{"id":367345,"date":"2025-12-24T10:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/367345\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:35:10","slug":"pluribus-episode-9-season-finale-review-la-chica-o-el-mundo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/367345\/","title":{"rendered":"Pluribus Episode 9 – Season Finale Review, \u2018La Chica o El Mundo\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Full spoilers follow for Pluribus<\/a> Episode 9, \u201cLa Chica o El Mundo,\u201d which is available now on Apple TV.<\/p>\n

And then there was one! Er, two!<\/p>\n

Finally, after nine episodes of being very lonely on opposite sides of the globe, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) and Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) have met face to face. And it did not go well at all. Big surprise.<\/p>\n

But before we get to those two, \u201cLa Chica o El Mundo\u201d (or \u201cThe Girl or the World\u201d) begins with a look at Kusimayu (Darinka Arones), the Peruvian girl who is one of the 13 uninfected and who Carol met back in Episode 2<\/a>. She\u2019s the one who actually expressed interest in joining the Others, aka the Joined, and here we see that the hive mind has finally figured out how to make that happen. \u201cWe would never hurt you,\u201d Kusimayu\u2019s family and friends \u2013 or former family and friends? \u2013 tell her. And they don\u2019t physically hurt her, to be sure. She simply inhales the live virus, which transforms her into one of them. So why is the scene so horrifying, then?<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/a>“Hola.”<\/p>\n

Man, the way the lovely tribal singing that the village folk have been aurally caressing Kusimayu with just abruptly stops once she\u2019s joined\u2026 it\u2019s ghastly. As the villagers, including the now joined Kusimayu, proceed to completely shut the place down \u2013 in silence but with a smile, always with a smile \u2013 drives home yet another danger behind the Kepler-22b virus: the complete and under destruction of human cultures. Just ask that baby goat that goes running after Kusimayu when she opens the animal enclosure in one final betrayal of her former way of life. Baaaaaa.<\/p>\n

From there we return to Carol and Zosia (Karolina Wydra), the strangest couple in Albuquerque, who are watching a satellite image of Manousos\u2019 ambulance as his arrival grows nearer (\u201cAnd he\u2019s in an ambulance?\u201d \u201cLong story,\u201d Zosia says in that disarming way of hers).<\/p>\n

(Of note is the fact that the title card tells us that this is happening some 60 days after the Joining, whereas the previous scene with Kusimayu takes place 71 days before. We\u2019ve seen this kind of time-shifting put to use before, mostly to convey the most important aspects of Manousos\u2019 story as compared to Carol\u2019s, since they didn\u2019t really line up in a linear way for the viewer. And by the end of this episode, Carol will catch up to Kusimayu\u2019s latest development too. It\u2019s just a cool way that creator Vince Gilligan and his writers have been crafting this story.)<\/p>\n

These two clashing was inevitable. They\u2019re just too similar, too hard-headed. And that\u2019s surely why they\u2019re the only ones who can save the world.<\/p>\n

But back to Carol and Manousos\u2019 first meeting. Boy, could it have gone any worse? By which I mean, could it have gone any better\u2026 for we, the viewers, that is? I mean, how freaking awkward is it when they greet each other outside the house? Sure, the language difference was always going to make things tough, but we\u2019re talking about two of the last 13 people on Earth with free will\u2026 and possibly the last two who actually give a damn about that very concept. This could\u2019ve been a Hollywood-style meet-up, complete with soaring fanfare as they ran and hugged each other. But nope, instead we get \u201cI no dangerous\u201d and instant disagreements. And it only gets worse from there\u2026 This guy snaps his fingers at Carol!? Man!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hilarious, but these two clashing was inevitable. They\u2019re just too similar, too hard-headed. And that\u2019s surely why they\u2019re the only ones who can save the world.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s assuming, of course, that the pair can agree on what saving the world actually looks like. We learn here that Manousos thinks, initially at least, that if the Joined can\u2019t be reverted to their non-hive forms, then they are better off dead. Carol on the other hand argues that they\u2019re still human, and besides, they wouldn\u2019t even hurt an ant. \u201cAnd isn\u2019t it evil to value a man the same as an ant?\u201d Manousos replies.<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s in town, Manousos takes to running his own tests to figure out how to un-join the Joined, though he\u2019s more willing to push boundaries. It starts with his finally talking to representatives of the collective, specifically Zosia, which Carol does not appreciate one bit. But this also leads to a moment that is surely important to Carol\u2019s mission against the hive mind, as painful as it may be: Zosia tells Carol that the Joined, and by extension Zosia, love Manousos as much as they love her. And it\u2019s not just the statement of fact that is so painful but Carol, but also the casual way that Zosia unloads that information on her. Like, of course they love them the same, Zosia seems to say. Isn\u2019t it obvious?<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/a>Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga)<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, Manousos just might be closer to figuring out the key to undoing all of this, or at least he has a better theory than Carol ever did. His whole mysterious radio frequency\/coaxing the individual back plan is interrupted here by Carol\u2019s shotgun, sure, but it seems like as good an approach as any. And he was sure to warn the whole world to lie down before he started, too.<\/p>\n

And so this leads to Carol and Zosia\u2019s turn in paradise, travelling the planet and living the perfect life. The girl or the world? Carol seems to have made her choice\u2026 which feels very un-Carol-like. Maybe she just had had enough. Maybe she wanted a quote\/unquote normal life with a loving companion again. Maybe she disliked Manousos and his approach enough that she was willing to overlook the bigger problems of the Joined. But even if the bombshell about her frozen eggs hadn\u2019t been revealed, it\u2019s hard to believe that she wouldn\u2019t have made it back to Manousos eventually.<\/p>\n

But that bombshell did drop, and it\u2019s both heartbreaking and terrifying for Carol. There\u2019s a ticking clock for her now, and she\u2019s got nowhere to go but home\u2026 to her new best friend, like it or not: Manousos. Oh, and an atom bomb too.<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019m surprised the frozen eggs thread has played out as expected. Seems a bit on the nose, really, with all the times they were mentioned prior to this. I figured we were in for more of a swerve.\u201cI mean, it\u2019s not like he\u2019s dangerous, is he?\u201d Huh, Manousos apparently has a darker history than we realized, at least judging by Zosia\u2019s response here.By the way, why does Manousos carry a machete instead of, I don\u2019t know, a gun? Certainly he\u2019d have a better chance of defending himself with the latter. Unless the whole \u201cis he dangerous\u201d thing connects to some kind of history with that blade\u2026\u201cYou know what, you can get right back into your ambulancia and fuck right off. I\u2019m finito!\u201d Who hasn\u2019t said this once or twice themselves?Carol\u2019s phone translating everything even after Manousos drops it in the drain is just the perfect touch to their inaugural meeting.Yes, that\u2019s the Golden Girls DVD menu playing when Carol wakes up on the couch. \u201cThank you for being a friend [Manousos]!\u201dRadio frequencies to bring individuals back from a hive mind state! It\u2019s not quite the same, but it is reminiscent of the classic Star Trek episode \u201cThis Side of Paradise.\u201dI\u2019ve enjoyed watching this season and writing about it, so hopefully I\u2019ll be back for Season 2!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Full spoilers follow for Pluribus Episode 9, \u201cLa Chica o El Mundo,\u201d which is available now on Apple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-367345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}