So I’m still a skeptic as far as alien visitors are concerned but it seems I’m bumping into extraterrestrial stories whenever I turn on the TV. Following the epic success of Better Call Saul (one of my favorite series of all time) the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan (great name), has returned to the New Mexican landscape with a mind-bending show titled Pluribus.
Without giving too much away I can say that it’s a clever send-up of the often-asked question, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Well, in Pluribus, we do all get along, or at least most of us—all but 12 survivors of a global cataclysm. Rhea Seehorn (who played Kim on Better Call Saul) is the flinty star of the show. She’s good in the role but awfully ornery. At least she is until toward the end of Season One, when she does loosen up a bit. My take: The shadow of ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) lurks in the background. The cataclysm that occurs seems a metaphor for an ASI apocalypse of sorts. Good news: It’s not all bad! Everyone gets along! (Of course there’s a catch that I won’t give away: Watch the show and find out.) That brings us to Bugonia, which will no doubt be somebody’s darling in the awards shows.
Alien life forms and civilizations hover around the edges of this story, and not wanting to give too much away, I’ll leave it at that. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone are both terrific in it, and mange to pull off the kookiness with aplomb. But in both Pluribus and Bugonia there’s a hint (or more) of humankind having an expiration date. It’s our zeitgeist. Will the 21st century be our last? I doubt it. But every century has its apocalyptic moments, and we seem to be fodder for the End Times.