Pluribus Episodes 4&5 Analysis: We Need a Little Space

Summary

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New Books Network — Pluribus Episodes 4 & 5 Analysis: "We Need a Little Space"

Podcast: New Books Network
Hosts: Professors Stephen Dyson and Jeff Dudis
Episode Date: December 5, 2025
Main Focus: In-depth analysis and thematic discussion of Episodes 4 and 5 of Apple TV’s Pluribus

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Overview

This double episode of the Pop Culture Professors on the New Books Network offers an incisive, immediate reaction and breakdown of Pluribus Episodes 4 (“We Need a Little Space”) and 5. Professor Stephen Dyson (with occasional solo hosting) and Professor Jeff Dudis dive deeply into the show’s evolving metaphors about individuality, collectivity, the limits of self-knowledge, the dangers of narcissism, and the interplay between high and popular art.

The discussion blends meticulous plot recap with thematic analysis, drawing connections between narrative developments and broader questions of societal values and human psychology.

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Episode 4 — Key Insights & Discussion Points

Pluribus as Mirror and Crucible ([01:35]–[02:57])

• Dyson opens by highlighting how Pluribus operates as a “mirror or a crucible, asking us to consider some key questions: what we value and why” — both relationally and culturally.
• Major episode themes:
  • Knowing Others and Self: “How do we know a person? And even how do we know ourselves? And even can we know a person?” ([01:50])
  • Individual vs. Collective Obligations: The episode repeatedly returns to the dilemmas of balancing obligations to oneself and to wider collectives.

Manousis Oviedo: Radical Individuality ([02:57]–[06:37])

• The opening, set in Paraguay, introduces Manousis Oviedo, another “immune” who shuns Pluribus’s collectivity. He’s been socially isolated even before the pandemic.
• Dyson calls the concept of an immune running a self-storage facility “deliciously symbolic,” equating humans to “literal self storage units” separated by the barriers of individuality.
• Despite Oviedo’s efforts to remain apart, his survival depends on breaching others’ privacy: “It is impossible, however radically individualistic you are, to exist entirely separate from some sort of wider community.” ([06:30])
• Formal note: The first 10-12 minutes are nearly silent, echoing prior episodes’ bold use of extended silence.

Carol’s Agency and Art Critique ([07:45]–[17:36])

• Carol emerges as a more active, questioning protagonist — “At one point at the end of the episode, she cries, ‘I have agency.’ And that could really be the sort of tagline for this episode.” ([08:23])
• Art Appreciation & the Pluribus: Carol grills the Pluribus on the value of her novels versus Shakespeare, exposing their lack of critical faculty and reflecting on the perils of “lowest common denominator” taste. The show cleverly satirizes both AI-generated platitudes (e.g., ChatGPT) and Carol’s own elitism as a “giant snob.”
• Dyson notes: “It’s not a one-dimensional critique. It sort of offers a critique and then it turns the critique back on itself.” ([12:40])

Notable Quote

"The very horror of the Pluribus, to Carol... is that it does just give this kind of unconditional approval. And that’s maybe what we think we want, but it’s not what we actually need from a fully sustaining, fully realized human relationship."
— Professor Dyson ([16:08])

Knowing Others; Knowing Ourselves ([17:36]–[20:15])

• Carol’s truth serum experiment on herself lays bare her own blindspots and hidden desires (notably her attraction to Zoja), underscoring the impossibility of true self-knowledge.
• “Carol doesn’t even know herself and none of us really do. And that’s one of the things the show is saying.” ([19:00])

Individual vs. Collective and the Dangers of “Help” ([20:15]–[22:36])

• Carol’s monologue about Camp Freedom Falls (a conversion therapy camp) frames the Pluribus’s attempts to “help” her as a frightening and unwanted intrusion.
• The show highlights the ambiguity and harm of enforced collective “well-being”:
  • “They are a smiling collectivity that is claiming to have Carol’s best interests at heart, but fundamentally wants to change her.” ([21:20])

Fatal Consequence: Individuality Hurts the Collective ([22:00]–[22:56])

• Carol’s truth serum plan nearly kills Zoja, echoing earlier episodes where Carol’s emotional distress causes “lots of people [to] die in the collective.”
• The show complicates the “you do you” ethos: “Whenever Carol asserts her individuality... she’s causing physical harm to the collectivity.” ([22:38])

Notable Quote

"It is not allowing us the easy answer of like 'you do you' or the individual is the most important thing..." — Professor Dyson ([22:38])

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Episode 5 — Key Insights & Discussion Points

Production & Performance ([25:55]–[28:31])

• Both hosts spotlight Rhea Seehorn (Carol) for an “extraordinary” performance: “Almost the entire episode is simply her... something special.” ([26:29]–[26:31])
• The “direct to camera”/vlogger confessions serve as both a character study and a critique of self-appointed influencers as leaders.
  • Dyson: “[Carol’s] trying to adopt this pose as sort of leader of the, the survivors... and she’s just the least compelling leadership figure you could possibly imagine.” ([28:11])

Carol’s Attempt at Leadership—Pathetic or Narcissistic? ([28:41]–[30:49])

• Carol’s bombastic announcement to fellow survivors that she “may” have discovered a cure is hollow — she can’t explain what actually needs to be fixed.
• Dudis: “Her fellow survivors are completely and totally unpersuaded by her effect.” ([29:05])
• The narrative points out that some survivors, maybe even Carol herself, preferred the “new world” Pluribus created.

Pluribus Disgust & Narrative Trust ([30:49]–[33:44])

• The Pluribus react to Carol’s actions with “disgust” (not anger or fear) after what she’s done to Zoja, cutting off solicitous interaction and essentially ostracizing her.
• The Pluribus’s recorded message claims “our feelings for you have not changed” ([33:00]) — the hosts agree this is clearly a lie.
• Dudis: “Now, Carol has decided in the previous episode that the Pluribus cannot lie. But that is obviously a lie. Their feelings very much have changed for her.” ([33:04])

Notable Quote

“Only Carol would think making literally the entire world cry and causing a…nuclear blast radius…would show ‘I’m doing something right.’”
— Professor Dyson ([34:09])

Macro Theme: Carol’s Toxic Narcissism ([34:21]–[38:31])

• Dudis delivers a central thesis: Episodes 4 & 5 can be seen as an “extraordinary mediation on toxic narcissism and the exceedingly dysfunctional role that it plays in a collective.” ([38:31])
  • Carol sees everyone as an “appendage of her own desires,” has near-zero empathy, and even interprets her catastrophic actions as justified self-assertion.
• The Pluribus as a hyper-empathetic collective simply cannot tolerate Carol.

