OK, most of us figured this out last week in “Got Milk” when Carol (Rhea Seehorn) was investigating what the Joined’s favorite drink actually was made of, culminating in that episode’s closing moment as she gasped like only someone who had just found a stockpile of frozen dead bodies could.
Yeah, a lot of us were off a bit in that it’s actually a stockpile of frozen dead body pieces that Carol unearthed, but all the same, the Joined are definitely pulling a Soylent Green and eating us. Only, because this is Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, it’s not quite that simple. But it is darkly funny.
Of course – of course – instead of playing this revelation in a protracted, thriller-esque way, Gilligan and his team (this episode was written by Vera Blasi and directed by Gandja Monteiro) pull the rug out from under the viewer pretty quickly and squash their own big twist. “Yeah, no duh, HDP is people,” the show basically says. “You think we haven’t also watched the past 50 years of sci-fi movies!?”
And so enters John Cena. Not just John Cena, but a Joined John Cena. And he’s everything you could hope for. Charming, reasonable, informative… all while explaining the intricacies of why the Joined need “human derived protein,” or HDP – aka human flesh – for sustenance. And Koumba (Samba Schutte) cutting Carol off before she can even reveal her big news about the frozen bodies with a resigned “Is this about them eating people?” isn’t just funny; it’s also our first hint at how out of the loop Carol has been.
The dynamic between these two uninfected is interesting in that we can look at them as polar opposites, obviously: Carol the constant skeptic versus Koumba the willing dupe. But is it that simple? After all, it turns out that Koumba figured out the HDP thing before Carol did, and not just that but he and the other infected (sans Manousos in Paraguay of course) have been talking regularly about the situation, and in particular are concerned about the sudden, unexpected plight that the Joined are in (they’re going to starve eventually). It’s so easy to assume that the other uninfected are suckers just because they haven’t lashed out the way Carol has and because they’re so willing to go with the flow, but then it turns out that Carol in all her obstinance hasn’t really made any significant headway herself in any of this.
Koumba cutting Carol off before she can even reveal her big news with 'Is this about them eating people?' isn’t just funny; it also shows how out of the loop Carol has been.
And then there’s the fact that the uninfected have purposely kept Carol out of the loop, voting (if not unanimously!) to not include her in their meetings. Koumba has been getting her videos, as presumably all of the others have as well – “they were very dramatic” – but nobody’s responded to them or even acknowledged them before now. It’s hurtful, so much so that Carol needs to take a powder in the bathroom before apparently getting blitzed on champagne and passing out for the night. But the truly sad part comes the next morning when she tells Koumba that she’s going to grab a suite in the hotel, only to register the look on his face: He doesn’t want her there. He’s a nice guy, but he has a life to live with his “lovelies” and there’s no room for Carol at all. “How you say? Check in now and then.”
Meanwhile, what kind of survival instinct do the Joined have if they’re willing to starve rather than eat, like, corn? Their mandate to not even eat plant life is limiting, to say the least. But then again, perhaps it’s the ultimate method of population control. As the human race dies off from hunger, eventually the planet would hit some kind of equalization point where enough, well, fallen apples or what have you could feed the relatively small amount of people left. I guess?
And then there’s Carlos-Manuel Vesga’s Manousos, who – wouldn’t you know it – doesn’t just watch Carol’s first video, but is so moved by it as to finally leave his Omega Man bunker and head out to, presumably, find her. He doesn’t even know that there are 12 other uninfected until he watches the video. This leads to one of the creepiest scenes in Pluribus to date, as Manousos encounters his mother on the street as she emerges from the shadows in the dead of night. It’s not something Carol has had to deal with yet, encountering people she knew in the Before Times, let alone family members. We’ve already established that she’s estranged from her own mother. But then again, that might be something Manousos and Carol have in common as he tells the woman, “You’re not my mother. My mother’s a bitch” before driving into the night.
Questions and Notes From Kepler-22b
I like how Carol puts the video camera down and picks up the frozen, shrinkwrapped head to hold in front of the lens, rather than just aiming the camera at the head. This is way more gnarly, if unlikely.
