This post contains spoilers for the first episode of Pluribus.

Pluribus is the new show brought to you by the same team who made Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The creators are all at the peak of their craft, including the writers. The show has only just started airing, but I’m watching it with confidence because I trust them.

I’ve listened to every episode of the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul insider podcasts, which gave me some insight into how they write their shows. The writers have latitude to think through every character’s decision and plot out what would happen in each branch of the decision tree, and then choose the path that makes the most sense for the characters and the show.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in Pluribus. But I trust that the writers have thought it through, and that whatever they chose, they made the right decision.

In the pilot episode, some aliens broadcast a signal containing RNA sequence that describes a virus-like thing. Humanity sees the signal and builds the thing, and it infects humans.

From this fact, I’m pretty sure that the aliens have visited earth, because they knew how to construct an RNA sequence that would infect humans. But I only know this because I know the writers are going to make it make sense.

In the hands of lesser writers, they might say the aliens are biologically identical to humans except that they have wrinkly foreheads¹, which is why the RNA sequence works on humans. Or, even worse, they might have no mental model whatsoever of what RNA is or how it works. But I trust Vince Gilligan and the crew, which lets me make deductions:

• The aliens broadcast an RNA sequence, which means they know what RNA is, which means either they’ve visited earth or they share a common ancestor with earth life (likely due to natural panspermia).
• But the virus thing only works on humans, not any other mammal (the show specifically makes a point of telling us this). Therefore, the aliens must know about human biology.
• Therefore, the aliens must have visited earth at some point in the last few tens of thousands of years.

I trust that the creators of Pluribus will make their show make sense.

Take this quote from Vince Gilligan from the pilot episode of the Pluribus podcast. The context is that he’s discussing how the scene in the secure biology lab was originally written to have a lone scientist working, but their science advisor said that a BSL-4 lab would always have at least two people present.

I just went with my old X-Files learning from years ago. A person by themselves, it’s going to be scarier. So that’s the way I intended it. But then, yeah, [science advisor] Erin [Macdonald] said, it just doesn’t work that way. I thought for a microsecond, as I always do, well, artistic license, let’s just keep it this way. Then I thought, it’s never steered me wrong. It’s always held me—and us as a group—it’s held us in good stead when we get things technically accurate or as accurate as we humanly can. It never has harmed us. It has always paid dividends. [timestamp 35:00]

I’ve seen some debate as to whether the show will explain how the hive mind is able to communicate with itself. Some say the show isn’t about the science; it’s meant to be a character study. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know if they’re going to explain how it works. What I do know is this: if explaining how it works makes the show better, then they’ll explain how it works. And if keeping it mysterious makes the show better, then they’ll keep it mysterious. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I know that whatever it is, the writers will do it that way.

Posted on Nov 29, 2025

Notes