Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Pluribus Episode 3.
After a two-episode premiere that may or may not have crashed Apple TV itself — not to mention upended the very fabric of humanity in its fictional world — Vince Gilligan‘s new sci-fi series Pluribus is slowing things down this week with its third hour. Like the show’s protagonist, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), there’s no doubt that viewers still have a lot of questions that haven’t yet been resolved.
Episode 3, “Grenade,” written and directed by Gordon Smith (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), attempts to answer some dangling asks, particularly when it comes to the inner workings of this strange hivemind and whether their biological imperative to cater to everyone’s happiness should actually have some hard limits. The question of just how much free will the “Others” (as they’ve now been dubbed) actually possess in their new existence has already been raised, most distinctly in last week’s “Pirate Lady,” but this week, Carol’s out to put that to the test, with her continued willingness to push the envelope culminating in an explosive ending that reveals the episode’s title isn’t metaphorical in the slightest.
Carol Just Wants To Be Left Alone in ‘Pluribus’ Episode 3
Before we pick up with the aftermath of Carol literally jumping in front of Air Force One to stop Diabaté (Samba Schutte) from taking off with Zosia (Karolina Wydra) as the newest addition to his entourage, “Grenade” travels back in time, first — 2617 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes, and 42 seconds (and counting) before the Joining, to be precise. Carol and her partner/manager, Helen (Miriam Shor), are celebrating the milestone with a “once-in-a-lifetime” stay at an ice hotel in Norway, and it’s pretty clear from the jump that only one of them wants to be there. Helen is marveling at their room, kept at a balmy three-below, and excitedly practicing her Norwegian with the bellhop, Bjorn, while Carol grumbles that they’ve flown “sixteen hours to get frozen like Walt Disney” and is far more preoccupied with finding out whether her latest Wycaro book has hit the bestseller list. Helen assures her it’s in the top 20 (“but, like, closer to 11 or closer to 20?” Carol persists), and tries to get Carol to sit still enough to appreciate the view of the Northern Lights overhead — and to let herself enjoy the moment, for once.
After the show’s opening titles, the episode cuts to three days out from the Joining, and Carol is flying back home to Albuquerque after a mostly failed meeting with the other English-speaking immune. At least there are actual pilots in command of the plane this time. Carol brushes off Zosia’s offer to sit up in first class, where it’s more spacious, but then summons her back with a question about the other immune people who can’t speak English conversationally. Among them are a 68-year-old candy vendor in Istanbul, a 23-year-old contortionist in Bali, an 89-year-old retired fisherman in Sardinia, an eight-year-old in Lesotho whose family raises sheep, and a 37-year-old muezzin in Yemen. In other words, no medical doctors in the bunch, since it’s clear Carol still intends to find a cure for what’s happened. As for the last individual in Paraguay, Manousos Oviedo (Carlos Manuel Vesga), he’s the manager of a self-storage facility who has, as Zosia reveals, been “reluctant to get in contact” with the Others. Maybe he’ll respond to Carol?
Zosia dials Oviedo’s number from the plane, but the man is difficult to get hold of, to say the least. The first time, he doesn’t even pick up, and the second, he hangs up before Carol can introduce herself. By redial number two, it’s clear he thinks she’s one of the Others, because he slings insults at her before ending the call — so Carol forces Zosia to call back one more time just so she can deliver her most cutting Spanish profanity. Once back in Albuquerque, Carol tries to ditch Zosia at the curbside, but Zosia wants to make sure she hands off all of Carol’s mail, which the Others made sure to collect from various points in transit on her behalf. Most of it is bills, or junk mail, or the occasional takeout menu, but at least one envelope has Helen’s name on it, which Carol briefly lingers on. The biggest package contains a personal massager, and when Carol picks up the phone to dial the Others and demand where it came from, Zosia reveals that Helen ordered it for her as a homecoming present: “You’d been so stressed out on the tour. You tried one in the Atlanta airport, but you said it was too expensive, so Helen bought one online.”