Seehorn’s reaction at the top of the episode is excellent as she runs out of the factory and tries to shake what she just saw out of herself, as if enough exertion will wipe the horrific image from her brain.
Sooooo the Joined can’t convert the 13 uninfected without their express permission, eh?
What’s with frequency 8.613.0 on Manousos’ radio?
Koumba going full Casino Royale in Vegas is like the ultimate cosplay adventure, a holodeck without the holodeck (but more real than a holodeck too). Still, you’d think it would all get pretty boring, pretty fast. For one thing, the cards must be fixed, so where’s the fun in that? At least on the holodeck you always ran the risk of a malfunction! (But man, if the Joined aren’t committed in their performances, even if eye-patch guy screws up at the end.)
Speaking of the holodeck, one can’t help but see avowed Star Trek fan Vince Gilligan getting to have some fun with the basic concept of that famed piece of Trek tech here, albeit in his own way here.
But how sad and creepy is it when Koumba leaves the casino and the Joined all quietly start cleaning up, with even Koumba’s arch rival in cards bending over to pick up broken glass?
By the way, the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, formerly known as the Las Vegas Hilton, was where Elvis Presley had his famed run of sold-out shows from 1969 to 1976. Hence the Elvis touches you might’ve spotted here. (It was also the site of the now-defunct Star Trek: The Experience!)
The stars of HBO's new Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms were on hand at the CCXP convention in São Paulo, Brazil, today to promote the upcoming series. And during the chat, the show's star Peter Claffey, who plays Ser Duncan the Tall, aka Dunk, seemed to let loose an interesting bit of George R.R. Martin trivia.
When asked by the panel moderators if he or his young co-star Dexter Sol Ansell (who plays Prince Aegon Targaryen, aka Egg) have gotten to meet the famed author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Claffey explained that Martin visited the set during filming, and when he did he told the actor what his favorite story is that he's written.
"It was awesome," said Claffey. "He came in to set that week and we got to talk to him and different things, and he told us that The Hedge Knight is his favorite thing he's ever written."
The Hedge Knight is the first novella in Tales of Dunk and Egg, which is the collection of three novellas that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on. Published in 1998, The Hedge Knight was followed by The Sworn Sword in 2003 and The Mystery Knight in 2010.
"So he kind of told Ira Parker, our showrunner and writer, 'Please don't mess it up,'" added Claffey, much to the amusement of the CCXP crowd. "But he seemed really happy with us and with everyone else, and especially Daniel Ings, who's playing Ser Lyonel Baratheon."
"And he's hilarious," added Sol Ansell of Ings' performance.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will be the second Game of Thrones spin-off to make it to the air after House of the Dragon, and will debut on January 18, 2026, on HBO. A second season is already planned, with production starting next week. Indeed, Sol Ansell's already got his head shaved for the shoot!
A new trailer for the show also debuted at the panel, which you can watch below:
We have almost made it to the final month of 2025. Thankfully, a new batch of arrivals of all of your favorite streaming services should keep you busy between the holiday festivities and family events.
Netflix is the king of holiday rom-coms, and so of course we’ll see plenty of new (somewhat similar looking) additions to that list throughout the month. You’ll also get a spread of new documentaries, the third Knives Out movie, and, of course, the Stranger Things finale.
Without further ado, here’s the full list of everything coming to Netflix in December with recommendations from the staff here at IGN.