Notable Quote

“The one trait that cannot be affected apparently by this mind virus is the toxic narcissism of one of the worst people, if not the worst person on the face of the earth.”
— Professor Jeff Dudis ([37:21])

Meta-Theories: Is It All In Carol’s Head? ([38:31]–[43:05])

• The hosts speculate on possible meta-endings:
  • The episode’s green-screened shot when Carol wakes up could be deliberate, suggesting the action is taking place “inside Carol’s head” — a hallucination, dream, or perhaps the narrative of Carol’s own “serious” novel.
  • Dyson floats a perfect, darkly comic ending: that the entire series is the text of Carol's failed “serious” book, and Helen’s ultimate reaction is simply, “I’m leaving.” ([42:40])

Detective Story Genre Shift & Mythological Symbolism ([43:13]–[52:16])

• Episode 5 pivots to a “detective story” — Carol investigates clues like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (noted on Helen’s nightstand, [44:10]), tracks “milk” supplies (a possible Soylent Green reference), and uncovers dark secrets about the Pluribus’s sustenance.
• The abundance of wild dogs is analyzed for mythological significance: “In Western mythology, dogs have conventionally played this kind of intermediary role between the living and the dead…almost gateways to the underworld.” ([49:28])
  • Dogs digging up Helen’s grave mirror Carol’s simultaneous fear of and dependence on her lost connection to reality.

Notable Quotes

“Helen is the one who knew Carol the best and kept her tethered to reality. Therefore, as Carol’s narcissism spirals, Helen must not be exhumed. She must remain buried for Carol’s… detonation to reach critical mass.”
— Professor Dyson ([50:11])

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• Carol’s agency declaration: “I have agency.” ([08:23])
• Pluribus’s failed art criticism: “They just keep trotting out the same, you know, ‘it’s wonderful, it’s wonderful’ trotting out the same words.” ([11:38])
• Revelation about Helen’s honest opinion: Pluribus tells Carol that Helen found her serious book “middling…it wasn’t that good.” ([14:15])
• Dyson on the horror of unconditional approval: ([16:08])
• Discussion of Pluribus’s collective will: “We’ve been you, but you’ve never been us.” ([21:50])
• Rhea Seehorn’s performance lauded for direct-to-camera scenes: ([26:29]–[28:11])
• Carol’s leadership attempt compared to influencer rhetoric: ([28:11]–[29:47])
• Speculative theories about the show’s ending and unreality: ([39:40]–[43:05])
• Shift to detective genre and Agatha Christie reference: ([44:10])
• Dogs as mythological gatekeepers and grave symbolism: ([48:08]–[50:11])
• Call for listener comment and “floating signifier” nature of the show: ([22:56], [52:10])

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Conclusion

Professors Dyson and Dudis provide a dynamic, layered reading of Pluribus that foregrounds messy but vital questions: What does it mean to be an individual in a world that values collectivity? Can empathy, or even enforced empathy, become oppressive? And what happens when a character's self-obsession makes them immune to connection — even to a utopian hive-mind?

The dialogue is rich with memorable lines, playful speculation about genre and narrative structure, and engagement with viewers/listeners as co-critics.

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Listener Takeaways

• The show is deeply invested in questions of agency, self-knowledge, the pitfalls of narcissism, and the dangers/advantages of collectivism.
• Pluribus satirizes both the superficiality of collective “hive-mind” thinking and the snobbery/narcissism of those who claim to transcend it.
• Every action in asserting individuality echoes on others, sometimes harmfully.
• The show’s use of silence, genre shifts, and symbolism (dogs, art, food, etc.) offers fertile ground for multiple interpretations.
• The conversation remains open—these professors invite you to join and challenge their readings.

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Transcript

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

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[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Greater than you can possibly imagine.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

For the key to our survival, three.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Of you must quest to the Sea of Monsters.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Let's go do the impossible.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

