“Is that paradise, or is it hell”: Vince Gilligan opens up about the opening of Pluribus finale episode

Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan's Pluribus (Image via Apple TV)

Vince Gilligan ended the Pluribus Season 1 with a nuclear finale in all senses of the word, and in true Gilligan fashion, he has left the audience with more questions than answers by the end.

The final episode's ending saw the global shift take a significant step forward as the Others, who had been attempting to turn the survivors into one of their own, finally delivered a special gas to Kusimayu in her Peruvian village. Happily, Kusimayu inhales the gas and becomes one with the Others. Meanwhile, Carol spent all the while playing house with Zusia, while the others had been trying to figure out how to turn the survivors into one of them, and they successfully managed to do so as well.

In a recent conversation with Variety, showrunner Vince Gilligan posed a question for the audience watching the Pluribus Season 1 finale: whether they think the Earth where everybody would turn into one of the Others was paradise or hell.

Keep reading to find out more.


Creator Vince Gilligan on the Pluribus Season 1 finale

Vince Gilligan's Pluribus has been a wild ride, to say the least. Especially so, because the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator refused to reveal what exactly the show was about, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions. From trying to understand if the "global epidemic" was bad or if the Others are right or wrong in their actions to deciding whether Carol should even continue resisting, the questions are endless.

Before the season finale of Pluribus, Carol had all but given up on her efforts to find answers about the virus. Owing to her discovery that the Others would need her explicit permission to take her stem cells and create a virus to have them integrate with her.

The start of the episode found the Others delivering a special gas to Kusimayu in her village, and as soon as she finds herself reintegrated with the Others, everyone who had been living as a family for so long walks away cold and unknown to each other in their hivemind state of bliss. In the recent conversation with Variety, creator Vince Gilligan asks the Pluribus audience to consider if such a situation would be paradise or hell for them:

"The perfect reaction to the show is for the viewer to decide for themself: Is this paradise or is this hell? You could watch, for instance, the way the Others walk away from that Peruvian village and say, “Oh my God, this is a nightmare. Suddenly everybody is cold to one another.” But if you look really closely, they’re not actually cold to each other. They’re just there. It’s like all the cells in my body — I’m not paying attention to each one, but they make up one whole organism. They are happy, I think. But then again, is that paradise, or is it hell?"

From the outside, watching an existing family dismember as soon as the survival has been turned into a part of the hivemind makes it a hell-like situation, but Villigan asks his viewers to look deeper. He reminds them that even though these people no longer exist individually or in individual groups, such as families, they're still happy. So, even if it's not a family anymore, is it paradise or hell if they're happy?

World Premiere Of Apple TV+'s "Pluribus" - Arrivals - Source: Getty
World Premiere Of Apple TV+'s "Pluribus" - Arrivals - Source: Getty

Even though Carol has been in a temporary peaceful arrangement with Zosia and the Others, the information she discovers from them is a cold shower for her, jerking her right back. The fact that they are trying to use her frozen eggs to turn them into stem cells and then into a virus to get her to reintegrate is a huge betrayal for her and eventually causes her to go nuclear on them.


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Edited by Sroban Ghosh