Everything Coming to Netflix in December
December 1
All The Empty Rooms
CoComelon Lane: Season 6
Love is Blind: Italy
My Next Guest with David Letterman and Adam Sandler
Playing Gracie Darling
Troll 2
A League of Their Own
As Good as It Gets
Bad Teacher
Big Momma’s House
Big Momma’s House 2
This British historical drama series originally ran from 2016 to 2019 on ITV in the UK and on PBS in the US. Creator Daisy Goodwin's show chronicled the early years of the rule of Queen Victoria (played by Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman), who had been Britain's longest-reigning monarch until her great-great-granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. The series premiered during the heyday of The Crown, similarly documenting the public and private lives of the British royal family with a degree of creative license. The heart of the show is the romance between Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert (Tom Hughes), while also taking a page from The Crown in depicting the queen's political mentorship by her respective Prime Ministers set against the backdrop of historic events like the Irish famine, the Anglo-Afghan War, and the Great Exhibition. Sadly, Victoria ended on essentially a cliffhanger, with a health crisis for Prince Albert, whose eventual death will devastate Queen Victoria and leave her garbed in black and in mourning for the rest of her life. At least The Crown allowed Queen Elizabeth II's story to play out to a proper conclusion. -Jim Vejvoda
Brightburn
Burlesque
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen 2
Christmas Break-In
Downton Abbey
Godzilla
Hollow Man
Joy for Christmas
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda 2
Kung Fu Panda 3
Little Women
Pulp Fiction
Stripes
The Ugly Truth
Victoria: Seasons 1-3
What Lies Beneath
The Wolf of Wall Street
Zero Dark Thirty
The first day of the month always leads to a big mix of new additions and departures on any streaming service. In terms of actual new releases, you’ll get a new iteration of My Next Guest featuring Adam Sandler and a new season of Love Is Blind Italy.
Otherwise, you’ll get access to classics from across eras like Zero Dark Thirty, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, Pulp Fiction, and what I consider one of the best trilogies of all tim, Kung Fu Panda. Yes, I choose to ignore Kung Fu Panda 4.
December 2
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches: Season 2
Matt Rife: Unwrapped - A Christmas Crowd Work Special
The second season of Mayfair Witches, an ongoing adaptation of the Anne Rice novel, is coming to Netflix after airing on AMC earlier this year. The streamer will also premiere a new comedy special from Matt Rife.
December 3
My Secret Santa
The Northman
Stranded with my Mother-in-Law: Season 3
With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration
Robert Eggers’ The Northman, which IGN’s review describes as a “dreamlike viking revenge saga,” is coming to Netflix after a stint at Peacock. You’ll also see a new special from Meghan Markle’s reality series focusing on holiday traditions, recipes, and crafts.
December 4
A Lot Like Christmas
The Abandons
The Believers: Season 2
Forrest Gump
Fugue State 1986
I Wish You Had Told Me
Lali: Time to Step Up
Mean Girls (2004)
I mean, c’mon? Mean Girls and Forrest Gump, nothing short of classics. Subscribers will also get The Abandons, a new Netflix series from Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy. The Western drama series stars Lena Headey, Gillian Anderson, and Lucas Till.
December 5
Jay Kelly
Love and Wine
The Making of Jay Kelly
The New Yorker at 100
The Night My Dad Saved Christmas 2
The Price of Confession
Owning Manhattan: Season 2
Jay Kelly, directed by Noah Baumbach, stars none other than Adam Sandler as an aging movie actor whose existential crisis leads him to take a Europe trip with his manager. The movie will premiere on Netflix alongside a behind-the-scenes documentary.
The streamer will also premiere a documentary digging into the 100 year history of The New Yorker as well as Love and Wine, a good ol’ rom com from Netflix Africa.
December 7
Babylon
Cast Away
Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to La La Land and First Man released back in 2023 to mixed opinions. Matt Donato’s review of Babylon for IGN aptly sums some of them up: “Babylon is a magnificent disaster that'll be one viewer's favorite movie of the year and another's calamitous nemesis.”
December 8
Elmo and Mark Rober's Merry Giftmas
Mark Robert and Elmo work together to prepare holiday gifts for their friends in this Netflix Family special.
December 9
Badly in Love
Blood Coast: Season 2
Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within
The West Wing: Seasons 1-7
The world is healing and all seven seasons of The West Wing are coming back to Netflix. The streamer is also premiering Badly in Love, a new Japanese dating show, and Masaka Kids, a documentary about a killer dancing group from Uganda that went viral on TikTok.
December 10
The Accident: Season 2
Record of Ragnarok: Season 3
Simon Cowell: The Next Act
Simon Cowell will not rest until he has another boy group under his wing. That is quite literally the premise of his new Netflix series, The Next Act. Netflix will also be the exclusive streaming home for Season 3 of the Record of Ragnarok, which joins the service’s surprisingly solid slate of anime.
