What if the apocalypse showed up… as excellent customer service?

In this episode of The Popaganda Podcast, survivor activists Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok bring pop culture obsession and Transformative Justice-flavored analysis to Pluribus (Apple TV+), Vince Gilligan’s sleek, unsettling sci-fi series starring Rhea Seehorn as novelist Carol Sterka—a woman who becomes the world’s least willing VIP.

The premise: an alien virus transforms most of humanity into a calm, coordinated hive mind with one main hobby—politely assimilating everyone. Carol is one of 13 immune people, which means she gets to process catastrophic loss while an entire city of synced-up humans keeps saying her name like an HR training video: “Hi, Carol.”

(Respectfully: no.)

Carol survives the mass “switch up” that turns most of humanity into a calm, coordinated hive mind—while her personal world collapses, leaving her cycling through a full range of complex human emotions. Somehow, the internet’s hot take is: she’s too mad.

We dig into the show’s central seduction—and its menace: the hive mind is efficient and nonviolent, restoring order so smoothly it’s almost soothing—until you notice what it can cost in privacy, culture, and self-determination. But to Carol’s shock, not everyone experiences “collective” as the ultimate threat.

Then the season drops its most abolition-adjacent, TJ beat: after harm happens, the hive doesn’t retaliate. It doesn’t cage. It doesn’t escalate. The virus sets a boundary that reaches for safety and healing rather than punishment.

Leaving us with an important question: what could our world look like if we built responses to harm that keep people alive and cared for—while actively limiting the conditions that allow more violence to happen?

Pop Culture Homework

Watch: Pluribus (Apple TV+), Season 1
Pay attention to: the moments when “care” feels soothing… and when it starts to feel like control
Report back: Are you Team Carol (absolutely not) or Team “okay but the infrastructure is kind of impressive”?

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby.

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Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast