Examining Apple TV's 'Pluribus' Using Jewish Texts

The new hit TV show Pluribus opens with a radical premise (spoilers ahead!): What if all of humanity except for twelve people were infected with a virus that transformed them into the nicest hive mind imaginable? This conglomerate being speaks with the pronoun “we” and simultaneously occupies billions of people across the planet, sharing knowledge and understanding of what each infected individual knows and is experiencing. However, the hive mind cannot harm other creatures or even plants, and wants to make the lives of the twelve remaining unchanged humans as nice as possible, all the while researching how to unite the remaining twelve humans with the bonded being. 

Enter Carol Sturka, a stubborn middle-aged author of romantasy novels who remains unchanged from the hive infection, even as her wife Helen dies when it infects her. Following Carol, the season explores themes of grief, individuality, normalcy, and the lengths we go for the values we hold dear. 

Carol’s grief begins but does not end with the loss of her wife, Helen, to the hive virus. The newly-transformed society offers her empathy, stating in the “we” form how sorry they are that she feels such pain and offering her water as she digs a grave for her beloved. Carol declines. 

As themes of grief and navigating abnormal times permeate the show, I found many parallels between the struggles of Carol to adapt to her new life and the struggles that many Jewish communities have faced in starting over after instances of extreme change, violence, and loss. Starting with the destruction of the First Temple, Jewish communities have continuously had to begin again after experiencing persecution. 

Yet as much as grief and loss during times of change have been common threads among Jewish communities across the globe, they also have never been our defining features. A story from the Talmud suggests that when a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet at an intersection, the wedding procession takes precedent. To me, this indicates the importance of intentional joy in times of hardship and making space for natural moments of happiness even amidst loss. 

Carol’s experience in the post-hive world reflects this lesson. She struggles with alcoholism as a coping mechanism for grief and presents a portrait of emotional rawness that is, at times, painful to watch. She spends entire scenes sobbing, yelling, behaving rudely to others, soaking in her stubbornness in a way that other survivors do not. 

But we also see her in simpler moments, where she enjoys a meal that reminds her of Helen and develops a friendship with Zosia, who is part of the hive. Carol is allowed her lament of the world she lost in a messy way that feels feminist in its harsh, unpalatable portrayal of female grief. This step towards nuance celebrates female anger, allowing for the emotion to exist without judgment while also making space for joy. 

Carol’s messiness and grit also arise from her desire to save the hive from themselves by restoring their individuality. Such noble aims—and such messy means—are reflected in a Midrash from Buber’s Tanchuma, where Rabbi Judah bar Ilai says that if he had been with Noah during the period of floods on the Ark, “[he] would have smashed down [the doors of] the Ark and taken [himself] out of it.” 

Through this quote, the Rabbi reveals a similar feeling to Carol—one simultaneously of desperation amidst uncertain times and of need to act, to do something for the greater good. Indeed, at the center of the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) is the idea that to save one life is to have saved a world, further validating Carol’s emancipatory pushes for the hive people. 

In line with Jewish theology, there is rarely a straightforward answer. In the case of Pluribus, what Carol perceives as saving lives by liberating hive members from the hive virus, other non-hive individuals perceive as destroying a fragile harmony; a world in which finally there are no murders, no violent crimes, and in which the hive itself can do no harm to others. 

There is no right answer ultimately, and that is an uncomfortable truth that viewers are left to wrestle with themselves. Just as with Jewish texts, there are a multitude of interpretations about what comes next, what the best course is through uncertainty, and how to cope with grief that can be understood through the on-screen portrayals of Pluribus. 

I appreciated the show’s open-ended nature to these ethical debates—rather than preaching a specific standpoint, the entire show comes across as a question. What would you do if your loved ones became hive-mind entities? Would you want them to pretend to be normal or to drop the facade of normalcy? Would you miss the everyday interactions at the grocery store or the inconvenience of traffic? Would you see destroying the hive virus as a liberation of individuals or the destruction of a community? There is no correct answer, but grappling with the questions themselves will take Carol and viewers on an internal journey of their own, making it well worth the watch.