December 11
The Fakenapping
Had I Not Seen the Sun: Part 2
Lost in the Spotlight
Man Vs Baby
Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft: Season 2
The Town
The second and final season of Netflix’s animated Tomb Raider series is arriving toward the middle of the month. IGN’s review of the first season acknowledges that there “far better animated video game adaptations than this one,” but it’s still worth trying for any fans of the games.
As much as it might seem to be a new reality series about challenges against infants, Man vs. Baby is in fact yet another holiday-themed movie. You’ll also get the second part of the Korean thriller series Had I Not Seen the Sun.
December 12
The Amazing Digital Circus: Season 1 (Ep 5-7)
City of Shadows
Home for Christmas: Season 3
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie is coming to Netflix a couple weeks after its theatrical release. Carlos Moralos’s review for IGN takes the stance that it “may not be the best Benoit Blanc film, but it satisfies by playing along with genre expectations instead of trying to outsmart them.” This iteration’s cast features Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Josh Brolin, and Josh O’Connor.
December 13
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
December 14
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2024)
December 15
A Cowboy Christmas Romance
Christmas at the Chalet
The Christmas Classic
Christmas on the Alpaca Farm
The Creature Cases: Chapter 6
More Christmas! A lot of Christmas, in fact, including a cowboy-centered and an alpaca-centered rom-com. Netflix is also getting a new season of the animated children’s series The Creature Cases.
December 16
Castle Rock: Seasons 1-2
Culinary Class Wars: Season 2
If this year’s The Long Walk, The Running Man, and It: Welcome to Derry are anything to go by, there’s seemingly never enough Stephen King adaptations. Another of those adaptations, Castle Rock, ran for two seasons on Hulu and is now making its way to Netflix.
December 17
The Manny: Season 3
Murder in Monaco
What's In The Box?
Murder in Monaco is, you guessed it, a crime documentary, specifically about the mysterious death of the billionaire banker, Edmond Safra. What’s in the Box is a new Netflix game show hosted by Neil Patrick Harris.
December 18
10DANCE
Emily in Paris: Season 5
It’s time for a new season of Emily in Paris, which will be released all at once this time around.
The streamer will also premiere10DANCE, a new Japanese series about two rival dancers who try to master each other’s unique styles.
December 19
A Time For Bravery
Breakdown: 1975
The Great Flood
Jake vs. Joshua: Judgment Day
After a significant amount of build-up, the heavyweight Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua fight will stream live on Netflix toward the end of the month. Kim Byung Hee’s new sci-fi film The Great Flood will also land on Netflix after premiering at the 30th Busan International Film Festival.
December 22
The Closer: Seasons 1-7
Elway
Sicily Express
Sicily Express is a new Italian series about two friends who sleep in Sicily but work in Milan. Netflix will also host a documentary about NFL legend John Elway from Peyton Manning’s production company, Omaha Productions.
December 23
Eden
King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch: Season 3
Ron Howard’s Eden is a historical drama based on a true story about a group of settlers who land on an isolated island. The film is coming to Netflix after its theatrical release.
December 24
Downton Abbey: A New Era
Goodbye June
Tom Segura: Teacher
The second Downtown Abbey film is coming to Netflix several months after the third and final movie landed in theaters. You’ll also get Goodbye June, a new Netflix film directed by Kate Winslet and starring Helen Mirren.
December 25
Christmas Gameday: Cowboys vs. Commanders
Christmas Gameday: Lions vs. Vikings
Stranger Things 5: Volume 2
Merry Christmas! Netflix is celebrating by hosting two Christmas gameday matches and premiering the next part of the Stranger Things final season.
December 26
Cover-Up
This new Netflix documentary explores the life of Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter who uncovered America’s war crimes during the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
December 29
Members Only: Palm Beach
Now this one’s for the reality fans. Members Only: Palm Beach is a new Netflix series that follows a group of affluent women dealing with ridiculous social hierarchies in Palm Beach County.
December 30
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story
Ricky Gervais: Mortality
This wouldn’t be a Netflix list without some true crime. Evil Influencer digs into the relatively recent case involving social media personalities Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrant. The streamer is also getting a new Ricky Gervais special.
