Movies & TV

I have been meaning to watch this for a while purely for Rhea Seehorn who was one of the highlights of Better Call Saul imo.

The comments on this clip are indicative of the two lenses I think people view this show from:

Yeah. That much is true. They actually have gone to such extreme with Carol it’s almost like love-bombing. Which probably triggers her trauma from Camp Freedom Falls.

I think the Plurbs/Hive mean well. But they clearly don’t know when it’s gone too much and too far so quickly.

Followed by:

they know everything. It’s a systematic and gradual manipulation process to eventually get carol’s approval for her stem cell and turn her into them, just like they’re doing with that Casanova. They’re sole purpose is to join every single person on the planet and build an antenna the size of Africa to send out these RNA codes into space and then their mission will be over. It’s obvious the hive won’t sustain forever because if eventual calorie deficits and they’ll all die. It’s very apocalyptic and dystopic

The show makes a number of things clear this episode:

• The hive does not share sensory data. Meaning, they do not feel what everyone feels all at once.
• The hive is aware of the goings-on with every other individual in the hive, but in a passive way. Their connection is described as Subconscious.
• Their biological imperative includes resending that signal. While we'll likely never know what is happening on the source planet, it's safe to say it can't be dissimilar to what is playing out on the show.
• The hive is starved for novelty. It would appear that, without the interactions with the unjoined, they would simply proceed with the task at hand (resending the signal). They tell Carol, "We're excited to read something new!"
• The last point seems to imply that they are not capable of producing novelty themselves. This is likely because of the shared, passive, collective experiences. Carol (and the other unjoined) are a black box to the hive, and thus can create novelty.
• The game that Carol and the hive play is interesting, in that it is not a game of strategy, but a game of reflex. Strategy is something a hive would excel at, but reflex is something relative to the individual.
• The episode establishes that they do not share any kind of "muscle memory" but still retain all the knowledge and understanding of elite players of physical sports.
• Carol insists on treating Zosia as an individual, which the show then illustrates is a difficult task for the joined Zosia to perform.
• When Carol asks Zosia what her favorite food is, she recalls a memory of Zosia as a child. As she tells the story, it's clear that Zosia (or the hive) is enjoying this memory, Zosia recalls it fondly, and thanks Carol for asking. The scene seems to imply that without Carol's question, there would be no reason to recall this memory. It's as if Zosia is recalling something that was almost forgotten, it creates in her, the individual, a feeling of nostalgia, something we haven't seen the hive do before. (I think)
• This brings me back to the massage scene. Zosia says that the others can not feel how good the massage is, but admits that it feels very good. This is an experience that no one else has, emotionally. The hive understand the experience intellectually and can recall how it felt to the individual at the time, but only Zosia was able to experience the emotional feeling associated with the massage.

If I had to make a guess as to where this is leading, it is that people can be reconditioned into their individuality. That Carols dogged insistence on treating people as individuals could result in them rediscovering themselves in some way. The implication that there is a drought of novelty among the hive is obviously a dig at collectivism, but I think that dig falls short because of the rules and conditions set by the show. Under true collectivism, you are still a disconnected black box among many black boxes, only that you share the same collective value set that they do. Novelty would still exist, since novelty is born out of new experiences. There is also a novelty associated with providing those new experiences. When you introduce someone to something you've seen before, you're doing it to give them that same feeling you had the first time you experienced that thing as well. That act of giving in itself is novel, and creates a kind of cycle of novelty. The hive in the show can not have new experiences. Not because it has experienced everything, but because once someone experiences something, it is instantly dispersed across the hive and intellectualized, and no other individual will ever experience the associated emotions again. Even thought they share everything, the one thing they can't share together, is the act of experiencing emotions together, or sharing emotional moments together.

This I think is why the hive loves the individuals so much. Sure, their biological imperative also drives them to assimilate the individuals, but if they are successful in doing so, novelty will be gone forever. They will become alone, and isolated. In that way, the show is also about connection. The hive is literally connected, but they lack the ability to make real connections because as a collective they are in unity. They experience the world from many perspectives, but they are a collective individual. They express socially as an individual creature. Because of that unity, the individual people who suffer and die every day are simply the flaking off of skin cells to this organism. It is like plucking a hair. One gone, another grows back. It's interesting that they mention that people die, but that people are also born in this episode. They do not spend any time on it, however. They do not make a point to even react to the idea that new babies are being born every day. Obviously that's the case, but even neither of the characters dwell on that fact for even a second.

The idea that children are being born into this situation creates a lot of questions. Is the baby joined at birth? Is there a period of development where the baby is not joined? It also implies that there isn't simply a lost of novelty, but also a loss of innocence as well. The show establishes this in an earlier episode where Carol asks a joined child what kind of gynecological tool he would prefer, and other technical questions about gynecology. This child isn't innocent anymore, they are filled with every experience every living person ever experienced. Innocence and novelty are a linked pair, your Innocence is born out of a lack of experience, and as you have more experiences you are hit with feelings of novelty. As a child, you are flooded with novelty all the time, and it defines your whole existence. There is even a concept of time dilation related to novelty. That the feeling you have when you are young, where the days feel like they last forever, where the months feel like years, where every moment you're awake feels like it drags on forever. This is because your brain is constantly taking new and novel things. As you age, that feeling of long days and even longer months fades, and weeks and days blend together as the number of novel experiences you have every day dries up like a puddle in a desert.

To me, the notion of losing novelty is compelling. I think people might even be seeing attacks on collectivism that might not actually be there. In fact, the show goes out of its way to make positive light of the collective behavior. In the episode, Carol asks where they sleep, and discovers they all sleep together in all the large empty spaces. They describe it as efficient, but Carol seems to view it differently, that it's kind of "nice". When she asks the hive where Zosia lives, it replies, "We do not have a home. All ideas about private property are gone. In a way, wherever we hang our hat is our home", which is a kind of romantic way of describing what the total abolition of private property might be like. When Carol is seeing how they sleep, there is a detail in the background that stood out to me, which is that there was an elderly person among them. One of the people from the collective throughout the scene made sure that person was able to get to their sleeping spot. It took them much longer than anyone else. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. That principle appears to play out in the show. From large scale endeavors like running a hospital, to the small gestures, like aiding an elderly person to their bed so they can sleep. Every person on earth with any kind of physical need like that is cared for in the same way, and the nearest able bodies person helps them without question.

So it's interesting to me that there are people who watch this show and see it as "apocalyptic and dystopic" because it's very clear that it's also very utopian and optimistic.

Don't forget the new and final episode of the season drops tonight. It's early because of Christmas. Torrents should be up by 10:30pm-11:00pm EST.

I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video