Carol’s Dilemma with the Atom Bomb

The Pluribus season 1 finale saw Carol briefly wavering on her commitment to reverse the “joining” of nearly everyone else on Earth — that is, until a new revelation jolted her back into action. After being worn down by over a month of isolation and insistence from the likes of Diabaté and Laxmi that she is the problem, Carol relented to the others.

She welcomed them back to Albuquerque, and when Manousos drove them away again, Carol went with them. But reality crashed back down when Zosia revealed that Carol’s frozen eggs could be used against her, leading her to return to Manousos with a literal atom bomb in tow. The question is, what’s she going to do with it? And what could she do with it without becoming a villain in her own right?

For Now, Carol Should Use The Atom Bomb As Protection

Carol talking to Manousos in Pluribus’ finale

Carol knows that the joining can be reversed, and Manousos seems to be onto something with his research and radio wave experiments that caused everyone to vacate Albuquerque once again. But they have some work to do before they know anything concrete or have a way to implement it. It’s likely that the others will get increasingly antsy as they get closer to finding a solution.

All in all, the others are shockingly harmless, but the virus is the one thing that has gotten them to behave unexpectedly. So far, those moments, too, have been pretty passive — removing themselves from the situation or surrounding Carol and begging “please” — but we don’t know yet what lengths the others will take to preserve and spread their virus.

It’s likely that if Carol and Manousos actually get close to finding a way to reverse it, the others will want to stop them. Threatening to detonate the atom bomb would be a smart fail-safe to prevent the others from disturbing their work. Carol and Manousos come across as just desperate enough to do it, and while the others agreed to give Carol an atom bomb in the first place, it definitely gave them pause.

What complicates this plan, though, is the others’ complete lack of any self-preservation instincts unrelated to the virus. They released all animals in captivity, even the ones that mauled them to death, and not only did they give Carol an atom bomb, but they gave her a hand grenade that she didn’t even want, and Zosia dove on it to save Carol. They’ll even starve to death rather than harvest a plant.

With that in mind, threatening the others with violence or death may not be effective, but it does show how much they prioritize the happiness and livelihood of Carol and the other survivors. If Carol and Manousos threaten to blow themselves up if they’re interfered with, it just might be enough of a deterrent to allow them to find humanity’s solution.

When Carol Is Ready, It Should Be A Decoy

Carol holding mysterious milk carton fluid in Pluribus episode 5

The others’ lack of physical self-preservation could continue to work to Carol and Manousos’ advantage if they play their cards right. The others will remove themselves from a situation if their virus is threatened, but that’s about it. They continued to deliver Carol’s videos about her discoveries and even begged to take Manousos directly to her.

In Carol’s initial conversation, where they begrudgingly admitted they would give her an atom bomb if she asked for one, the implication was that they wouldn’t stop her from ending the world if she chose to. Essentially, the others would sooner line up around a nuclear bomb than they would agree to reverse the effects of the joining. And this is just what Carol should ask them to do.

Kusimayu’s joining scene in the season 1 finale was chilling. In one somber moment, she joined the hive mind, and her culture vanished along with her. It was emotionally significant, but the scene also revealed the logistics of how the virus can be spread to the survivors. Each survivor’s stem cells are used to create a unique gas that infects upon inhalation.

It seems plausible to assume the opposite would be true as well — that reversing the joining could follow a similar procedure. Once Carol and Manousos figure out how to do this, they could conceivably trick the others into taking it… with some acting chops.

If Carol and Manousos declared that the world can’t be saved, that they would rather give up their lives than join the others, and that it would really make them happy if the others came to see them off, they likely would come. At least a lot of them would. They’re willing to sacrifice some of their own bodies for the happiness and wish fulfillment of other beings.

At which point, Carol and Manousos would detonate what is, in fact, not an atom bomb but a cure. Even if not all the others were present, it would shift the numbers significantly in their favor, and tracking down the rest would be much more doable.

It’s potentially an out-there theory, but it just might be the exception to the storytelling rule of “Chekhov’s gun“: an atom bomb introduced in season 1 doesn’t have to go off in Pluribus season 2.