December 31
Sleeping with Other People
Stranger Things 5: The Finale
Last but certainly not least, the final part of the final season of Stranger Things will be dropping at 8pm ET on New Year’s Eve. We already know it runs for around two hours, so you’ll still have time to watch the ball drop. Be sure to check out some of our Stranger Things coverage below!
Black Friday Streaming Deals Are Live This Weekend
It just so happens to be Black Friday weekend, which unfortunately has never meant a discount on Netflix itself. If you’re not enticed by this month’s additions or are generally in the market for other streamers, now’s your best chance to scoop up some Black Friday streaming deals. Here’s the highlights we’ve seen so far:
Blythe (she/her) is an SEO Coordinator at IGN who, when she isn't following streaming news, spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
Spoilers follow for the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5, “Chapter One: The Crawl,” “Chapter Two: The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler,” “Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap,” and “Chapter Four: Sorcerer.”
By the end of Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1, the Hawkins campaign against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is most certainly game on. Will Byer’s (Noah Schnapp) throwdown of Vecna’s Demogorgons seemingly positions him as the Dungeon Master extraordinaire. But there’s still so much that the Hawkins party doesn’t know about their adversary’s endgame, including everything at his disposal to ensure he achieves the horrific vision of Hawkins that he shared with Nancy (Natalia Dyer) in Season 4.
As always, every new batch of Stranger Things episodes opens the door for new questions, and that’s certainly the case again at the conclusion of the first four episodes of Season 5. As we’re still processing the insanity of that cliffhanger, here are a few burning questions we’ll be pondering until the next three episodes arrive on December 25, 2025.
What Is Dr. Kay’s Overall Mission?
The Duffers love their ’80s-era iconic actors. They’ve cast quite a few in some juicy parts across the seasons, including Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner, Sean Astin as Bob Newby, Paul Reiser as Sam Owens, Cary Elwes as Larry Kline and Robert Englund as Victor Creel. In Season 5, Linda Hamilton joins their esteemed, nostalgic company as the enigmatic Dr. Kay.
In the first four episodes, all we know about Kay is that she has her own well-funded and well-protected lab in the Upside Down. She’s not exactly warm with her subordinates, and is more in keeping with the behavior of Bishop the android (Lance Henriksen) from Aliens when it comes to their shared intensity regarding alien creature vivisection. But her acquired knowledge seems to have given her control of some of the critters, like the one that chokes out Hopper.
By the end of Chapter 4, we do know that she’s somehow found and forcibly taken Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) fellow lab sister Eight, a.k.a. Kali (Linnea Berthelsen). We can assume that the same sound device Kay uses to immobilize Eleven also works, or worked, on Eight. Now she’s harnessing Eight’s powers in some kind of machine, but how? As a reminder, Eight can manipulate and project illusions into the minds of those around her, which begs the question: Is what Eleven and Hopper see in the lab real, or is Kali projecting whatever Kay tells her to? It’s too early to tell if Kay is a nefarious player in the military’s research or a sympathetic scientist when it comes to all things in the Upside Down.
How Did Kali/Eight Wind Up in the Upside Down?
As alluded to above, Kali Prasad/Eight was one of Dr. Brenner’s lab children that he conducted experiments on starting in 1979. Prior to One/Henry Creel/Vecna killing all of the children in the lab except Eleven, Eight had escaped the lab and collected her own family of misfit runaways in Chicago. In Season 2, Eleven seeks out the girl who escaped and they bond over their shared experiences and special powers. They part ways that same season and haven’t reconnected until Eleven finds Eight in Dr. Kay’s Upside Down lab machine. We have to imagine that she was never really as off the grid as she imagined, between Brenner’s files and perhaps even the tracking of Eight after her escape. And when Kay needed to bring Eleven into her Upside Down lab, the best bait would be Eight.
Will the Wheelers Survive?
Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) and Ted Wheeler (Joe Chrest) got shredded as they attempted to protect their youngest, Holly (Nell Fisher), from that rampaging Demogorgon in their house. They were both slashed up so brutally that we actually felt a teensy bit bad for Ted, who has been consistently inert as a father and partner across all five seasons. The pair were both alive when they arrived at the local hospital, and Karen even was conscious enough to identify Holly’s “imaginary friend” as Henry. That said, we wouldn’t be surprised if one, or both, were sacrificed to the stakes of this finale season. On the other hand, we also wouldn’t complain if Karen survives and gets to escape the purgatory that is Hawkins suburbia.
