I was floating around this idea in my head, I knew I wanted to tell a story about the last 24 hours of the simulated mission as part of the Army Ranger selection program. Then I had this horrific nightmare where I was being stalked in a forest with rain and lightning, and I just saw the foot of this giant metallic beast, and it was stalking me, and it had this laser that was sweeping over.
It's a simple but effective premise: Your hero dies. He awakens, only to relive his last day. He dies again. Over and over, this cycle happens until our hero has conquered the time-loop he's stuck in, having become stronger, faster, and wiser in the thousands of times that he's been resurrected. It's the video game conceit, as a thrilling alien invasion story.
For a task this difficult, you need someone whose pleasant blandness can sell the fact that billions of mind-melded Others are going to be slurping down their liquified neighbors and there's nothing the dozen or so conscious and unchanged people can do about it. You need someone whose energy is that of an enthusiastic golden retriever, whose aura is a turquoise blend of compassion and comprehensibility, and whose dimples are as pleasantly textured as warm focaccia.
It took no time at all for Pluribus to become an essential piece of Fall TV. After just four episodes, it's been crowned the buzziest show of the season, bringing back the sensation of watercooler television. Its weekly drops feel darn-near unmissable - and after the revelations and traumas unleashed in Episode 4, "Please, Carol," the next chapter of this alien invasion drama could be the most important thus far. It's certainly being positioned as such by Apple TV.
Sixty days ago The alien colonizers arrived on Earth, bringing guns, carriers, cannons - and the nanobot plague. The nanobots burrowed into our bodies through our spinal cords, roaming inside us, slowly eating us from the inside out. "These nanobots will torment you," the colonizers said, "until only one of you remains. Then they will stop." We understood - they wanted us to kill each other.