It's the Pop Culture Professors and we continue our analysis of the Apple TV series Pluribus. First we have my analysis of episode four, and then we have analysis by myself and Professor Dudas of episode five. I'm Professor Stephen Dyson and I'm a political science professor who has just watched episode four of Pluribus. And I'm going to give you my sort of immediate reactions and breakdown of what I see as some of the main themes and ideas that were in this episode. I think in this episode, which I really enjoyed and think is important in the evolution of this first season, we're seeing Pluribus continue to function as kind of a mirror or a crucible, asking us to consider some key questions, what we value and why. And that's in the area both of what we value in relationships and in others and what we value in kind of cultural products such as art. I think another key question this episode asked us is how do we know a person? And even how do we know ourselves? And even can we know a person? Can we know ourselves? And then I think another key question that was in this episode and maybe actually is the dominant thematic of the show as a whole, is what are our obligations to collectivities and to individuals? And what's the sort of proper balance or the way to navigate what. What are essentially a set of irresolvable dilemmas where sometimes the kind of enactment of individuality is sort of harmful to a collectivity or harmful to someone else. And of course, vice versa. So this episode begins in Paraguay, and we know from the last episode that the chap who we meet in the first sort of 15 minutes of the episode is. Is Manousis Oviedo, another one of the immune. Someone who, like Carol, is not connected by the Pluribus, and someone who also, like Carol, proudly holds themselves apart from and aside from the collectivity. And that had been true even before the virus had arrived. I'd commented on last week's episode that I thought there was something sort of deliciously symbolic about Manusis Oviedo, the immune person, an immune person from the Pluribus, being the sort of owner or the manager of a self storage unit. And, you know, what are people other than sort of literal self storage units? So there's something delicious in that. And we see how Manusa Sovieto is experiencing the kind of Pluribus crisis, and he has holed himself up within the kind of office of the self storage unit complex, and he's kind of squirreled himself away. He's communicating with the outside world or sort of searching the outside world for other people who are immune by kind of systematically searching through radio frequencies and listening out for anyone who might be broadcasting. Classic trope of these kind of post apocalyptic films, listening out for the other survivors. And then sort of, ironically enough, the telephone goes and he is contacted directly by Carol. We know from previous episodes how that conversation went. They sort of mutually swore at each other. And we see, as had been speculated by someone in the comments section for last week's video video, that Carol had really got his attention by swearing back at him that it was really a smart idea to do that and that the two are likely to be connected sometime in the future. Like Carol Manouses Oviedo is someone who is engaging in the digital world through essentially analog means. You know, he has this radio transmitter. He doesn't seem to be on the Internet. He doesn't seem to have a smartphone. You know, Carol's able to reach him on a landline. So that's another one of these similarities between Carol and Manousis. And it does sort of reinforce one of the metaphors of the show, which is the Pluribus in some sense are representing the. The connectivity or maybe even the simulation of connectivity, the false connectivity that is brought about in Our digital age. And then the other thing that goes on in this sequence at the start of this episode is we see that Manousis is kind of incompletely disconnected from the Pluribus, or he's trying very hard to maintain his disconnection from the Pluribus, but he does have sort of biological needs. And so the Plurib keeps sending sort of an emissary with deliveries of food, which he's sort of tempted to take, you know, showing that you can't completely disconnect, but he doesn't take those deliveries of food, but to feed himself. In the end, Manusa Saviedo opens up his clients self storage units and he writes them sort of a letter of apology for the intrusion. But I did think that was another clever way to use that, the symbolism of the, quote, self storage unit that Manassis, in the end, who is a person who sort of radically respects individuality or his own privacy, is sort of forced to open up other people's privacy to pry open the kind of barriers to other selves. And he does so apologetically and he does so because of desperate need. But it's perhaps demonstrating this, this point that it is impossible, however radically individualistic you are, to exist entirely separate from some sort of wider community. Last point I'll make in this section is that once again, Pluribus has done something sort of formally interesting as a TV show with this opening section set with Manusa Saviedo, in that he doesn't really speak. He only says a couple of words to Carol right at the end of the segment. Doesn't really speak for, you know, I think it was 12, 10 or 12 minutes of the show, which is the second time the show has had almost 15 minutes, you know, maybe a quarter of its or a third even of its of the episode's runtime kind of conducted in total silence, which is sort of a daring thing to do formally, I think. When Zoza got on the plane to go and see Carol a couple of episodes back, there was also no dialogue in the. In the early part of that episode. And then we move to catching up with Carol. And the Carol we see in this week's episode is a person who is much more active, who is asking far more questions, and he's really sort of taking control of the situation a little bit more. And I don't know if that's kind of a stages of grief thing. She's just sort of emerging from the shock of her situation, but she kind of traps the Pluribus in conversation into revealing things that the collectivity doesn't want to reveal. She devises a plan to use truth serum and we'll say more about this to get answers that she wants from the Pluribus. We see her as having collected or making a set of notes on how the virus operates, how the collectivity works. And she's really sort of taking action now in trying to undo what's been done. At one point at the end of the episode, she cries, I have agency. And that could really be the sort of tagline for this episode. We see Carol now taking much more control of her situation. There's another of the show's signature themes about what we value and why that happens. Sort of midway through the episode here in that Carol engages the Pluribus in a conversation about art. And they sort of have a rudimentary class in art appreciation, if you like. And Carol is using her own art, her books, her fantasy historical books as an example, and she's asking the Pluribus, you know, do you like my books? And of course they're very sort of solicitous of her and her feelings and they say, yeah, we love your books, we think they're wonderful. But she very quickly discovers that they have no real in depth critical appreciation of her art or really any sort of cultural product. They have no critical vocabulary. They just keep trotting out the same, you know, it's wonderful, it's wonderful trotting out the same words. And Carol says, stop saying the same thing. And I think this is the. Another one of the show's kind of central metaphors coming to the fore here, which is the. The show does seem to be kind of skewering lowest common denominator appreciations of the good things or the higher things of human culture, and suggesting that maybe entities like ChatGPT, which just sort of agglomerate sort of huge corpses of human text, then spit out not particularly insightful opinions, but sort of mid or lowest common denominator opinions. But the show is very clever here. It's not a, a one dimensional in diamond of something like Chat GPT because of course, remember before the virus arrived, Carol was equally disdainful of the mass of genuine human opinion, not artificial intelligence opinion, in that she didn't respect her own fans. She thought they were essentially idiots and she thought that they too had no critical appreciation. And so Carol has a fairly explicitly elitist perspective on the general public's ability to understand kind of higher art forms that is being sort of exacerbated by the Pluribus virus. I Mean, she, she encourages the Pluribus to compare her books with Shakespeare and finds out that they actually have, you know, just a unidimensional opinion on both. You know, both are great, both are wonderful, but no real ability to distinguish between the merit of the two things. No real ability to understand that Shakespeare was operating on a higher literary or cultural level than Carol herself was. And in this, of course, Carol is a giant snob, you know, and a huge elitist. And I think Pluribus is both showing the dangers or I guess the terror of like lowest common denominator opinion and how you do need people of higher critical faculties in order to understand the better things in, in human life. But at the same time, she's sort of a hypocrite, if that's not too strong a word, because she's putting out what she knows is kind of middlebrow cultural products. And she's not even doing that, you know, thoroughly, sincerely. She's not. She's not disavowing these middlebrow cultural products and saying, well, I just make money off them. I don't care what the reception was. She also wants them to be popular, she wants them to be liked. So she's simultaneously sort of rejecting mass opinion and also kind of relying on it for her own sort of self worth and self esteem. And I think this is, again, for me, one of the great sort of virtues of this show is it's not a sort of one dimensional critique. It sort of offers a critique and then it turns the critique back on itself. And it shows really what, you know, how complex humans are in all facets of their relations with each other and with the world. And I do really appreciate that kind of multidimensional critical nature that the show has. And that's exemplified really by the revelations that Carol is able to get from the Pluribus about her late wife Helen. Helen, whose judgment and sort of approval, of course Carol would, would want and crave and desire and need more than anyone else. She discovers from the Pluribus that Helen not only maybe held her own public books in higher regard than Carol herself does. Helen, of course, had explained to Carol that your books make people happy, and if that's not art, it's at least something. And Carol was maybe a touch more skeptical about them than Helen was, but also, and this is kind of a dagger to Carol, she discovers that Helen was not really impressed by Carol's serious book. You know, we'd learned in earlier episodes that Carol had come up with a serious book. We find out in this episode. It's a novel that she thought was radically different