Plur1bus is Vince Gilligan’s latest show. He’s best known for realistic shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but he also used to work on the X Files. He returns to his sci-fi roots with this one, presenting a world in which everyone on earth except for a dozen people are part of a hive mind. The main character of the show is Carol, a romantasy author who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She’s the only person in America not part of the hive mind. The other main character is the hive mind itself. Although the hive mind is depicted by numerous actors, in effect, the show only has two main characters. We sometimes see other people who aren’t part of the hive mind, but they don’t appear regularly.

Many scenes feature Carol by herself and don’t have dialogue. It’s a slow-paced show. Not much happens for most of each episode, but the plot does advance enough to keep you watching. I actually like this about it. Many shows these days are too fast-paced. It’s nice to have a slow, meditative show like this to mix things up.

I’ve got to say the way the hive mind behaves doesn’t make sense. While it’s primary goal is to figure out why some people are immune and make everyone part of the hive mind, it also has to follow a set of rules for some reason. It’s not able to lie. It has to do whatever Carol asks it to do. (I wonder what it would do if Carol told it to lie?) Despite containing the sum total of all human knowledge and containing every psychologist in the world, the hive mind is completely clueless regarding human psychology. It has trouble interpreting sarcasm. It doesn’t know how to interact naturally with Carol even though it should.

In one episode, it crashes a drone into a streetlamp, despite containing all the knowledge of all the world’s drone pilots. It let all the animals out of all the zoos even though lions roaming the streets seems like a pretty bad idea to me. Did it also release all pets to fend for themselves? Rats are infected with the hive mind in the first episode, but in later episodes, animals don’t seem to be part of the hive mind.

It also breaks its own rules sometimes. In one episode, Carol told it not to bring up her partner Helen, but the hive mind forgot or something and mentioned Helen to her. The hive mind also has a major weakness. Anytime Carol yells at it, everyone on earth has a seizure for some reason. It’s probably best not to think about these things too much and just go with it.

In the show, the hive mind is unable to kill animals, making it a de facto vegetarian. This actually makes sense to me. I’ve heard that people who work in slaughterhouses tend to be vegetarians because you just can’t eat meat after witnessing how the sausage is made. Since the hive mind would contain the memories of all slaughterhouse workers, it makes sense for it to not want to eat meat, not to mention the environmental and health reasons for being vegetarian. (By the way, I’m not a vegetarian myself, although I do avoid eating meat most of the time.)

Once everyone suddenly becomes an expert in everything, distrust of experts would disappear. No one would deny vaccines work if they knew everything doctors know. No one would deny global warming if they knew everything all the climate experts know. Conspiracy theories wouldn’t be a thing anymore since everyone would know everything everyone else thinks. Crime and war would cease because that would just be you hurting yourself. Many jobs would be obsolete like lawyers, politicians, police, and anyone in the financial sector. Doctors would still be needed, but everyone would be a doctor. Scientific advancement would accelerate because everyone is now a scientist.

One of the characters who isn’t part of the hive mind has a harem of beautiful women, which makes me wonder about consent. I think hive minds in general are capable of giving consent, however the hive mind of Plur1bus has rules it has to follow, including doing whatever someone asks it to. So if the hive mind can’t say no to sex, it can’t really consent. On the other hand, the hive mind can’t lie even if telling the truth hurts your feelings, so if you asked, it would have to answer honestly. So I guess consent is possible. Would the hive mind be into every fetish imaginable because everybody is part of it, or would the majority of people’s opinions overrule the preferences of the minority?

I wonder if the hive mind has a religion. If the minds of everyone on earth were suddenly joined together, many people would realize their personal religious experiences that they think proves their religion true, happens in every other religion too. If everyone knew everything Biblical scholars know about the Bible (or any other holy book), belief in its divine status would erode. On the other hand, maybe combining everything everyone knows together would reveal some kind of divine pattern. Maybe a new religion would form that’s a combination of every other religion.

The world of Plur1bus is a paradise for everyone except Carol who wants everything to go back to the way it was before. For her, individuality is worth more than world peace, and I’ve got say, I’m on her side. What’s the point of being a hive mind? It doesn’t seem to have any goals other than joining with the last few holdouts. Once it accomplishes this goal, what will it do? Try to spread to other worlds? It’s on the path to a world of statis. Some might think of this as heaven, but to my mind, a world without change isn’t a world worth living in.

In order for people to be happy, we need social interaction, but a hive mind wouldn’t have that if everyone was part of it. Another necessary ingredient for happiness is having a purpose. Once everyone is part of the hive mind, it would no longer have a purpose to strive for. If the hive mind succeeds in joining with everybody, I don’t see how it could avoid being depressed all the time. However, if Carol succeeds in turning everything back to the way it was before, wouldn’t everyone want to go back to being a hive mind again? All of them would have the knowledge of how to do it and they all seem to like existing in that state. This show gives you a lot to think about.