Plur1bus is damn good.
Before Breaking Bad, I didn’t fully understand what television could be, especially as a writer and a creative. That show didn’t just entertain me, it reset my expectations for storytelling. It proved that TV could be patient. That it could trust its audience. That character and consequence mattered more than speed or spectacle.
It also shaped an entire generation of people like me.
So when Vince Gilligan followed it with Better Call Saul, it would’ve been easy to write it off as a cash grab. Instead, Gilligan did something harder. He made a quieter, sadder, more deliberate show, one just as rich, and at times even more profound, than Breaking Bad. By the end, it wasn’t living in Breaking Bad’s shadow. It was standing next to it.
So when Plur1bus was announced, I was all in. I waited until every episode aired before watching. I wanted to soak it up in all its glory.
And what a treat it is.
On the surface, Plur1bus feels like a fresh spin on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But as the series unfolds, it becomes clear this isn’t really a sci-fi story about replacement or invasion. It’s a meditation on identity. Individuality versus the collective. What different cultures value. What they’re willing to trade away in the name of harmony. And whether the Western obsession with individual freedom is as morally superior as we like to pretend, or just another flawed system wearing confidence as virtue.
Once again, Gilligan returns to Albuquerque. It’s the same landscape that framed Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and it proves to be the perfect backdrop for interrogating the human condition. Where Breaking Bad was about losing one’s moral fiber, and Better Call Saul was about how small compromises erode the soul, Plur1bus turns its focus inward.
Who are you when belonging comes at the cost of selfhood? Is peace worth the loss of autonomy? And what happens when “we” becomes more important than “me”?
Gilligan doesn’t answer these questions directly. He lets them linger. He trusts silence. He trusts the audience. In a television landscape obsessed with explaining itself, that restraint feels almost radical.
From a craft standpoint, this is Gilligan operating with total command. The pacing is deliberate without being indulgent. The cinematography is absolutely stunning, led by DPs Marshall Adams and Paul Donachie, both Better Call Saul vets. The sound design and score are restrained, used to amplify tension rather than announce it. Every choice feels intentional, from light piano in an empty restaurant to a perfectly placed Hermanos Gutiérrez track.
The performances across the board are strong, but the emotional center of the show belongs to Rhee Seehorn, who plays Carol. Seehorn was exceptional in Better Call Saul, and this role feels made for her (because it was). Carol is broken and deeply human, and she represents how most real people would react in a situation like this, scared, spiraling, and hugging a bottle. (At least that's how I'd be doing it)
Season one also features one of the most perfectly placed cameos in recent memory. You’ll know it when you see it, and it’s another reminder that Gilligan understands tone and timing better than almost anyone working today.
Does Plur1bus belong in the pantheon already? Eh. Too early to say. But as a first chapter, it’s confident, restrained, and captivating as hell. It's a show that doesn’t shout. It doesn’t chase moments. It doesn’t explain itself to death. It sits with you. It unsettles you. It asks you to think about who you are, who you belong to, and what you’re willing to give up to feel comfortable.
And the fact that someone is still making television like this is reason enough to be hopeful, not just for the future of Plur1bus, but for the medium itself.
Vince Gilligan doesn’t miss.
And as long as he keeps showing us what television can be, there’s still something worth believing in.