than the fare that she had been putting out. And she was just kind of too timid to put it out into the world. But Helen had read it, Helen had knew of it, Helen had said, you know, she thinks it'll be popular, it'll be well received. But the Pluribus, who of course know Helen's innermost thoughts, reveal to Carol that Helen thought it was middling. It was, meh. It wasn't that good. But this is really an example of the show telling us what human relationships are about. That Carol would not stop loving Helen or even be particularly annoyed maybe with Helen for holding that opinion. That's, you know, a hurtful opinion Helen would hold. But the truth is that the people we love, real human beings, do hold hurtful opinions, you know, and do differ from us, and they don't just give us constant approval. And the very horror of the Pluribus, to Carol, and maybe to us, is that it does just give this kind of unconditional approval. And that's maybe what we think we want, but it's not what we actually need from a fully sustaining, fully realized human relationship. And Carol trusts and admires, and I'm sure it's one of the things that she loved about Helen, that Helen has an independent critical judgment, even when that independent critical judgment is turned on Carol in ways that she might not instantly sort of appreciate. And this goes to what I'd flagged as another of the great sort of themes of this episode, how to know a person or yourself, you know, do we ever really know a person? Carol didn't really know that about Helen. And Helen's probably the person she knows best in the world. And that's revealed to. To Carol sort of post mortem by the Pluribus. She maybe didn't fully know some pretty crucial things about her lover. And ultimately this kind of unknowability of other human beings is one of the things that keeps us fascinated and that. That keeps relationships viable. And if you do know everything about others, then they become trivial or maybe less fascinating and less exciting and less viable objects of our desire and of our love. And this is a theme that's also illustrated in this part of the episode by Carol's truth serum plan. And she goes to a hospital and she procures this truth serum and she tests the thing on herself and then sort of video records the reactions and what she does while under the influence of the truth serum. And, you know, eventually she falls asleep and Then we see one, what she actually did. And what she did was a set of surprising things. She kind of stalked around the apartment in ways that she didn't recognize or didn't remember. She said things that were, were shocking even to herself. Carol doesn't even know herself and none of us really do. And that's one of the things the show is saying. Carol shocks herself by revealing what I think sharp eyed viewers of the show had noticed and someone had said again in comments on an earlier one of these, these video reactions that Carol obviously has a sort of erotic fantasy or an erotic charge towards Zoja. And we know that Zorja is the physical manifestation, albeit with a, with a different gender physical manifestation of Raban, Carol's romantic hero from her books. And she'd put her erotic fantasy, I guess, into these books and tried to disguise it. And maybe the outer public couldn't know who Rabban really was in Carol's subconscious and maybe Carol herself also didn't know. But it's, but it's revealed to us and maybe even to her by this truth serum. And she's, she's shocked by the fact that she's physically attracted to Zoja or maybe she's just shocked by the fact that she says it out loud and it's a kind of internal, personal thing. But I do think it goes to this broader theme of how do we know other people and how do we know ourselves? And then I think we come to the final section of the episode which I think thematically was re engaging one of the constant questions in the show, which is what are our obligations to communities or to collectivities versus our obligations to individuals? Whether those individuals are other individuals that we interact with or are our obligations to ourself as an individual and how do we negotiate the balance between the two? And I think what the show is telling us is that it's a, a balance that's in sort of constant negotiation. Whether that's a negotiation that's personal and interpersonal, whether it's a negotiation that's cultural or whether it's a negotiation that's political. These are never the settled questions and they're never questions on which you can just find the truthful, you know, the one true perspective. It's why I do think this show is subject to so many readings and can be sort of gotten at from so many different perspectives and every shard of its kind of critical thrust is sort of multivalent and you can get at it from different, different angles. Whether they're political IDEOLOGIES or just sort of interpersonal ideologies. Carol reveals the story of Camp Freedom Falls, which was a conversion therapy camp that her mother had sent her to. And this is one of the reasons why she finds the pluribus, in their manifestation, so sort of horrifying, because they are a smiling collectivity that is claiming to have Carol's best interests at heart, but fundamentally wants to change her and wants to change her in ways that are absolutely core to Carol's individuality, and she doesn't want to be changed. And it's sort of horrifying in the Camp Freedom Falls example, because these were also people, Carol tells us, who just had these benign smiles on her face and said they were trying to do something to help her, shouldn't want to be helped in that way. And even more horrifying, her mother, who you presume was the person she trusted most in the world at that stage of her life, was the person who had put her in that situation. And maybe her mother thought it's in her best interest. But of course, it's a radical, even violent intrusion on Carol's individuality to try and sort of compel her to be different in a way that's absolutely core to her central identity. And so at that point, you know, you're absolutely on the side of the. The individual. And, you know, this seems like a pretty monovalent point that the. The show is making at this stage, but then it sort of turns a little bit in that Carol, who has devised this plan to try to figure out how to reverse what she calls the joining, how to. How to reverse the pluribus, and she's going to give truth serum, and she does, to Zoja and try and get answers from the physical body of Zorja, maybe the remnants of what exists of Zoja's individuality. Does the truth serum kind of work collectively on the pluribus, or is the. Is the point of the truth serum that it sort of isolates Zojja from the. From the pluribus? Maybe she would retain knowledge from the pluribus, would, but would be able to operate as an individual. I wasn't quite clear on. On that, but she. She starts this line of inquiry with Zojjah aimed at getting answers on how to reverse what's going on. And Zojja, of course, also doesn't want to be changed, or the pluribus in the form of Zojja, doesn't want to be changed. They don't want to be restored to the individuality that Carol, you know, clearly sees as the only viable or dignified human form. And at one point, the pluribus, or Zorsa, speaking for the Pluribus, says to Carol, you know, we've been you, but you've never been us. We've been individuals. We've been separate from one another. We found others unknowable and maybe hostile and maybe difficult to navigate and get along with. And we know what that's like. But you, Carol, have never experienced the kind of radical collectivity that we have. And we're telling you it's good. We're telling you we don't want to turn back. But this, of course, exposes a complete paradox. You know, Carol can assert she has agency, but can the pluribus collectively assert that they have agency? And when they're saying, we don't want to go back, we've been you, you've never been us, are they speaking for the collective will of all these individuals, or are they speaking to just for some generalized collectivity, the pluribus writ large, that can't be reduced to any of these individuals? Are they just an agglomeration of public opinion? Is it, you know, 70% of the. Of the individuals in the pluribus really want to stay in the Pluribus. And. And so, you know, it's almost like a majority vote thing. Obviously not literally, but I'm trying to metaphorically make the point that I think this is the show again, trying to shine a light on act as a mirror for. Act as a crucible for asking these questions about individuality versus collectivity. Carol, of course, whenever she asserts her individuality, she's not just acting on herself or her actions are not just having implications for herself. And this is another thing the sho is doing very well is that it is not allowing us the easy answer of like you do you or the individual is the most important thing, which has perhaps been the default position in contemporary Western philosophy and the contemporary United States for. For a long period of time now, that all that matters is the individual. Because whenever Carol asserts her individuality, I don't know too stringently, too strongly she's causing physical harm to the collectivity. We saw in earlier episodes that whenever Carol got kind of really angry or really frustrated, lots of people would die in the collective in the Pluribus. And in this episode, we see that Carol's truth serum plan has had potentially fatal, probably not, but in the episode is presented as potentially fatal impact and effects on Zoja, who has a cardiac arrest arrest as the episode ends. And so another, I think really rich episode this week. A really sort of enjoyable, thematically rich and fulfilling and I don't know, nutritious episode this week. Look, I've been on my own this week. Professor Dudas is away for one week only. He'll be rejoining us next week. But because I've been on my own, it does mean that I really would value commentary. And you know, in the, in the comments section, I'd love for you to pick apart some of the ideas that I've, I've put on the table here. As always, these are one person's. Well, usually it's two people, but for this week, one person's interpretations. The show is, you know, to use a ten dollar set of words, a floating signifier. It's, it's capable of being read in many different ways. I really would love to be challenged. I'll love to hear additional thoughts or what you think were going on in the episode. And that would be especially valuable to me this week because I've just been kind of talking into a camera on my own for a period of time here and I could be just completely wrong in everything I've said. So please do leave a comment. We always value them and we try to interact as much as we can and kind of bring them into subsequent episodes as well. Please also. And I always feel a little awkward kind of asking for this, but it does really help the channel. If you can subscribe, if you can like, if you can share the videos that would, that would really be terrific. Next week, Professor Dudas will be back. We'll be back to the two hander format. But on that bombshell, the holidays have.

