For years, Vince Gilligan, the acclaimed creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, operated in a world defined by crystal meth, moral decay, and New Mexican courtrooms. His decision to finally move past the world of Saul Goodman and Walter White was met with intense speculation, culminating in the highly secretive launch of his new science-fiction drama, Pluribus.

The introduction of this new world naturally raises question about origin and history of Pluribus.

Pluribus is an original sci-fi drama set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which, despite the familiar setting, has no narrative connection to Gilligan’s previous works. The plot begins when researchers intercept an alien signal containing an RNA sequence. An accidental lab leak subsequently infects the world's population, compelling them into a state of forced, collective happiness known as The Joining. The infected, referred to as the Pluribus. The title, Pluribus, likely references the Latin phrase E pluribus unum (Out of many, one), reflecting the series' core concept of complete individual assimilation into a shared consciousness.

The series was created by Vince Gilligan and streams on Apple TV, which won a significant bidding war for the show. The show premiered with two episodes on November 7, 2025. The lead star is Rhea Seehorn, who portrays the curmudgeonly, self-hating romance author Carol Sturka.

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The show’s startling premise, a grinning apocalypse, raises questions about its connection to reality.

No, Pluribus is not based on one specific real-life event or person. According to Variety, the show’s pandemic theme opening, featuring a rapidly spreading infection and people being forced into isolation, was conceived years before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Vince Gilligan. He began thinking about this concept nearly a decade ago, initially imagining a protagonist who becomes the center of attention after the entire population suddenly becomes "unfailingly nice" to him, even willing to sacrifice their lives.

According to Variety, Gilligan eventually rewrote the lead role specifically for Rhea Seehorn, evolving the main character into the "emotional hot mess" Carol Sturka, a reluctant and inept hero forced to save the world. Like Breaking Bad, the series creates a fictional world inspired by what could happen if ordinary individuals faced extraordinary and corrupting circumstances.

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While the plot is fictional, Gilligan’s commentary reveals potent real-world anxieties informing the story’s themes.

While Gilligan maintains that audiences should determine the theme for themselves, his public statements reveal that the show is deeply informed by contemporary political and cultural anxieties. The Pluribus, an army of all-knowing, obsequious entities consuming humanity, may serve as a metaphor for the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, a technology Gilligan openly despises.

He described AI as the world’s most “expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine" and expressed concern about the technology's eventual unregulated spread. Gilligan stated that every generation deserves its own stories, rather than just the stories of their grandparents, explaining his drive to create new, original intellectual property rather than relying on reboots or comic book adaptations.

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Discover the fate of individuality in the face of forced happiness by watching Pluribus now on Apple TV.