{"id":140007,"date":"2025-11-14T20:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/140007\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:19:08","slug":"season-1-episode-3-grenade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/140007\/","title":{"rendered":"season 1, episode 3, “Grenade”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, do you ever think about the end of the world? You have to, right? Given the times? Me, I\u2019d like my post-apocalypse to be like Carol\u2019s in this week\u2019s Pluribus<\/a> episode. Sure, she\u2019s lonely and scared. But she does get to sleep in her own bed and eat the food she likes. Also\u2014and I can not stress this enough\u2014she gets to watch TV.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Carol watches The Golden Girls<\/a>. Even more specifically, she watches a DVD set of The Golden Girls. And the medium matters. As soon as I heard the familiar voice of Betty White\u2019s sweetly dim Rose Nylund coming out of Carol\u2019s television set, I wondered if the Joined were still operating TV stations and cable channels. By the end of this episode, it seems clear they probably aren\u2019t, for reasons that are quite ominous, actually.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s raise a glass of good vodka\u2014distilled from both potato and corn!\u2014to Carol Sturka, keeping hope alive for all of us who\u2019d like to ride out the end-times by vegging out to \u201980 sitcoms. How human can you get?<\/p>\n

The title of this episode is \u201cGrenade,\u201d which refers to an unserious request by Carol that\u2019s taken by her alien-infected overlords at face value. Feeling smothered by the Joined\u2019s constant efforts to make her happy, Carol jokes, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with me that a fucking hand grenade wouldn\u2019t fix.\u201d Later that night, the individual known as Zosia shows up at Carol\u2019s house with a hand grenade. \u201cWe thought you were probably being sarcastic,\u201d Zosia says. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t want to take the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince Gilligan includes “This show was made by humans” disclaimer in Pluribus credits<\/a>Pluribus’ Rhea Seehorn unpacks this week’s “crushing twist”<\/a><\/p>\n

The grenade, in a way, symbolizes the incredible level of cooperation and competence exhibited by the hive mind, as experienced through Carol\u2019s cynical eyes. Although the Joined are, presumably, very busy, they still make time to cater to Carol whenever she has a request or a complaint. It\u2019s scary how efficient and effective they can be. It also makes for some funny sight gags, as these ordinary-looking people go to extraordinary lengths for her, smiling all the while.<\/p>\n

On the whole, \u201cGrenade\u201d features less grand spectacle than we saw last week, which might make some viewers feel a little impatient. There\u2019s still so much we don\u2019t know about what just happened to humanity or why. Because Carol doesn\u2019t trust the collective to give her honest information, she refuses to ask them important things, like: Why did the aliens send the eternal happiness formula to Earth in the first place? That can be frustrating, for sure.<\/p>\n

Instead, Carol mostly pouts and stews. On the plane home from Spain, she asks Zosia (whom she apparently retrieved from Air Force One after the previous episode\u2019s dramatic ending) if there are any non-English-speaking, non-Joined humans who might be more aligned with her bitter take of The State Of Things. The Joined try to connect her by phone with a Paraguayan self-storage facility manager, but across multiple calls he proves to be as standoffish with Carol as he has been with the alien-aligned folks. (Conjuring up what she can recall of her traveler\u2019s Spanish, Carol rings this dude up one last time to shout, \u201cChinga tu madre, cabr\u00f3n!\u201d)<\/p>\n

So Carol returns to Albuquerque and isolation\u2014to vodka and The Golden Girls. On the whole, this choice makes for less exciting television than the events of Pluribus episodes one and two. But I do think what happens this week is necessary, to show both the potential and the limitations of Carol\u2019s new life as one of Earth\u2019s few non-blissed-out humans.<\/p>\n

On the plus side: As already noted, the whole planetary population is at Carol\u2019s disposal. When she tries to go shopping and finds her local Sprouts has been picked clean, all she has to do is call and the Joined quickly fill the shelves back up. The scene of the trucks arriving in unison\u2014with a small army of minions streaming in to unload them\u2014is one of this episode\u2019s few big-scale \u201cwow\u201d moments. It\u2019s a moment of pure fantasy: the woman who can have everything.<\/p>\n

And yes, the collective would give her another hand grenade if she were to ask. They\u2019d give her a bazooka, too. Or an atom bomb. They hope that she won\u2019t ask for any of these things\u2014especially after she pulls the pin on what she assumes is a fake grenade and nearly kills Zosia. But they\u2019ll try to accommodate her demands, no matter how potentially destructive. That\u2019s how much her happiness means to them. Isn\u2019t that\u2026nice?<\/p>\n