[Podcast Host]

A way of sneaking up on you. And I can tell you they snuck up on me. This year I have people coming and I need to buy those people gifts. Or as I say, I just didn't have everything I need. So what I did is I went to Wayfair. From bedding to linens to decor, for every room in the house, Wayfair is your one stop shop. Last minute guest prep. Wayfair has you covered. You can refresh bedding and throw pillows and accent chairs for way less. That's what I did. Pretty much all the bedding in my house is threadbare. So I decided to replace it. I went to Wayfair and I ordered some new sheets and pillowcases and I got a comforter, which was really cool. I ordered it, the price was great, the shipping was free. It arrived and now I am ready for the hordes to descend upon me. And it's not just bedding of course you can get linens and towels and things for the kids room, kitchen essentials things for your living room. And of course they have holiday gifts. So get your last minute hosting essentials gifts for all your loved ones and decor to celebrate the holidays. For way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W A Y-F A I R.com Wayfair Every Style Every Home Limu Imu.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And Doug here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very underwritten by.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. Affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.

The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn [e-mail] M365Copilot this episode is brought.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

To you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

There'S a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibly. Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Tennessee whiskey, 40 alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. I'm Professor Stephen Dyson.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And I'm Professor Jeff Dudis.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

And we are two political science professors who have just watched episode five of Pluribus and we are here to give our instant reaction, our breakdown, our recap of the episode and try and isolate its major sort of themes and ideas. I thought this was another subtle and entertaining episode, Jeff, that sort of pushes on some of the main themes of the of the story. What was your take?

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Yeah, I thought this was a really good episode. There's a lot to talk about here. I think the first thing that I want to acknowledge is the sort of bravora acting performance this week by Rhea Seehorn.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Remarkable.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Almost the entire episode is simply her.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yes.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And the whole her performance in the entire show has really been extraordinary. But I thought this week was really Something special. So that's the first thing I would acknowledge, just from a kind of production standpoint. I also thought that these two episodes, episode four last week and episode five this week, are very much a paired set of concerns. And I also think that we get some real shifting in the characteristic of the pluribus and of what we know about the pluribus and what it seems to be capable of or what seem to be the major kinds of personality characteristics, so to speak, that it offers. All in all, I thought this was a strong episode. It continues to be, I think, a really interesting show. And I think it's. As the episodes go on, it's revealing deeper and deeper layers. What did you think of it?

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, I really liked the episode. And I thought Rhea Seehorn was, you know, really compelling. And she has a very difficult job. She's the center of the show. Her character is sort of this utterly unlikable person. And I think you have a theory, you want to go into that she might actually be the most unlikable person literally sort of in the world. And yet you've got to, you've got to sort of watch her and you've got to want to watch her. And I thought the, the, the. The kind of shining, most shining part of what was a great, what is a great performance in the show and what was particularly great in this episode was the kind of direct to camera stuff she was doing when she becomes, you know, Jeff, one of those crazy people who sets a camera up in a room, kind of records their thoughts and then tries to push it out in the world. And as everyone knows, those people are absolutely mental.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Very bad stories about those kind of people.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, really real, real weirdos. And she kind of does this and she, she sort of, you know, pretties herself up and sets up the lighting in the room and all the rest of it. And you see her trying to adopt this pose as sort of leader of the, the survivors, my 12 fellow survivors. And they kind of shoot her in the way they might shoot a politician giving a great speech. And she's trying to reach for these, I don't know, Churchillian tones. And she's just the. The least compelling leadership figure you could possibly imagine. And it's just.

