mini long rant on pluribus ep2
okay, so I just started Pluribus.
Loved the first ep, went in knowing next to nothing. I was primarily motivated by half glancing at a tumblr post someone made describing it as being seduced by the genderbend of your OC whose wellbeing depends on how well you regulate your anger or something along those lines.
it was fucking catnip to me.
the first ep was amazing. loved the premise. saw Vince Gilligan was the show runner and I fckn screamed in joy.
also, did anyone else get the guy who didn't like musicals vibe from the first ep? should starkid call some lawyers lmao?
the second episode… well, i just finished watching it and now I am full of rage.
Pluribus ep 2 brought together 5 amazing people from different walks of life, mostly the global south, and fucking dropped the ball on having Carol confront her individualistic US-centric view on things.
Or even providing an introspection into different philosophies re: this world wide event.
I give her character grace because she is grieving.
I don't hate her, I think she's an interesting enough character and a decent pov for us to understand this new reality.
also, her character is not meant to be the moral paragon of justice and empathy.
I get it.
she is messy, i am too, we all are. that's the humanity of it (and perhaps the thesis of Pluribus)
And I might be premature in my judgement of the show's merits but i have no patience for the treatment of the five PoCs from collectivist cultures.
It was a bit annoying to see Lakshmi be the caricature of a tiger mom/overbearing brown woman. For Koumba to be a hypersexualised black man. Otgonbayar and Xiu Mei weren't given much to do in this ep so withholding judgement on that.
The Other Five could be replaced by generic families from Albuquerque and this ep still wouldn't change much.
again, not a dig on representation, of course representation is important but equally or even more so important is how it is done. it makes sense to have people from all over the world be present in these narratives and that their cultures, their beliefs provide different povs on this shared trauma/cataclysmic world event.
first, lakshmi. god, i was so excited to see an indian woman amongst the lineup. we're one of the most densely populated countries yet somehow always absent from media around world-level events. her cute little family was also intriguing despite her not seemingly caring much about her mum & husband?
Lakshmi's protests to carol's frankly inappropriate comments about her child fell short for me. it was lukewarm protests and snarky asides, when it could have been a great foil for someone who still has a family who she cares about vs someone who lost (presumably) their only family.
Lakshmi's character could have brought up her faith to challenge carol's individualistic and nihilist argument. there is a lot to draw from hinduism on that front. and instead there was... nothing. just some mean girl behaviour.
When Koumba stepped out of the air force one, i was overjoyed. i thought it would be a sharp critique on colonisation, imperialism, something. instead it was an insofar toothless character choice made even more tasteless by the next shot of the women lined up like a pageant. or a harem.
(not the best optics in this political climate)
I love his character's hedonism as a choice. it's a great choice. but honestly, having your white woman protagonist lecture the black man on his sexuality was in poor fucking taste to say the least. especially when she didn't even bother to learn Zosia's name.
The consent issues this premise brings up is seriously fascinating. I just would have preferred if it didn't occur at the expense of the black man and having the white protagonist degrading him.
And he had nothing of substance to say in return. He wasn't afforded a proper defense.
If this were to be a comment on objectification of women, on mistreatment of sex bots in the future, on exploitation of consent loopholes by men with power - well, it was a very white feminist take on it without any thought to the intersection of identities and how using a black man to convey this message comes across when black men bodies & sexuality historically have been responded to with violence, negative stereotyping, hypersexualisation, and still persists as a huuuuge problem
watch the fd signifier video essay pls i'm not qualified by identity experience or education to speak on it/ for them
Kusimayu and Carol's conversation started to go to interesting places which might have veered towards a deeper exploration of personhood and community.
(love Carol being called out for her lack of trying to understand / educate herself on what it is she insists on fighting)
I understand that we're in the early stages where Pluribus is still trying to sell us on the plot & the protagonist so they wouldn't do much to over complicate things or show her in too negative a light.
She has to be someone we can supplant ourselves into (and fuck, i could go on about the various themes in this goddamn show, amazing)
Still having your white character going around bashing everyone's coping mechanisms while not being challenged on hers kinda makes it seem like she's right and we're meant to also hold the same beliefs about the other characters' behaviour.
Carol's white saviour-ness was never challenged and it pissed me tf off.
Carol's hypocrisy in being constantly wary of the control and surveillance of the hive mind/collective while using them for her benefit yet at the same time infantalising them when it suits her was grating.
The last part of the ep was especially infuriating.
Carol loses control because she cannot walk away and has to have the last word. The entitlement of it all.
Her not being able to immediately control her rage? 100/10 exactly how that fckn happens when you've got an anger problem esp when it is fucking justified!
this rant is enough indication about my relationship w anger lmao
but the only consequence to this is her pity party & tears.
she immediately lets go of that though to very grossly accuse a black man because she (possibly) feels possessive over "pirate lady" who she doesn't even know the name of.
her dehumanisation of Zosia (and the collective tbh) is okay because they're """the enemy""" yet she is righteous enough about their ability to consent.
fuck this pisses me off
again, the consent issues brought up in that conversation are plenty. and whether or not the collective can consent is debatable.
the episode ending with her stopping Koumba's plane was so reminiscent of the rom-com trope of you don't know what you have until you lose it with the male character chasing down the woman to stop her from getting on a plane.
I am kinda neutral about this despite uncharitable readings indicating Carol also treating Zoshia as something to posses...
what I didn't like was the narrative framing this ep as poor Carol vs the rest of the world, and why is no one listening to her very valid fears, and they just want to bury their heads in the sand
Some counter arguments:
the Other Five owe anything to this random woman who brought them all for a meeting and expected everyone to just follow along with her without taking a moment to talk to them. they don't have to explain their beliefs / their perspectives because she hasn't earned them yet
Counter counter argument: the showrunners owe their audience (particularly american audience cause this show is on fckn Apple TV) some pushback on their beliefs (cause Carol is the audience's stand-in , or at least she's supposed to be). esp in this political climate. yikes.
the show will go there, it just doesn't want to scare off its general audience in the second show. we are very locked in to Carol's perspective rn since this is the slow get to know the protagonist, the world, the stakes part of the story. (Cowardly but understandable)
the social commentary (beyond the main themes of the show) is subtext, particularly the juxtaposition of Carol and the Other Five
Counter counter argument: If this was the case, it was toooooo fckn subtle & needs to be spelled out more.
I'm being an impatient whiny person whose main issue is that vince gilligan didn't write his show the way I would have wanted
Counter counter argument: doesn't invalidate any of the points I raised. Plus, if Vince Gilligan (& team) never intend on making such critiques / challenging the glaring white american - ness of it all, then that would be a more lacklusture show.
just another one in the line of apple tv shows with shiny premises that could have been all the more better if they said something more scathing about the world we live in (looking at you Severance).
The trajectory of the show that I can predict is pretty much going to be how this perceived Utopia would slowly fall apart, the cracks appearing on the surface and while she would go thorugh some chracter development and life lessons, she would to some extent be in the right about the resistance vs assimilation argument.
fuck, i sound like i am all for assimilation - yikes. that is not the intent here, nor what i believe. I think the resistance would be a very important aspect of the story. I don't like the idea of the collective hive mind no matter how euphoric/convenient in the moment.
I am all for the explorations of the themes that a premise such as this would bring
I do have faith in Gilligan as showrunner to give us something meaty to sink our teeth into.
maybe this is a commentary on tech/AI, maybe it is commentary on individualism vs collectivism, maybe it's about resistance, maybe it's a meta commentary on the creative process/art, possibly it's all of the above.
I know once i continue watching i might enjoy it.
despite all that, and despite knowing better, I would still hold out hope that the rebuttals I was making in my head to Carol are something Pluribus might bring in at a later date. If not, then this is yet another show with a lot more potential than the narrow imaginings of successful privileged showrunners.
tl;dr Pluribus Episode 2 almost went in more interesting directions (i.e. the potential of having the non-white non-US characters challenge our protagonists views) and the characterisation particularly of Lakshmi & Koumba did not sit well with me; they felt like reinforcing negative stereotypes. Felt like wasted potential for that episode.
Will keep at it only because I am hoping it will pleasantly surprise me and because the rest of the themes made me think a lot and I love that in a show. Plus the sapphics. I'm kinda already feral at the thought of carol x zosia uff
