'Pluribus' Questions Answered: Vince Gilligan and Cast Discuss Carol's Turnabout, Seizing Babies and More

Created by Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), Apple TV's Pluribus stars Rhea Seehorn as Carol Sturka, a romantasy novelist who upon returning home from a book tour is harrowed to witness the Joining — an otherworldly event that psychically "glues" nearly the entire global population into one people-pleasing hive mind.

Carol is one of 12 people, worldwide, not affected by this "virus." Having watched her wife Helen (Miriam Shor) tragically die during the Joining, Carol sets out to unite the others like her in a mission to fix the world. None of the five she meets up with in Bilbao, however, see a problem with a life populated by happy people.

The second episode ended with Carol ready to fly home to Albuquerque — and in doing so, leave her Joined "chaperone," Zosia (Agents of SHIELD's Karolina Wydra), in the "harem" of unaffected playboy Koumba Diabeté. But at the last minute, Carol darted off her airliner and onto the tarmac, to wave to a stop the Air Force One 747 Koumba uses as his personal jet.

I spoke with Gilligan, Seehorn and Wydra ahead of Pluribus' PaleyFest showcase in New York, where they fielded (best they could/would!) a few of my uniquely burning questions about the sci-fi series....

WAS 'PLURIBUS' ALMOST TITLED SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT?

Though the show that would be announced as Pluribus was as recently as this June referred to in circles as Wycaro 339, Gilligan made clear to me that that was just a shooting title comprised of the name of Carol's romantasy trilogy and a (random?) three-digit number. "That was never a title [to be used]." he affirmed. "Every project we do, we have an 'inside baseball' kind of show title that doesn't mean anything to anyone."

DID WE ALMOST SEE THAT NEWBORN BABY 'SEIZE' DURING THE JOINING?

When Carol rushed Helen to the hospital only to find non-responsive doctors and patients going through the Joining, she at one point saves a baby in a car seat from toppling to the floor. Watching the scene for the first time, you had to wonder if we'd glimpse the newborn itself seizing. Luckily, we were spared that visual (though Carol apparently wasn't). "I gave about two seconds of thought to [showing] it, and then I thought, 'How the hell are we gonna do that?'" says Gilligan, who wrote and directed the first two episodes. "We either digitally animate the baby, or create a silicone rubber puppet" at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, and with potentially questionable results. "And then it dawned on me, what a genius filmmaker Roman Polanski is," Gilligan said. "With [the 1968 horror classic] Rosemary's Baby, you never see the baby, you just see the back of the crib. I figured, 'That's a great, famous visual trope from an excellent movie, so let's pay homage to that."

WHY DIDN'T CAROL MENTION HER DEAD WIFE TO THE OTHER 'SURVIVORS'?

Upon demanding to be united with the (English-speaking) others like her who somehow proved "immune" to the Joining, Carol not only didn't find allies equally anxious to "fix" the world, she actually caught flack for unwittingly killing Laxmi's (Menik Gooneratne) grandfather with a recent outburst. Carol could have told Laxmi that she, too, had suffered loss, when her wife died during the Joining, but didn't. Seehorn during the PaleyFest Q&A said that she herself had asked Gilligan on the set why Carol didn't share that personal detail, and was told that it was too fresh and private a pain for her character to disclose.

DO THE UNAFFECTED HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON?

Other than thus far proving "immune" to the psychic glue...? Is there something these 12 people unknowingly share that makes them resistant to this RNA "virus"? Gilligan candidly told me, "I'm not sure we've figured out ourselves what it is that makes them special. A lot of people have asked me, 'What is the science behind them being special and I'm like, 'How the hell do I know? I'm not a scientist!'" The series creator reiterated, "To me, I'm not sure it's that important – but maybe it is. If enough people say it's important, maybe we'll try to address it."

HEY, WOULDN'T THE APPLE AIRPODS' LIVE TRANSLATION FEATURE COME IN REALLY HANDY HERE? (ON THIS APPLE TV SHOW?)

The new AirPods' ability to translate spoken words in real time could help Carol communicate with the half-dozen "survivors" who don't speak English at all – if only Gilligan had been given a heads-up on said tech, which was first announced by Apple two months ago. "Oh my gosh, seriously?" he remarked when apprised of the Apple product's Live Translation feature. The writer in him then shrugged, "It's fun for us when things are inconvenient for our heroes. You don't want to make it too easy for them!" (Gilligan then made a point to note that the cell phone Carol took from the seizing bartender to unsuccessfully hail the ABQ PB was not an iPhone but "some off brand.")

IS MR. DIABETÉ, LIKE, HAVING SEX WITH THE WHOLE WORLD?

Given the "hive mind" shared by Zosia (Karolina Wydra) and the other Joined humans, isn't Samba Schutte's devil-may-care, Air Force One-commandeering hedonist hooking up with billions of people worldwide — relatives included! — when he hooks up with just one pretty lady? "Oh, yeah," Gilligan confirms. "But he's a very relaxed, chill individual, so he's willing to turn a blind eye to that."

WHY DID CAROL CHANGE HER MIND AND STOP THE PLANE?

Seehorn told me that "a lot of things" played into Carol's last-second decision to pull Zosia off Koumba's plane. "Carol is, unlike Kim Wexler, a very impulsive person and a highly reactive person," she said, alluding to her acclaimed Better Call Saul role. "When I was examining her reaction to things, I needed to figure out the reason and understand how to play the objective as the actor, but at the same time allow for them being impulsive decisions that are not logic-based." At the end of the day, "it bothers her that she doesn't believe these women [on Koumba's plane] have agency, and she does not want to be at all party to sanctioning that," Seehorn added. "She also is going home, she just found out that absolutely no one is going to help her, and she has no other way of getting information." Factoring in "the loneliness of losing everyone you've ever loved in addition to the love of your life, in addition to, 'What am I going to do?'... well at least [Zosia] kind of answered questions, so I guess I'll take the zombie I know!"

WILL WE LEARN WHO THE ACTUAL ZOSIA IS... ER, WAS?

When we first saw Zosia at the start of Episode 2, she was already among the Joined, helping others like her dispose of bodies in Tangiers. Will we and/or Carol eventually learn who the "real" Zosia was? Doctor, baker, candlestick maker? "I don't know...," portrayer Karolina Wydra hedged when I presented her with that Q. With a wink, she added: "I think it will be fun if people wait to find out!"