How Rhea Sihorn is conveying what's going on in Carol's head. And Carol thinks she's discovered these sort of vital things. And yet when you articulate them and you can sort of see it play over her face when she articulates them, they're really a lot of like nothing or they're not very. You know, it has this texture that's like olive oil, but thinner. And that's gotta mean something. And it's just a bravura performance, as you say.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

It really is. And it's also a callback to, I think it was episode two, where the characters, the survivors, so to speak, are on Air Force One. And there's the scene in which she sort of kicks out the Pluribus and she postures herself at the top of the table. Clearly meant to evoke this position of leadership and authority. Her fellow survivors are completely and totally unpersuaded by her effect. And it's the same sort of thing that we see here on camera. And in some ways, it's even more pathetic on camera because she actually has the ability, one would think, to write out what she wants to say. She's got a bunch of problems.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Well, you see, she does that, you know, she's a great sort of wordsmith, and she's like, what are we, afflicted people? Sure, they're afflicted people, which. Which is sort of thematically important because she is trying to make the case to her fellow survivors that the. She knows how or she potentially knows. She doesn't know. She says, you know, I've discovered that there is a way to turn back the. What's happened. And of course, the next line is, and this is how you do it. I've discovered there is a way. I don't know what it is yet because they wouldn't tell me, but they almost did. And so, you know, you know, this can definitely happen. And she keeps saying, you know, we can restore the world to what it was, and we can sort of save these people. And even as she's saying it, you're seeing she's not able to articulate what it is they need to be saved.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

From, why the world should actually be restored. Because we know that, at least in part, some of the survivors, if not almost all of them, actually seem to quite prefer the new world and don't want to go back.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Well, and Carol herself thought the world was crap before she. Before the virus. Right. She suddenly has this great nostalgia for how things were, but she thought a lot of it was rubbish to begin with. She wasn't able to kind of take part in it in any sort. Of. Any sort of joyful way. The Pluribus, as the episode begins, have become. I use the word suspicious. You think there's a better word for that. But they're definitely angry with Carol, and they definitely want to get away from her.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

So this, again, this is one of the through lines, I think, between these episode four and episode five. And of course, episode five picks up almost immediately after the end of episode four in a narrative sense. And what's happening, it seems to me, at the beginning of episode five, and as Carol is engaging in a far more distant way with the Pluribus members who are in the hospital, is telegraphed or prefaced by the end of episode four, when the Pluribus realizes what Carol has done to Zoja. And I don't think it's necessarily a look of anger or surprise or fear. I think they're disgusted with her. It's a look of disgust. They won't engage with her in a meaningful way. They are no longer anywhere near as solicitous. They're no longer as welcoming or as generous. The. Their speech with her lacks the effect of kindness and generosity that it has up until this point. They are clearly, it seems to me, disgusted with her and they have changed their mind about her. Now, later we will see, after they literally abandon her and evacuate, as you talked about earlier off camera, evacuated the scene in the way that one would evacuate the scene of a nuclear accident, for example. They create this recording that says, we will contact you. We will be in contact with you now at your behest, not at ours, but at your behest, and you will leave a message and then we will try to satisfy.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, yeah, this is a recording. Our feelings for you have not changed.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

But that's the key, right? Our feelings for you have not changed. Now, Carol has decided in the previous episode that the Pluribus cannot lie. But that is obviously a lie. Their feelings very much have changed for her. They have moved into this register of disgust and a very intentional goal of separating themselves from her and being. Not being around her. And so they are lying to her. Now, she doesn't realize it, but that strikes me as something that is maybe hanging in the narrative background here, but seems quite important for how we understand who the Pluribus is and what their basic personality, character.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Well, there's a great line Carol uses when she's doing her YouTuber influence video when she's explaining what happens and she's like, after I, you know, did what I did with. With Zoja or took my actions to try and discover what's going on, and I caused the whole world. The whole world started crying. And the. The city where I am was entirely evacuated, which tells me I'm on the right track, which is a sort of great sort of double meaning. Only Carol would think making literally the entire world cry and causing a, you know, a nuclear blast radius of destruction and evacuation would, would show I'm doing something.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Her take there is the narcissist's take. And this gets into what I think is the kind of the. For me, the macro theme of these two episodes taken together, that part of what's happening, and actually for me, I guess most of what's happening in these two episodes thematically is that we are getting a real exploration of Carol's narcissism and of the damage that it causes to everyone and everything around her. So Carol sees the rest of the world as playthings. They are objects for her desire. Everyone else around her is an appendage of her own desires, wants and needs. This is how she treated everyone who's ever been around her, including Helen. And it is how she imagines, right, the disgust that she has with her fan base in the Ycairo stories. She imagines them as simply objects, as things to be maneuvered around, people to be exploited, people whose money creates a privileged life for her, but not people to be taken seriously or empathized with. It is meaningful to me. It seems like in the, from the previous episode when she's having the conversation about her books as compared to Shakespeare's books, and she's having that conversation with the Pluribus member and she says, you can't possibly believe something to the effect of, you can't possibly believe that my mid level, mid tier schlock is of the highest level and, and certainly not in the same register as, you know, Shakespeare's sort of benighted figure in world literature. And the Pluribus member tells her the story of, like, her super fan. And she says, your stories literally saved this woman's life. She was going to commit suicide, but your work, your art, made a difference outside of yourself. And for a half second that story appears to penetrate Carol's narcissism. But then it's gone entirely.

She has no capacity for empathy in the same way that the classic narcissist personality has no capacity for empathy. And so of course, her conclusion from creating a situation in which her mood swings, her desires, her posture in the world, which puts everyone around her constantly on eggshells, hoping to not upset her, because when they do upset, she is a danger, right to anyone in her blast radius. That kind of classic, enmeshed appendage like posture towards the world is, it seems to me, what these episodes are telling us about Carol this is who she is. She is one of, if not the worst person literally in the world. Perhaps that's why she has not been affected by a virus even as extraordinary as potentially an extraterrestrial virus.

