Most of Pluribus episode eight is focused on Carol (Rhea Seehorn), our reluctant heroine. At the end of last week’s episode, “The Gap,” Carol pleaded for an end to her 40-day isolation period—an experience that saw her spiral from exhilarated to bereft. Soon after, she reunited with her “chaperone,” Zosia (Karolina Wydra). This week’s “Charm Offensive” shows us some new aspects of their relationship.
Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga), meanwhile, had his own rescue last week after being helicoptered away from certain death in the Panamanian jungle. His reaction upon waking up just makes us love this character even more.
He’s barely around for “Charm Offensive,” but Manousos makes an impact all the same. He awakens in a hospital bed, and though he’s still got oozing wounds from his injuries, he ignores all advice that he needs time to rest. Manousos is ready to get the hell away from the Others—violently, if need be—but he does have a strict moral code he has to adhere to: he wants to settle the bill.
“What do I owe?” he starts to ask before clarifying: “Not you—the real people who were here before.”
They oblige with an itemized receipt, but all he can do for now is sign an IOU declaring responsibility for the hefty bill he would have racked up in the before times—plus one ambulance, which he appropriates to continue his journey toward Carol in Albuquerque.
The bulk of “Charm Offensive,” however, shows us Carol and Zosia’s growing bond.
After some awkwardness, they start to find their stride. Carol rifles through her collection of board games and rejects each for various reasons. It’d be useless to attempt Bananagrams or chess against a hive mind containing linguists and grandmasters; Risk, meanwhile, is too thematically on-the-nose (“World domination… that’s hilarious,” Carol mutters). Finally, they settle on a card game Carol used to play with her cousins.
When Zosia asks if she’d like a cousin to visit, Carol declines. Though she’s growing attached to Zosia, she’s still hyper-aware that one Other is every Other, even if they don’t look the same.
However, that clarity begins to waver as “Charm Offensive” continues. Through her interest in Zosia, Carol becomes more curious about the Others and even spends the night amid the group that bunks down in side-by-side bedrolls at a local arena. The visual is not unlike disaster survivors taking shelter together—and while Carol might argue a disaster precipitated this living arrangement, the Others see it as another one of their efficiency measures.
As she softens her hardline stance against the Others, Carol tries to remind herself to be careful; lest we forget, as she scrawls on her whiteboard, they eat people. But it’s hard. She’s been so lonely, and suddenly there are people around again. Zosia is kind, attentive, smart (“It’s like playing cards with Google,” Carol wryly observes), and attractive. And she seems capable of evolving… maybe?
“Charm Offensive” gives us several probing conversations between the two women. Zosia admits the Others are still figuring out things about themselves, like how the hive mind really works and how they communicate. She tries to explain to Carol what it’s like getting a massage when you share a consciousness with the person who is giving you a massage, or what it’s like knowing at all times how many people across the world are being born and dying.
They also talk about the origin of the signal that brought the Joining to Earth. It’s from a planet so far away the Others will likely never meet its inhabitants. But they don’t need to: they know they love them. They love the gift they received from them. And, Zosia declares, “We have to share their gift with whoever else might be out there.”
Ok. Another item for Carol’s whiteboard: “Building giant antenna to send signal to space.” That also explains why the Others are so obsessed with conserving power and efficiency; they need to hoard it so they’ll have enough to beam out their interplanetary recruitment message.
But even with all these red flags flapping in her face, Carol allows herself to keep pursuing what’s starting to feel like a relationship with Zosia. Or it would be, were Zosia not the entire world contained in a single being. They play croquet. They visit Carol’s favorite diner and sit at the very table where she started writing her first romantasy book. It’s a warm, fuzzy moment—until she remembers the place burned down years ago. The Others have rebuilt it exactly, with every detail restored, including bringing back Carol’s favorite waitress.
It’s a creepy level of wanting to keep Carol happy. It smacks of ulterior motives. It screams, “We want Carol to be in a state of bliss so she’ll stop poking around, trying to find out how to reverse the Joining.” Indeed, “Charm Offensive” is the perfect episode title.
And though Carol knows this—and tells Zosia as much, also emphasizing that “Someone has to put the world right even if it means you all leave me again”—she keeps getting lulled back in. Zosia kissing her is a big distraction. They make out, and then, finally, they hook up.
It’s enough to inspire Carol to write her first new chapter since before the Joining—returning to her world of Wycaro. This time there’s no reason not to make her dashing pirate character a woman. Zosia, who was specifically selected as Carol’s chaperone because she looks like that character, is delighted. And she has all of Carol’s fans in the hive mind backing her up, helping her spew out the exact right feedback.
“Charm Offensive” also has a nice running back-and-forth where Carol encourages Zosia to try referring to herself as “I” instead of “we.” She’s curious about who Zosia was before, when she was still an independent person, and manages to extract a lovely story where Zosia recalls her childhood in Poland with a sweet memory about her favorite ice cream flavor.
For a moment, she almost sounds like a real human. The illusion feels almost believable. Carol is touched. “Thank you for sharing that,” she says.
Just then, Zosia freezes in place, receiving information from within. “You’re going to have a visitor,” she tells Carol, and we cut away to that ambulance rolling down the highway. Manousos has 31 kilometers to go before he reaches Mexico’s border with America—and Albuquerque won’t be far behind.
Everything is about to change, again, for Carol—but what will her state of mind be now that she’s been lulled into almost/maybe/kinda believing in the fantasy of Zosia, the world’s most perfect girlfriend?
We’ll find out next Friday when the season finale of Pluribus, which already has a second season on the way, hits Apple TV+.
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Source: Gizmodo