When Is Steve Going to Call Dustin on His Shit?
As Steven Harrington (Joe Keery) has evolved from lunkhead high school jock to emotionally perceptive adopted dad of the Hawkins misfits, the writers have recognized that he’s their secret weapon for great character moments. He gets to land some truth bombs on Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) in this block of episodes, but we’re really waiting for an overdue thrown down between him and bestie Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo). The typically enthusiastic science nerd hasn’t processed Eddie Munson’s (Joseph Quinn) death from last season at all, and it’s turned Steve’s little bro into an angry, bitter shadow of his former self. In turn, their bromance plays out more like a troubled marriage in these first episodes as they snipe and bicker at one another. We know it’s just a matter of time before Steve gets to the bottom of what’s going on with Dustin and when it happens, we don’t expect to survive it without some ugly sobbing.
Is the Organic Wall Connected to Vecna’s Evolved Look?
The organic matter that energizes Vecna in the attic of the Creel home has been an evolving organism ever since we first got a good look at it in the Upside Down in Season 1. We’ve seen those tendrils attach to Vecna and replenish him during his regeneration time. And then he seemed to use them to bind and contain his victims in the Upside Down version of the Creel house. But what they are and if they’re autonomous from Vecna remains a mystery.
In Season 5, the massive organic wall discovered by Hopper and Eleven in the Upside Down is reminiscent of the wall that Vecna attaches Will to in the season’s first episode, just writ large. Is the size of it now indicative of Vecna’s power? When he appears through the portal into Hawkins in "Chapter Four: Sorcerer,” Vecna looks different. His once humanoid-looking right arm is no more and matches his entire body in appearing more thorny, with active movement slithering across his form. He’s jacked too now, so maybe the size of that wall is directly connected to this more ‘roidy-looking Vecna. Is there a way to damage what the wall parallels in the Rightside Up in order to weaken the demon?
If Max Is Revived From Her Coma, Will She Be Changed Irrevocably?
For 584 days, Max (Sadie Sink) has been roaming inside Henry Creel's memories. Even though she’s found a safe space inside the rock cave — a place Henry won’t enter — the question remains: What will the cost be for Max to spend so much time trapped inside that monster’s head? Even if Holly is the key to Max’s escape from the cave and the coma, will she be irrevocably changed for the worse? The best case scenario is that her time in Henry’s head will help the gang figure out how to take the villain down. Maybe she can look to Will’s burst of power to figure how to harness what she’s learned from Henry’s memories to use them against him?
How Does Will Pull Off an Eleven Power Move — Bloody Nose and All — at the End of Episode 4?
The prologue of "Chapter One: The Crawl" makes it very clear that from the moment Will Byers was yoinked into the Upside Down, his connection with Vecna has been physical, intentional and part of a long game. It was wild to see tiny, vulnerable Will encased in organic matter and forcibly face-hugged by Vecna as he did who knows what to the kid. But it certainly confirms that every Will neck tingle, every phantom feeling, every barfed-up slug has been strengthening whatever Vecna initiated between them. What we don’t know is if Will’s Eleven-style power move at the end of "Chapter Four: Sorcerer" was always part of Vecna’s plan, or if Will’s increasing confidence paired with his love for his family and friends manifested in his siphoning of Vecna’s power, which facilitated that Demogorgon massacre? Either is interesting, but the latter is a twist that could finally tilt the power tables against Vecna.
What were your biggest questions about the first four episodes of Stranger Things Volume 1? Let’s discuss in the comments!
Full spoilers follow for Pluribus Episode 5, “Got Milk,” which is available now on Apple TV.
Man, the whole planet is pissed off at Carol this week, that’s for sure.
That includes her fellow un-infected, Laxmi (Menik Gooneratne), who calls her from across the world to rip Rhea Seehorn’s Carol a new one for making her son cry. I mean, she made the entire human race cry, save 13 people, but Laxmi is mostly upset about her son.