Who'S one of the only people that it cannot penetrate, who's one of the only people that it cannot encourage to be empathetic in the way that the pluribus which has been evacuated of all negative emotions, the one person who cannot. Right. The one trait that cannot be affected apparently by this mind virus is the toxic narcissism of one of the worst people, if not the worst person on the face of the earth. And so of course she's going to conclude, well, they all left me, which means I was right all along, rather than what am I doing that even a mind hive population that appears to be incapable of negative emotions and whose defining characteristic is empathy and generosity, what am I doing that even they can't be around me, even they have to separate themselves from me so that I don't destroy them. I think in a certain way the show, these last two episodes have become this kind of extraordinary mediation on toxic narcissism and the exceedingly dysfunctional role that it plays in a collective.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, I mean it's a very plausible reading and it would lead you to wonder how much of this is happening kind of solely from, not only from Carol's perspective as a protagonist, but actually just solely in her head, you know, and it's a, I mean we did, we did talk kind of beforehand that we, we've alighted upon. I'm not sure if we think this, this theory or this ending for the show is true or if it just should be true. But, but there is a. We kind of, let's just put the theory out there and we'll, we'll see what happens.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

But the commenters can tell us how crazy we are.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, exactly. But the. You, you'd noticed a scene in the episode that you thought was a little kind of. It didn't look real, it didn't, it's or it didn't look in accord with the rest of the. Of the. The way. And sometimes that can happen just because sometimes it could be just it strikes you as not real and no one else. Sometimes it can happen because like they didn't quite get it right in the production process or whatever. Or sometimes it can happen especially in a very high level show because you're deliberately being. It's like a little Easter egg or a little clue that something's going on. That's sort of hyper real or happening from a different perspective. You want to talk through just what it was that set you off on this train of thought.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

So the thing that I noticed, the scene that I noticed was at the very beginning of this week's episode when Carol wakes up in the hospital and everyone has left and everyone has abandoned her. In fact, they've left Albuquerque entirely. And she climbs up to the roof of the hospital to kind of see what's happening. We see. We see the cars and the trucks leaving and we see the town being abandoned, the city being abandoned. But the first thing we see is Carol's face. A close up of Carol's face. And we watched it again before we went on camera. And it seems to me, and I think you agree, that very clearly seems to be a green screened shot.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

She doesn't naturally sit within that shot like she's. There's sort of an outline around her and it's.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

It's totally out of place.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Right.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

With every other visual moment in the show so far.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And it's out of place with the showrunner's own proclamation that got a lot of press at the beginning of the series that, that they had not worked with AI or any of these kinds of, you know, replacement like technologies, that this was a naturally filmed show.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And it just immediately was this kind of glaring out of place ness with that scene. And it got me to wondering if it was a mistake, if it was shoddy work. And I think, as you say, I don't think we should see it as shoddy work. I mean, that wouldn't make any sense with the rest of the show and how carefully it is plotted and how masterfully the different scenes are organized and the way that the threads are pulled together so tightly. To have a green screen presentation at the very beginning of this episode seems meaningful or potentially meaningful in a creative way.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah. So one possibility could be that you. That we're being offered clues one way or another, either through the, as you say, sort of thematically, this episode can easily be read as orchestrated around Carol's intense narcissism. Seeing the world entirely from your perspective. And the only thing that's kind of real is your own perception of yourself and everyone else is sort of a. You're not seeing them as they really are. The kind of projections of your own kind of needs and drives and desires. And maybe we're being shown that sort of filmically as well. And that could suggest that this is even within the sort of universe or reality the fictional Reality of the show, this is not actually happening. Right. This is all really happening inside some form inside Carol's head. And she's in some sort of like dream state or like, I think you suggested, kind of a drunken blackout state or I had the theory that I wonder if actually what we're seeing is the plot of Carol's serious book, Carol's serious novel. And maybe, maybe what Pluribus is in this story of the alien Viru and the changing society is that's what Carol has imagined, you know, as her kind of masterwork. And I did say that, like the best possible end to this show would be, you know, you realize that this is the case. And it cuts to a still alive Helen reading the manuscript of Carol's serious novel, which is actually the story of Pluribus. And she closes the last page and she looks up at Carol, who looks at her expectantly. What do you think? And Helen says, I'm leaving, I'm leaving.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Because the whole thing has been this extraordinary.

Mediation on or exploration of a toxic narcissist.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah, I see you for who you really are. You know, your true, true colors have shown themselves.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Well, we'll see. I think that would be an amazing end to this show. It would be controversial for sure. One thing I think, though, that is not controversial thematically about this show is something we both picked up on is that towards the second half of this episode, we get a shift in genre register and it becomes a detective story.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Detective Carol.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Detective Carol, who is now sort of lighting her way out into the world and discovering what she takes to be the backstory of the virus. And she hopes to be the unraveling. Right. Or what she calls the unjoining.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yes.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Of what has happened. And we're clued in to this narrative genre shift because we see presumably on, I guess it would be on Helen's side of the bed, we see that she's been reading Agatha Christie's and Then There Were None.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yep. Which is the best selling detective novel in the history of the genre, apparently. I mean, according to Wikipedia. And we do. We would actually appreciate some, you know, hive behind there, crowdsourcing on what you see as the significance of that. Is it just that it's the best selling detective story and so, you know, it's putting you in the Detective Carol space. Or is there something in the. In the plot? I mean, I only got the plot summary from. From Wikipedia. It's. Suppose it's based on kind of a agath. Chris, you wanted to write a story that was inspired by lines of verse. And she, she said, she said it was a very challenging novel to write because you had to have a lot of things going on without them becoming implausible. I don't know what the, you know, what the significance is of the specific plot, but it's definitely a. You know, you're definitely in detective story realms. She, she kind of is tooling around as a lone police person in the, in the police cruiser, kind of going into abandoned places, warehouses, shining a torch, uncovering clues, doing the, doing the kind of detective thing. She goes back to Sprouts, which as we, as we learned from the, from the Hive Mind is, is a real place, just not in Connecticut. And she, because she's found a barcode, it's basically the great milk conspiracy. Right. She figures out the pluribus are only drinking milk and she kind of realizes it's not milk, but it's this kind of substance that she, you know, sort of understands but can't really describe to her YouTube audience. I thought instantly, especially with the final scene of the episode where she's kind of shocked at what the secret ingredient is. I thought of the old kind of 70s dystopia Soylent Green, which, which posits a utopia. Yeah. You know, and all sort of hunger has been solved. And there are these different kind of food products associated with different colors. And the latest one is Soylent Green. And in the, in the final scenes of the movie, it's discovered that Soylent Green is people.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Be this, this kind of powdery, sugary type substance that's being carried around in bags. Maybe it's ground up. People. Yeah, that, that would be on brand.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Right.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

