ordinarily be able to go? Everywhere kind of felt like a version of the same thing. Like, yeah, I could go to a nicer beach than the beaches I've been to, but they would be disconcertingly empty and I would be a little distraught at that.

1:09:26But so I came back to, you know, very tangible delights. I would have a series of, you know, the infected's finest chefs with all of the culinary knowledge on the planet. Prepare for me a series of meals that would draw not only from the best things I've ever eaten, as they try to do for Carol, but also the best things I've never tasted. And I think this is this is kind of one of the problems with living in this world is like to the AI of it all. they are trying to algorithmically engineer the woman of your dreams and the meal that you wanted but it's like i also need to invite a little bit of like ingenuity in this like how do we shake up the formula to the point that i can be surprised by what they are doing here's my question so you're

1:10:05Joanna Robinson:like you know gather the the the world-class chefs but if everyone has the same information that's what i'm saying i don't like anyone can do it right absolutely you're assigned zoja could cook this meal for you okay zoja has a mastery of every cuisine across the world like you don't have to go very far okay um i knew your answer would be some sort of elaborate meal and i think i am who i am um i feel like in terms of i think you're right about like i don't necessarily want to go to an empty beach but like maybe i want to go to the top of everest okay like maybe that's where i want to go and just sort of like look at my works you might need to spare myself at the top of it and then call it a day i don't know just somewhere somewhere i could never get myself um but joe you could go there right now if you wanted how can i go to the top of everest you can climb i i don't know that i can but thank you so much for your faith in me you know can they like hella drop you to the top of everest is that a thing that can happen no i think you i don't think you can maybe if you're like elon musk you can but i think you have to at least start at some sort of base camp and like hike your ass up there and well so how are you getting there in this world well in this world i do get hella dropped privileges i am the elon musk um chilling thought uh or maybe yeah let's let's musk it up and go to space you know why not um See, I have no interest in space.

1:11:36Keep me out of there, please. Oh, absolutely not.

1:11:39Joanna Robinson:Okay. I want a view. I want a view that I would not otherwise be able to attain. I do like in the show, though, that we've already tied up the loose ends. Like we've already rooted out some of the theories of like, at least Zoja, you know, if we want to take her at her word, like they've already gotten to the people in the nuclear subs. They already got to the people at the International Space Station. It's like that's where they started their kind of slow encroachment into human life. And so the fact that those people are already off the board, I don't have any reason to go to space, I don't think.

1:12:06I'm not looking for anything out there.

1:12:07Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Don't want to hang out with the pod people in space. That's true. All right. So looking at the donut at gmail.com, if you have a better answer, bearing in mind that you have to do it alone and there's no earning it. There's no sweat equity placed into this. You're just given it. And so does it even, is it even enjoyable in Rob's arcade game? You know, I guess you could have the sweat equity if you could engineer it, right? Like maybe it's something where there's a long line to get the opportunity to do something difficult. Like Everest is a good example of like, I think there's like a lottery system or like a lot of hoops you have to jump through.

1:12:45So maybe you could cut the red tape in a way that is satisfying to then try to do the hard thing on your own.

1:12:50Joanna Robinson:So spend my time rather than like trying to fix this. i'm like oh i have some time before they pod person me yes i will train to climb from base camp to the peak of everest and i will cut the line of anyone else who pretty good because they're too busy doing whatever it is these pod people do uh don't look leasing themselves in a closet i don't know okay um but this is where it's tempting is like i would like to not have to like go to the dmv ever again for the rest of my life you know it's like now we're back in severed territory You're just trying to sever yourself from experience. Okay. So that is episodes one and two of Pluribus.

1:13:26Joanna Robinson:We'll be back every Friday, you know, God willing, the cranks don't rise to bring these episodes to you. We invite, it's not a, you know, there's a lot of answers. It's not like a classic theory show, but we invite your questions, your theories, your expert, I know how infectious diseases are transmitted, POVs, your desires of where you would go and what you would do and what meal you would consume etc etc um at licking the donut at gmail.com that's licking the donut at gmail.com just some of your best work thank you so much not since john ham's nipple rings um anything else rob before we go i think that's about it i mean if i could draw attention to one more thing i love from these episodes uh before we veer off the romanticy path uh which i i fear we may never return to again so if not now when the fact that her new book is the fourth book in the winds of wickero trilogy fucking great winds of winds of wickero is uh wickero sorry okay winds of wickero is pretty excellent um but somebody dangling that check to write the fourth book in the trilogy it's just wonderful um on the on the pluribus Reddit boards which were hopping last night someone made such a good George R.

1:14:45Joanna Robinson:R. Martin joke where they were like talking about something about George R. R. Martin and then someone replies George R. R. Martin will do anything other than complete Winds of Wiccaro so I thought that was really good those Jets vlogs aren't going to write themselves it's really true okay thank you to Donnie Beecham for working on this episode thank you to Justin Sales always also Christopher Ryan our pal has a chat with Vince Gilligan. I don't know if it's actually currently up on the watch feed or will be up on the watch feed. I believe so. It's currently up. Okay, great. And double the Vince Gilligan, Ben Lindbergh has an extensive interview on the Ringer TV YouTube channel in particular going through the plot hole or not hole of some of the deepest mysteries in Breaking Bad.

1:15:26So an incredible watch and listen.

1:15:30Joanna Robinson:Yeah, a tajally deep dive we didn't deserve in 2025. Thank you so much, Ben. All right. so we'll be back next week and we'll see you soon and stay safe and don't eat the licked donuts bye

1:15:54this episode is brought to you by Paramount Plus in the world of espionage truth is a moving target and every decision carries a dangerous consequence in the HZ season 2 Martian has a new mission as a double agent, twice the lies, twice the risk. The lines between ally and enemy blur like never before, and survival depends on trusting no one. Starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jody Turner-Smith, and my man, Richard Gere. Don't miss The Agency, season two, all episodes now streaming on Paramount+. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new.

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