Spoilers below for Pluribus, so be warned if you aren’t keeping current via Apple TV subscription.
To get through all of the questions and quandaries that Pluribus has inspired so far, I would need a wall full of Carol’s sliding whiteboards. (I still want some of those, even if they’re not specifically used for themed theory conjecture.) But hey, we’re all human, right? So I don’t think I’ve been alone in wondering about how sex with the alien Others works, with Episode 6 offering audiences a window into the copulative topic via Samba Schutte’s vice-embracing Koumba, one of the final humans left on the planet.
When Rhea Seehorn’s Carol traveled to Las Vegas, I don’t think she expected to see just how fully committed to the new world order Koumba would be, to the point where he’s living large in Elvis Presley’s hotel-topping former suite and has seemingly been enjoying a revolving door of sexual partners. When CinemaBlend spoke with Schutte about his spotlight ep, I asked for his thoughts on the logistics of Pluribus‘ human-to-Other sex, and his answer made a lot of sense. He started:
Well, there’s no judgment, right? Because they love you either way. But it’s such an interesting conversation topic, because it’s like, okay, does he realize that? Does he think that? Does he know that? Because when Zosia is drinking whiskey with Carol, Carol asks her, ‘If you get drunk, does an eight year old in Sri Lanka get drunk?’ And she’s like, ‘No, it doesn’t work that way.’ So I’m like, okay, even though they’re connected mentally, the physical aspect must be something different.
I can wrap my head around that pretty easily, especially after that episode’s scene with John Cena explaining the aliens’ need for cannibalism. If all it took to feed the entire population of Others was just one of them drinking their weird people juice, then they probably wouldn’t need to go through everything that’s invovled with manufacturing said people juice. In that same vein, but with a far less disgusting context, one or more Others having sex with Koumba wouldn’t send the rest of the planet into ecstasy.
That’s not a knock against Koumba, obviously, since the hive mind population appears to be quite happy making his wishes and whims come to life. It’s just that their communication is on a mental level, and not so much a physical one.
Samba Schutte pointed out how important it is to Koumba that everything he does with the female pod-people (and perhaps sometimes others) comes with full consent. This is not a character who only seeks his own pleasure, and is far more generous than that. As he put it:
I love that Koumba thinks he’s being a gentleman – because he wants to make sure he’s not a creep. When Carol accuses him of being an abuser, he gets offended, and he calls Zosia, and he’s like, ‘Am I acting in a way that’s unwelcome?’ And she’s like, ‘No, no, you’re fine.’ That’s a sigh of relief for him, because I think at the end of the day, he wants to be a gentleman, wants to be respectful, and I think he sees the others as individuals. He addresses them by their name: Zosia, John Cena. Carol’s like, ‘That’s not who they are.’ But I think there’s a part of him that thinks that’s what they are.
I can fully buy into this as well, as I don’t know if I could ever truly get used to the idea that nearly every other person is just one big connected database of experiences and knowledge. It probably helps that the Others are willing and able to appease Koumba’s wishes, and possibly allow Samba to refer to them separately while engaged behind closed doors. Or in the hot tub. Or on the casino’s helipad. Wherever.
The fact that everyone’s bodies are still different is likely a major anchor for Koumba to adhere to, and makes it easier to think of them as individuals. He continued:
So I don’t think he goes as deep as to think, ‘Hey, if I’m having sex with this one, maybe everyone else in the world is having a feeling at the same time.’ I don’t think that’s the way it works, hopefully. But I don’t think he thinks that far.
Maybe in a few months, Koumba will have lived this lifestyle long enough to step back and reflect on it all with more curiosity, but for now, he seems to be living in the moment with zero regrets.
Well maybe one or two easy-to-brush-away regrets. When I joked that one or more of the Others out there in the world would be Koumba’s exes being unwittingly judgmental while knowing he’s having sex with one of them. And then Schutte topped that idea and had me cackling at the thought of how uncomfortable this would be:
Yeah, exactly. Some Auntie’s judging him like, ‘I saw what you did.’ [Laughs.]
Noooo! Noooo! Not Koumba’s Auntie mentally shaking her finger at him for being a drunken hornball! As horrifyingly awkward as that concept sounds, I’m now curious if Vince Gilligan or any of the writers will give Koumba, Carol or one of the other characters that kind of a reality check.
Have yourself as merry a holiday season as can be by sticking with Pluribus through the end of Season 1, which will close out along with most of the rest of the 2025 TV schedule in the coming weeks. New episodes hit Apple TV on Fridays!