For what the program is doing. And.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Well, also if this is a projection of Carolina, you know, animals, what are people, they're kind of disposable, consumable things and they're just really bags of kind of, you know, non specific matter.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And you use them for whatever your healing needs might be.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Right.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

So I, I thought back to. In the previous episode, episode four, Zoysia is drinking milk when she's in the hospital and recovering. And it's obviously not milk, it's whatever this substance is. It would make sense that these, that the hive mind regenerates themselves through the consumption of human remains.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah. And if you take the story literally, like it's a, you know, anti cannibalism is a sort of, you know, a social taboo. I mean, there are, there are physiological reasons why it's not a good idea to consume your own species and so forth, but the strongest taboo is the, is the social one. And if you strip human society of its, of its existing taboos and all the rest of it, like why. Maybe it just seems a very efficient use of resources from the standpoint of kind of aliens. But, but again, we don't think this is a literal story of, of alien manipulation or, or it's doing symbolic work even. Even if it remains a literal story.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

That's probably controversy amongst the viewers. I agree with you. I don't think that we're going to get a big reveal with aliens, but others do believe that that's yet. So we'll see what's going on with the dogs. Okay, so this is really interesting. You, you brought this up off camera, right, that we. We've got this recurring.

This episode where there are wild dogs who as you called back to accurately we've been told, I think it was in episode two, that all the dogs are off their leashes, all the animals are out of the zoos and that there's. They're kind of running wild. And it's. It's the first time, I think that we have seen this kind of animal life in, in Albuquerque, isn't it?

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

I think so.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

We've heard allusions to it elsewhere and.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

We saw, we saw rats in the first episode in the lab thing. But, but out in the wild. Yes, I think so.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And so they are start. Invade essentially invade Carol's house in the first place because she hasn't been taking the garbage out. It's obvious that she doesn't know how to do that. Right. That's clearly something that, that Helen did. Right. And so they get into the garbage and then she kind of gets rid of them. And then we get this whole sort of comic farcical element with the drones coming and picking up her garbage, which by the way, again, just lends credence to her narcissistic characteristics. In spite of claiming to be. Have so much agency as from last week and being such an independent figure, she can't, she literally can't even go half day without making demands on Pluribus.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

I need my garbage picked up.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Pick up my garbage. And then we get later a significantly more I think meaningful and terrifying scene in which a kind of a pack of dogs, or maybe they're coyotes. It's possible that they're wolves. It's. I couldn't quite pick out. Right. Because it's nighttime when they try to dig up Helen's body. There's a way that.

What I think thought of. Right. And, and, and Also our. Our Paraguayan.

What does he eat? Right. He's eating expired dog food. There is this kind of recurring figure of dogs in. In Western mythology, dogs have. Have conventionally played this kind of intermediary role between the living and the dead. They have been seen as these kinds of intermediary figures, portrayed as intermediary figures, almost gateways to the underworld or gatekeepers to the underworld. And so that would make some sense here. If part of what's happening is the Gilligan is kind of playing around in this sort of mythological universe, dogs would be an appropriate thing to put, particularly in a context where they're trying to dig up a dead body.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Well, and crucial. Yes. I think there's a couple of crucial things. One is the thing that horrifies Carol the most is when the dogs try and dig up Helen's body. And there is a, you know, there is this kind of dual relationship or this relationship she has with Helen where on the one hand, Helen was the one person who kind of kept her tethered to the world and was mediated and all the rest of it.

[Podcast Host]

It.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

But Carol is so rejectionist of the world, you know, that. Does Carol really miss Helen? She doesn't spend a lot of time grieving. It kind of comes up. But anyway, if you, if you follow that line of logic through. Does Carol not want Helen to be exhumed? Because that's horrifying, of course, in a desecration of her loved one's grave. That's the literal reading. The other thing is Helen is the one who knew Carol the best and kept her tethered to reality. Therefore, as Carol's narcissism spirals, Helen must not be exhumed. She must remain buried for Carol's kind of atomic level narcissistic detonation to kind of reach critical mass. So that's why she has to. She has to rebury Helen and pave her over. And it sort of weighs. That works either way. Sorry.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

Right. No, that's exactly. Yeah. And. And it's. I mean, she's very careful about covering the entire plot, you know, and then she does create a headstone.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Yeah.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

So I think it's. Maybe we're not to see this as entirely cynical, but it. It strikes. I do think it strikes the viewer as meaningful. Yeah, right. In a way that I'm not sure we quite know if. If there's going to be further elements to this particular plot line, but there is something. I think you're quite right. There's something happening here with dogs and the figure of dogs that are recurring over and over again as somehow being unbound in this new world. And what does it mean when these kinds of figures who are mythological gatekeepers to the underworld, mythological mediators between the living and the dead, when they are unbound, what does that look like? How does that contribute thematically?

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Right. Right. Okay. So we've loved talking through this, this episode. We would, as always, really benefit from and value any comments you can. You could leave us Are we at all on the right track? Have we totally missed the totally lost the plot on this episode? What did you make of it? What did you make of its thematics? Jeff, it's great to have you back after my kind of odd solo experience last week. And you were absolutely crucial to this one because Apple dropped it on an odd day, taking kind of Thanksgiving. And I had completely missed this. And you sort of texted me last night, like, we got to do a video.

[Professor Jeff Dudis]

And I wonder how many of our commenters also missed it.

[Professor Stephen Dyson]

Who knows? I mean, I guess we'll find out, but hopefully you're there. Hopefully you see this video. And please do leave us a leave us a comment and we will be back next week. But on that bombshell.