Creator Vince Gilligan, the clever mind that brought us "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul," has blessed sci-fi lovers with "Pluribus," the captivating new 10-episode dramatic series. The quirky show just debuted on Apple TV on Nov. 7, 2025 and its myriad head-scratching mysteries are causing quite a pop culture stir.
In last week's two-episode premiere we were introduced to the happiness pandemic that's spread around the world and the harrowing story of the one grouchy woman left to save the planet from unbridled happiness. Now as episode three hits the service, questions abound on the true nature of this joyous plague and the deep space transmission that caused all these annoying pleasantries.
Starring Rhea Seehorn ("Better Call Saul") as a disgruntled romance novelist named Carol Sturka, "Pluribus" is satisfyingly surreal, funny, shocking, unsettling, nightmarish, and endlessly entrancing all at the same time, and we're here to sort out some of the more puzzling elements. Put on a happy face, have a Sandy Pony donut, and dive in!
Where did the alien transmission come from and who sent it?
Pluribus — The Signal | Scene | Apple TV - YouTube
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The easy answer is that the repeating "message" originated 600 light-years from Earth. Astronomers at the Very Large Array (VLA) of massive radio telescopes in New Mexico are the recipients of a coded signal that's determined to be a molecular "hello." This four-tone greeting is not a specific communication per-se, but the nucleotides of guanine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine, which represent the building blocks of RNA. Its exact point of origin, precisely what alien civilization sent it out, and why our planet was targeted remains unknown.
It's an opening scene straight out of director Robert Zemeckis' excellent 1997 sci-fi thriller, "Contact," where Jodie Foster's astrophysicist character Ellie Arroway is jolted out of a listening stupor by a potent signal from beyond. This startling message beamed out of the cosmos caused her to leap into her vintage convertible and zoom off toward the main office of the VLA compound in New Mexico to confirm the signal with colleagues.
Here that moment is captured in very much the same style as our VLA researcher races down the road towards an administrative shack where the discovery is shared. At first this voice from the heavens has seemingly sent a benign message but it’s quickly deciphered to be a DNA cocktail for Earthlings to investigate. Once the "recipe" is replicated in labs and escapes, all hell breaks loose as the alien mind virus spreads around the globe, shutting down people’s nervous systems then rebooting them as even-tempered, hive-minded drones. Carol is one of a mere handful of individuals who're somehow immune to the placid plague that brings all living souls into the collective for some mystery purpose, which will no doubt unfold as the series progresses deeper into its "Twilight Zone" strangeness.
How was the alien message transformed by scientists and spread?
Rhea Seehorn's Carol Sturka pleads for answers in "Pluribus" (Image credit: Apple TV)The decoded nucleotide "recipe" is synthesized in laboratories and transformed into DNA, then injected into rats for testing. When a caged rat infected with the virus bites one of the scientists, the firestorm of widespread infection begins, setting off the happiness pandemic that engulfs the entire planet within days via kissing, donut-licking, squadrons of chem-trail jets, and any other method for rapid dissemination.
As later described by the hive-mind via the United States Department of Agriculture Undersecretary through Carol's TV set, they simply want to help her come into the fold and explain that this virus isn't an extra-terrestrial invasion, but a "psychic glue capable of binding us all together" and that Earthlings are beneficiaries of this technology.
But this assimilation isn't without its shortcomings as 886 million souls died as a result of the planet-wide changeover, no doubt many aboard jet airliners and driving cars.
Why is Carol immune from the alien virus and are there others?
Carol meets some of the very few unaffected humans left on Earth. (Image credit: Apple TV)It's unclear at this point but Carol's resistance and immunity to the hive-mind pandemic could be rooted in her specific neurological makeup as a naturally unhappy, dissatisfied person, which gives her a certain mega-defense weapon against the epic wave of viral infections. But she's not the only one on Earth who is unaffected.
Carol discovers from the connected throngs that think as one entity that there are 11 other special individuals that share her ability to reject the virus. A meeting is set with a handful of these unaltered people whose names are Otgonbayar, Xiu Mei, Kusimayu, Laxmi, and Koumba Diabate.
All but one of the group she encounters are capable of understanding the dire implications of this odd affliction and how it's robbed human beings of their identity and individuality now that everyone is an expert at anything.
What happens to the infected when Carol becomes angry?
Karolina Wydra co-stars in Apple TV's "Pluribus." (Image credit: Apple TV)As Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols once sang, "Anger is an energy." Carol is most definitely connected to the hive-mind in a very negative way as each time she displays an outburst of harsh emotions it causes those who've experienced "The Joining" to go into instant seizures or die. In one instance, to the tune of 11 million people killed! This is a situation that the collective consciousness needs to remedy as soon as possible!
The ultimate goal of this peaceful alien pandemic has yet to unfold and as the third episode rolls out on Friday, Nov. 14, we're bound to be absorbing more details of how Carol plans to mobilize her abilities to combat this insidious attack on humanity, without risking countless more innocent lives caused by her unchecked uproar.
"Pluribus" season 1 is now streaming exclusively on Apple TV.