Goddamn, Vince Gilligan’s gone and done it again. And with a completely different genre that’s far away from his comfort zone, no less. Part of this particular show’s genius is just how comfortable it is with going at a slow pace, something few shows and films are willing to do these days.
Wanna hear more? Then read on.
So. You’re here. Thanks for that. Anyway, Vince Gilligan has established himself as one of television’s great masters when it comes to the slow burn. That’s one of the many reasons that Better Call Saul remains my favourite television series of all time, just in front of Breaking Bad. Shocking. Controversial. I know. I remember some of my friends at the time said they didn’t like BCS because they found it too slow. Well, those friends are wrong. Dead wrong. Anyway, they seemed to be implying that Breaking Bad was super-fast by comparison. Newsflash, goobers. It wasn’t. Was it faster? Yeah, but not by a lot. I have another friend who dropped out of Breaking Bad’s first season because they found it too slow. Again, another goober right there. But the point is, Gilligan takes his sweet time establishing character and plot, and his shows are all the better for it. We live in a time dominated by streaming services where folks eat up episodes faster than Fat Bastard eats baby back ribs. There’s no time to savour that flavour and let it dance on your palette, as Nelson Muntz might observe. That was one of the many great joys of watching Pluribus on Apple TV. You had to wait a week for every new episode to arrive. Seven. Whole. Days. The younger gens will be shocked by such a phenomenon, but that’s just how it used to be, kids. Good ol’ delayed gratification. No zoomin’ straight on to the next episode to find out what happens to this character or that dog. You just gotta wait and enjoy the anticipation.
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The basic premise for Pluribus is simple. Alien disease is released in the lab, starts infecting everyone, turning them into super happy benevolent folks without agency. Apart from a spare few. One of these few being Carol Sturka, played by Rhea Seehorn. And let’s just take a moment here for me to gush about how frikkin’ awesome Seehorn is. She flew onto my radar back in Better Call Saul, and she wasn’t even playing the central part. She just oozes confidence, skill, nuance and general awesomeness. Like, not in a lame ‘strong female character’ sort of way, she’s just great without needing to say she’s great. Her face, general body language and vocal delivery are just astounding. She’s generally just the best actress I’ve witnessed on the small screen, and I was overjoyed when I heard she was asking the lead in this joint. What many actresses might take ages to express in overblown verbal exposition, Seehorn gets across with a raised eyebrow or a disapproving hum.
(づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡
Ok, gushing over. What’s great about this series is how little happens. Yes, I’m saying little is a positive. Beyond the season’s short number of episodes compared to a lot of American shows, it’s just refreshing to watch Gilligan’s camera bask in the slowness of time. Without giving too much away, there’s one episode which spends most of the time charting a character’s journey from one location to another. Take your standard prestige series, and you’ll often get characters transitioning from one area to another in the space of the few seconds *cough*GameofThronesLaterSeasons*cough*. Not here, though. Gilligan focuses on the journey. And in typical Gilligan fashion, he knows how to find a good tune and how to employ good tunes with equally fascinating imagery. Certain images in Gilligan’s oeuvre have just become code; take the shot of moving feet of the twins in BB and BCS, for example. You don’t need to see the whole figure to understand which character’s on the screen. Gilligan creates all that dread and tension just by filming a section, in a similar way that Murnau created terror with just filing a shadow in Nosferatu. The subtely – and slowness – of the camera is all. None of those mind-numbing Michael Bay-style fast cuts that are full of explosion and meaningless violence. When one of Pluribus’ character gets caught on spikes while journeying through a forest, it’s not gratuitous. It’s an effective dramatic payoff following an articulate build-up of tension via the silent power of imagery. (*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)*.ﾟ
And that’s another point of criticism I’ve heard. The characters. The fact that there aren’t many characters. Surely you could understand from the general premise of the trailer that that’s kind of the point? There’s just Carol up against a hive group for the most part. So it’s basically a character study. And even within this frame, there are still individual characters that are intriguing. The main woman who Carol is compelled by, some of the other characters who haven’t been drawn into the hive mind, particularly the character you start to see more of in the last couple of episodes. But yeah, this is generally an individual character analysis. Not enough Marvel multiverse characters hoppin’ around for ya, eh? Deal with it. I’ve also seen online shots at Carol for being an annoying character. Well, not annoying, exactly, but ‘unlikeable’. I’m 99% sure that none of these comments would’ve been made if said character was a male. Nobody’s taking shots at Manousos. There’s a kind of expectation for some viewers that a good female character should be ‘likeable’. Stop that shit. There was enough of that with Skyla White in Breaking Bad, and there’s been enough of that before with prestige series characters like Margaret Thompson (Boardwalk Empire) and Carmela Soprano (The Sopranos). It’s not helpful. It’s great to see female characters that don’t conform to the placid, twee stereotypes that are just dull and wholly unimaginative. Anyway, Carol Sturka ftw. ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ – ˵ ) ✧
Pluribus is gorgeously shot, which is always going to be a plus for an aesthetic obsessive like yours truly. But the plotting is just so damn good, and the narrative isn’t afraid to take surprising directions as it plods along at its own smooth pace. Part of me definitely wanted the series to be wrapped up to savour that sweet sweet slow glory, but it’s clear from the finale that there will be at least one more season heading our way. Bring it on, Gilligan.
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