Pluribus

With Pluribus, the creator is king. Vince Gilligan has spent the last two decades turning Tuesday nights into mandatory appointments. After Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, a new Gilligan series doesn't arrive as a premiere — it arrives as an event. So when Pluribus finally dropped after years of secrecy and hype, the reaction was so intense that Apple TV+ crashed on launch night.

It's a wild set up: An alien wave absorbs most of humanity into a blissed-out hive mind known as the Others. Rhea Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, one of the few people left untouched. Her job - and this is the show's actual pitch - is to save the world from happiness.

It's exactly the kind of weird, ambitious television you'd hope Gilligan would make. The world has never been more peaceful, everyone is getting exactly what they want, and it's all totally unsettling. The Others smile too much. They're endlessly polite and willing to move heaven and earth to fulfill your every request.

Feel like living in a five-star villa on the Mediterranean? Go for it. Want to fly first class? Every seat's available. Food on demand? Comin' up, chief. Maybe you want a hand grenade? Or an atomic bomb? The Others will happily help with that too.

Everyone handles "paradise" differently. One survivor turns Las Vegas into the greatest bachelor party in human history. Another convinces herself her family hasn't actually been absorbed by aliens. Carol spends the season doing what any reasonable person would do: looking for the catch.

The deeper Carol digs, the more obsessed you become with understanding how this whole thing actually works. Every answer creates two new questions, and some of Carol's discoveries land with the kind of holy-shit reveal that reminds you exactly who's making this thing.

But if, somewhere around the middle of the season, a small voice starts creeping in: "Am I... bored?" We wouldn't blame you. Gilligan practically invented slow-burn television, and he's leaning into it here. A dialogue-less episode about a man trekking halfway across a continent is the sort of artistic swing critics love to describe as "brave." Whether it's entertaining is a separate conversation.

Pluribus is totally worth the watch. It's undeniably impressive. We're just not convinced it's the masterpiece some people have already declared it to be. Not yet.