It’s fun that Laxmi and Carol can’t find common ground no matter what, despite the dramatic shift in human history that took place eight days ago. But what’s most interesting in this episode is how the Joined are all giving Carol the cold shoulder. Like I said last week, it’s hard not to feel bad for what Carol did to Zosia (Karolina Wydra), sending her into cardiac arrest after drugging her and all. And even though we’re talking, again, about an incredible alien-influenced event that has dramatically changed humankind, it’s hard not to see where the Joined are coming from on this one. They just don’t feel like they can be around Carol anymore.
Which means that Pluribus Episode 5 puts Carol in a very The Last Woman on Earth place. We may have seen how Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) was living his best The Omega Man life last week (or actually his worst life, eating garbage and whatnot), but now Carol is truly getting a chance to have an entire city (and its surrounding area) to herself. It’s maybe not as great as she thought it might be? The mass purge event of Albuquerque, with a church-like choir playing on the soundtrack as everyone loads up in cars, buses, etc. to leave the city, certainly sells the “group” in group-think aspect of the Joined. Hey, they just need a little space!
Seehorn continues to keep the laughs coming – albeit the darkly fatalistic laughs – as Carol tries to navigate this new iteration of the post-Joined world. Her video message to the other 12 non-infected is great as she does her best to convince them that they need to band together not just for their sake, but also for all of humanity. Amusingly, she can’t help but lecture them all, no matter how cheery and optimistic she tries to be, and the stilted sign off of “Good luck and godspeed!”, followed by an awkward clearing of her throat, is just perfect. (It’s a little less fun/more sad later when she deletes the video with her scientific, I guess, finds, as the loneliness and desperation of her current situation really start to kick in.)
Of course, the big question coming out of “Got Milk” is what’s really up with the milk of the title?
“Got Milk” has other moments of humor, like the drone – first glimpsed in the initial and puzzling teaser trailer for the show this past fall – that can’t quite handle the weight of all that garbage, and winds up as the neighborhood’s newest ornament wrapped around a street lamp pole. But it’s also pretty intense at times, particularly when those wolves start staking out Carol’s house. It actually makes sense that they would, since the Joined seem pretty organized and surely would have cleared the area of most of the garbage and food stuffs that the wolves would be attracted to. That means Carol is the only game in town, but it also means that Helen’s fresh grave is open game.
It’s pretty intense when Carol sees the wolves digging at the grave, and when that one wolf snarls at her it’s suddenly driven home how alone Carol is at this point. But Charlton Heston would be proud of her response. Sure, she couldn’t figure out how to get the shotgun out of its holder (turns out you press a button), but her quick wits prevented a potentially horrific (and messy) situation. Seehorn sells it too after she’s smashed through the fence with her cop car and sits parked over the gravesite, just panting before eventually falling asleep during her all-night vigil.
Of course, the big question coming out of “Got Milk” is what’s really up with the milk of the title, the stuff that definitely isn’t milk and which the Joined are so into? Carol may not be great at science, but she’s done a pretty good job on the sleuthing front in terms of following the trail of the milk’s production pipeline – and all without Google Maps apparently! Her gasp which ends the episode, delayed for a beat as she takes in the scope of whatever it is she found under that tarp, is extremely effective.
What did she find!? Tune in next week…
Questions and Notes From Kepler-22b
So they’ve got kids working jobs too, like that one who’s pushing a cart around in the hospital? I guess that clocks. They don’t need to go to school anymore, after all. (Even better: It’s a medication cart he’s pushing around. Because there’s no worry that he might accidentally or intentionally take drugs that aren’t meant for him.)
The constant back and forth with the Joined’s voicemail system might seem kind of familiar to anyone who has tried to make a doctors appointment or deal with customer service one way or another these days, though the Joined are at least way more efficient.
I wonder if the Joined were worried about Carol during the whole wolves incident. Actually, are they still watching her with satellites?
Even though Apple provided press screeners for the first seven episodes, I’ve been watching them one at a time so I don’t get too far ahead for these reviews. So I have no idea what’s under that tarp, but my gut tells me it’s gonna be a Soylent Green is people situation, eh? If so, then Charlton Heston’s legacy really is all over this show!
Connexion