On the minus side: The enthralled masses are apparently busily working on something outside of Carol\u2019s view. I\u2019m not suggesting that they\u2019re deviously hiding anything. Given that Carol is so obstinately incurious, I can\u2019t blame the Joined for not telling her how they spend their days. Still, it seems inauspicious when all of Albuquerque\u2014aside from Carol\u2019s block\u2014blacks out at night in the name of conservation. Apparently, since there\u2019s no crime to prevent and no one works at night, who needs power? (\u201cYou donated twice to the Sierra Club,\u201d Zosia says apologetically to Carol. \u201cWe thought you\u2019d understand.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Also, the collective still intends to convert Carol, as soon as they can figure out how. Zosia describes this first as \u201ca biological imperative,\u201d although when that description is unpersuasive, the hive shifts to a more provocative analogy. Zosia asks, \u201cIf you saw somebody drowning, would you throw them a life preserver?\u201d\u2014suggesting that Carol\u2019s in need of rescue.<\/p>\n

And maybe she is! The other visually spectacular scene in \u201cGrenade\u201d is in the cold open\u2014the very cold open\u2014set at a Norwegian ice hotel, seven years before the alien takeover. There, a very cranky Carol resisted her partner Helen\u2019s efforts to get her to appreciate the wonders around her. In this place where the Aurora Borealis was visible through a window, and where every piece of decor had been lovingly sculpted by accomplished artists, all Carol could think about is how it was three degrees below zero in their suite and how she expected her latest book to be higher up the bestseller list in its debut week. The patient and understanding Helen needled her, saying this vacation was perfect because \u201cYou love feeling bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the episode, after Carol asks Zosia to have a drink with her, she tries to imagine what it must be like to be Joined, wondering if it\u2019s \u201clike every Rick Steves special ever\u201d\u2014using an analogy she also used with Helen to describe the ice hotel. This is what mindless happiness looks like to Carol: being able to appreciate the awesomeness of nature without complaining.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not so sure. I find the idea of the Joined all switching off their lights at night to be chilling. Do they not take evening walks? Do they not gather around tables to play board games? Do they not watch TV?! I can\u2019t imagine a happy life without those small pleasures, so satisfying to one\u2019s individual tastes, including the tastes of those who like to grumble and moan. Without tiny joys, who are we?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 I\u2019d like to thank Joyce Carol Oates for getting into a public feud with Elon Musk<\/a> centered on the main subject of this review. If people don\u2019t take any obvious, open, and personal pleasure in anything, how \u201csuccessful\u201d are they, really?
\n\u2022 I\u2019ve been wrestling in these reviews with what to call the alien-infected masses. (I can\u2019t call them \u201caliens,\u201d because the C-SPAN chyron in the series premiere said not to.) A lot of the press material I\u2019ve seen calls them \u201cThe Others,\u201d but that term hasn\u2019t been said on the show, near as I can recall\u2014and also, in my opinion, that moniker\u2019s taken<\/a>. I don\u2019t think \u201cThe Joined\u201d or \u201cThe Joining\u201d has been mentioned on the show either, but I\u2019ve seen that in press materials and I like it.
\n\u2022 Something to file away: In the ice-hotel flashback, Carol gripes that their suite is cold enough to freeze her eggs (\u201cyolks and all\u201d); and she references paying a lot of money to a fertility center. I don\u2019t think Vince Gilligan & co. would do anything as hacky as suggest that Carol is miserable because she has struggled to become a mother. But! Could one of her future requests involve trying to get pregnant? (I\u2019m not watching ahead so this isn\u2019t a spoiler. Just speculation.)
\n\u2022 My favorite moment in the Sprouts sequence is when a cheery fellow carrying supplies back into the store says, \u201cCarol! May we sneak past you here?\u201d Runner-up: A solo Carol shopping for groceries while Sade\u2019s \u201cThe Sweetest Taboo\u201d plays over the PA.
\n\u2022 A tip of the cap to this episode\u2019s credited writer-director Gordon Smith and the Pluribus creative team for the cool shot of The Golden Girls\u2019s Rose, seen in the reflection of a DVD.
\n\u2022 Lastly, kudos to whomever was responsible for picking the Golden Girls scene in which Rose describes an old acquaintance who lacked smiling muscles and who would stand on her head to express happiness\u2026 literally turning her frown upside-down. Hey, whatever it takes to look friendly, right?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hey, do you ever think about the end of the world? You have to, right? Given the times?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-140007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}