{"id":17014,"date":"2025-12-05T10:09:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17014"},"modified":"2025-12-05T10:09:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:09:39","slug":"this-weeks-pluribus-has-the-best-cameo-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17014","title":{"rendered":"This Week\u2019s Pluribus Has the Best Cameo of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Full spoilers follow for <\/strong>Pluribus<\/strong><\/u> Episode 6, \u201cHDP,\u201d which is available now on Apple TV.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HDP is people!<\/u><\/p>\n

OK, most of us figured this out last week in \u201cGot Milk\u201d<\/u> when Carol (Rhea Seehorn) was investigating what the Joined\u2019s favorite drink actually was made of, culminating in that episode\u2019s closing moment as she gasped like only someone who had just found a stockpile of frozen dead bodies could.<\/p>\n

Yeah, a lot of us were off a bit in that it\u2019s actually a stockpile of frozen dead body pieces<\/em> that Carol unearthed, but all the same, the Joined are definitely pulling a Soylent Green and eating us. Only, because this is Vince Gilligan\u2019s Pluribus, it\u2019s not quite that simple. But it is darkly funny.<\/p>\n

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Of course \u2013 of course \u2013 instead of playing this revelation in a protracted, thriller-esque way, Gilligan and his team (this episode was written by Vera Blasi and directed by Gandja Monteiro) pull the rug out from under the viewer pretty quickly and squash their own big twist. \u201cYeah, no duh, HDP is people,\u201d the show basically says. \u201cYou think we haven\u2019t also watched the past 50 years of sci-fi movies!?\u201d<\/p>\n

And so enters John Cena. Not just John Cena, but a Joined John Cena<\/em>. And he\u2019s everything you could hope for. Charming, reasonable, informative\u2026 all while explaining the intricacies of why the Joined need \u201chuman derived protein,\u201d or HDP \u2013 aka human flesh<\/em> \u2013 for sustenance. And Koumba (Samba Schutte) cutting Carol off before she can even reveal her big news about the frozen bodies with a resigned \u201cIs this about them eating people?\u201d isn\u2019t just funny; it\u2019s also our first hint at how out of the loop Carol has been.<\/p>\n

The dynamic between these two uninfected is interesting in that we can look at them as polar opposites, obviously: Carol the constant skeptic versus Koumba the willing dupe. But is it that simple? After all, it turns out that Koumba figured out the HDP thing before Carol did, and not just that but he and the other infected (sans Manousos in Paraguay of course) have been talking regularly about the situation, and in particular are concerned about the sudden, unexpected plight that the Joined are in (they\u2019re going to starve eventually). It\u2019s so easy to assume that the other uninfected are suckers just because they haven\u2019t lashed out the way Carol has and because they\u2019re so willing to go with the flow, but then it turns out that Carol in all her obstinance hasn\u2019t really made any significant headway herself in any of this.<\/p>\n

Koumba cutting Carol off before she can even reveal her big news with ‘Is this about them eating people?’ isn\u2019t just funny; it also shows how out of the loop Carol has been.<\/div>\n

And then there\u2019s the fact that the uninfected have purposely kept Carol out of the loop, voting (if not unanimously!) to not include her in their meetings. Koumba has been getting her videos, as presumably all of the others have as well \u2013 \u201cthey were very dramatic\u201d \u2013 but nobody\u2019s responded to them or even acknowledged them before now. It\u2019s hurtful, so much so that Carol needs to take a powder in the bathroom before apparently getting blitzed on champagne and passing out for the night. But the truly sad part comes the next morning when she tells Koumba that she\u2019s going to grab a suite in the hotel, only to register the look on his face: He doesn\u2019t want her there. He\u2019s a nice guy, but he has a life to live with his \u201clovelies\u201d and there\u2019s no room for Carol at all. \u201cHow you say? Check in now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, what kind of survival instinct do the Joined have if they\u2019re willing to starve rather than eat, like, corn? Their mandate to not even eat plant life is limiting, to say the least. But then again, perhaps it\u2019s the ultimate method of population control. As the human race dies off from hunger, eventually the planet would hit some kind of equalization point where enough, well, fallen apples or what have you could feed the relatively small amount of people left. I guess?<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Carlos-Manuel Vesga\u2019s Manousos, who \u2013 wouldn\u2019t you know it \u2013 doesn\u2019t just watch Carol\u2019s first video, but is so moved by it as to finally leave his Omega Man bunker and head out to, presumably, find her. He doesn\u2019t even know that there are 12 other uninfected until he watches the video. This leads to one of the creepiest scenes in Pluribus to date, as Manousos encounters his mother on the street as she emerges from the shadows in the dead of night. It\u2019s not something Carol has had to deal with yet, encountering people she knew in the Before Times, let alone family members. We\u2019ve already established that she\u2019s estranged from her own mother. But then again, that might be something Manousos and Carol have in common as he tells the woman, \u201cYou\u2019re not my mother. My mother\u2019s a bitch\u201d before driving into the night.<\/p>\n

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“Given our druthers, would we choose to consume HDP?” -John Cena<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Questions and Notes From Kepler-22b<\/strong><\/p>\n