Carol quietly, albeit vehemently, demands that the Others forget everything they know about Helen and her memories — “Get her out of your heads. Never mention her again. Never think about her again. Only I get to remember her, you got that? Only me.” A day later, Carol has clearly been doing nothing but binge-watching Golden Girls DVDs when a ring of the doorbell summons her: the Others have dropped off a tray of hot breakfast, since they know she doesn’t have a lot in the fridge right now. The tray is dumped in the garbage out back, and Carol orders the Others to leave her alone, but even she can’t deny that her fridge is a little lacking, so it’s off to the supermarket she goes, in that same unicorn truck she commandeered the night of the Joining. Inside, however, everything has been completely cleared out in an effort to consolidate resources — “it’s just more efficient,” Zosia explains, and says they can deliver Carol anything she needs, but Carol, who prides herself on her independence, insists she wants to be able to take care of herself. Mere minutes later, trucks are driving up, and Carol watches, stunned, as the Others proceed to restock the Sprouts in perfect synchronicity.
The Others’ Attempt to Cheer Carol Up Backfires in ‘Pluribus’ Episode 3
That night, while Carol is trying to binge more Golden Girls, the power goes out both in her house and across town before the lights come back on in her cul-de-sac only — another conservation effort by the Others. With no crime to prevent now, and no work going on apart from essential operations (water treatment, hospitals, etc.), there’s no need to keep the power on everywhere. In a moment of frustration on the phone with Zosia, Carol sarcastically declares that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her that a hand grenade wouldn’t fix — that it would be “the perfect topper for the greatest week in human history.”
After that, it’s back to Golden Girls, where Carol decides to turn up the volume as loud as she wants with no neighbors around to complain about the noise. Later that night, however, she’s surprised by Zosia on her doorstep, holding the hand grenade she requested — because the Others thought she was probably being sarcastic but didn’t want to take the chance in case it was a real ask. Rather than letting Zosia walk off into the night, Carol invites her inside for a drink with the grenade on the table between them. Thanks to having all the Others’ memories and knowledge, Zosia can offer an explanation of the linguistic origins of the vodka they’re drinking, as well as what this particular brand is distilled from. Carol only wants to know how long she has left before she’s turned into a “worker bee” like the rest of them. Zosia says the Others are working around the clock; it could be a couple of weeks, months, or longer.
Carol then poses a question that has been hovering over Pluribus since the hivemind took over everything: if her life is her own, then why are the Others so motivated to assimilate her? Zosia explains it as a “biological imperative” and likens Carol to someone who’s drowning and just doesn’t know it; of course, the Others want to throw her a life preserver. Carol can already predict the type of pitch they’ll try and give her as someone on the outside looking in — that life is like living inside a postcard every day, or vacationing in Croatia, or staying in Norway, above the Arctic Circle. Zosia finishes Carol’s thought aloud with a memory of their time in the hotel, but Carol icily issues a reminder that Helen and her memories are still off-limits, and then picks up the grenade to start playing with it. Zosia warns her to be careful, but Carol scoffs. “Like you would give me a real hand grenade.” The pin comes out, and Zosia only just manages to pluck it from Carol’s hand, throw it out a window, and tackle her to the ground before an explosion rocks the front yard.
Carol staggers outside to take in the aftermath; every window in the truck has been blown out, and there’s flaming debris everywhere. Zosia staggers out behind her and drops to the ground, her back full of shrapnel from the blast she took on Carol’s behalf. The hivemind’s first responders are already incoming, and by the next morning, Carol is in the hospital when a guy in a DHL delivery uniform comes out into the waiting area to deliver an update on Zosia: some blood loss, no significant nerve damage, but they do want to monitor her symptoms in light of a severe concussion. But Carol’s more interested in finding out why the Others gave her that hand grenade in the first place, because they’d apparently give her another one, if she asked, as well as a bazooka or a tank, although they balk at her hypothetical of an atomic bomb. They have every right to say no, she insists, but they can’t seem to be able to — which poses a completely new dilemma for Carol moving forward, as well as a power that she might be tempted to take more advantage of.
- Release Date
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November 6, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV
- Directors
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Adam Bernstein, Zetna Fuentes, Melissa Bernstein
- Carol and Zosia’s relationship continues to become more interesting and complicated.
- The Sprouts supermarket scene is a great synchronized sequence.
- The episode’s closing scene is one of its best so far.
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