The research of the immune survivor Manousos will be a focal point in the upcoming season, as the show’s creators detail what he learned from his unsuccessful attempt to “unjoin” one of the Others.
The first season of Apple TV+’s Pluribus ended with a world-altering cliffhanger and a partnership forged in mutual desperation. Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) has finally joined forces with the fellow immune survivor Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga), but their alliance is built on a foundation of personal threat and scientific failure. As the creative team behind the series confirms, the road to a potential second season will put Manousos’s controversial signal research—and Carol’s fractured motivations—front and center.
Show creator Vince Gilligan and senior writers Gordon Smith and Alison Tatlock have a clear plan for where the story is headed, a deliberate shift from Gilligan’s famous “paint ourselves into a corner” approach on Breaking Bad. While fans will have to wait for the meticulous production of season two, the writers have revealed key details about the unfinished experiment that will drive the next chapter of the story.
What Happened in Manousos’ Experiment?
In the season one finale, after a grueling journey from Paraguay, Manousos finally reached Albuquerque. His goal was clear and unwavering: to reverse the Joining. In his solo research, he had identified a specific radio frequency—8.613.0—that emitted a distinct “pulsing chattering” from the Others’ hive mind.
Believing this frequency was a key to their connection, he captured a Joined individual named Rick (Brenden Roberts) and attempted an aggressive experiment. He subjected Rick to intense negative emotion and noise, trying to disrupt the signal and force Rick back into his individual consciousness. The experiment caused a reaction—a whine from the frequency—but was ultimately interrupted by Carol before it could reach a definitive success or failure.
“An experiment within the scientific method, generally, moves through failure, and it keeps moving through failure. You learn more from saying, ‘That’s not right.’ It did not stop them from being joined, but I did learn something. So what did I learn?” explained senior writer and executive producer Gordon Smith.
The creators confirm that the signal Manousos used was not the powerful transmission that caused the global Joining in the first place. However, his efforts yielded data, and that data will form the basis of his and Carol’s continued efforts in season two.
Carol and Manousos: An Unsteady Alliance
The partnership between the last two immune humans standing is complicated, born from betrayal rather than trust. For most of the season, Carol’s motivation to “save the world” from the Joining waned, especially after she believed she was safe from being forcibly Joined herself. She chose a globe-trotting romance with the Joined Zosia (Karolina Wydra) over immediately helping Manousos, a decision that underscores her conflicted feelings.
That changed when Zosia revealed that the Joined had discovered a loophole: they planned to use Carol’s own frozen eggs from a fertility clinic to create stem cells and turn her against her will. Feeling profoundly betrayed, Carol returned to Albuquerque with a drastic piece of equipment delivered by Zosia: an enclosed atom bomb. It is at this moment, with the bomb in her driveway and her personal safety nullified, that she reluctantly agrees to work with Manousos.
The show’s writers have different perspectives on Carol’s driving force, a complexity that will shape season two.
“She definitely wants to save herself at this point. I still think she wanted to save the world, but she had been so beaten and isolated… the scales fell from her eyes a bit,” says Gordon Smith.
Alison Tatlock offers a different angle: “I believe she does want to save the world, even if it is partly selfish. It gets to the question of, what is altruism anyway? Are we not always, at least in part, looking out for ourselves?”
Manousos, in contrast, has been consistent from the beginning. Actor Carlos Manuel-Vesga, who portrays him, connects the character’s stubborn defiance to a migrant’s history of loss and hardship.
“If I had been through what he probably has been through… and all of a sudden I get a world in which there’s no violence, no segregation, no racism, no xenophobia, I’d think, I’m going to give this a shot. But he just thinks, This is wrong,” Vesga explained.
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The Road Ahead for Pluribus Season 2
With Carol and Manousos now united, season two will explore their combined efforts to build on his research. The central questions include:
- What specific data did Manousos gather from his failed experiment?
- How will they attempt to apply it on a larger scale?
- What is Carol’s plan for the atom bomb, and does it involve saving humanity or ensuring her own survival?
- Who or what created the original Joining signal that Manousos has yet to discover?
The dynamic between the two leads, described by Seehorn as “combative energies” between “immovable objects,” is set to be a focal point. Furthermore, the looming threat of the Joined’s plan to use Carol’s eggs adds a dire biological countdown to their mission.
While the story direction is mapped out, fans will need to be patient. Vince Gilligan and his team are known for their meticulous process, and Apple TV+ has granted them the time needed to maintain the show’s quality.
“It’s going to frustrate some folks, just to be honest. We work at the speed we work at, much like glaciers melt at the speed that they melt at,” Gilligan said, hinting at a longer production timeline. Industry analysts speculate the show may not return until late 2027 or 2028.
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