Vince Gilligan‘s Apple TV sci-fi series Pluribus has now revealed its entire first season, ending on a cliffhanger that will live rent-free in our minds until season two arrives. io9 was thrilled to talk to Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul), who gave us one of 2025’s most memorable characters in Carol Sturka: a sarcastic, hilarious, messy, passionate best-selling author who’s one of very, very few people on the planet not subsumed into a hive mind following the arrival of an alien virus.
We did ask Seehorn questions related to the finale, “La Chica o El Mundo,” so if you haven’t watched it yet, here’s one of these:
Cheryl Eddy, io9: The timing of Manousos’ arrival in Albuquerque is perfect, maybe not for Carol, but definitely for maximizing tension on the show. What do you think makes her angrier: the interruption of her new life with Zosia—or the fact that he’s an annoying reminder of why she can’t give in to that fantasy that Zosia represents?
Rhea Seehorn: Good question and good points, because I think it’s both of those. And then I would add, Carol’s not the greatest at sitting in her uncomfortable feeling. She’s very reactive and impulsive and usually goes to anger or defensiveness. And in this case, I think she feels found out because she is lying. She’s totally lying. She knows deep down there is something that is a bit willingly delusional about the relationship she’s embarking on.
However, it comes from very mitigating circumstances. I think she is absolutely broken from the isolation that she’s gone through. And not just the 40-plus days, but also the idea that that was going to be the rest of her life. She was going to die alone, never speaking to anybody ever again. There was no end in sight. I think she was really broken by that, and I think that she is playing house—but there is a part of her that’s still her and knows there’s something wrong with what she’s doing, and she really hates being called out on it.
io9: Throughout the season we’ve seen Carol act impulsively and emotionally, but she can also be quite methodical. She plans. She has the whiteboard. Which side of her do you think spurred her to bring home the atom bomb? Or was it a little of both?
Seehorn: I personally think that was an impulsive act. It felt right to me. I started to ask Vince, like, what is her plan with it? What exactly is she going to do with it? And I could tell that he wanted to give me space to find it and/or is still determining exactly what he thinks. And I kind of left it alone because it just felt right for me that Carol—in a moment of being this hurt, this betrayed, this terrified that “they can now turn me again and I’ve got less than a month”—[would] grasp at the biggest, most destructive thing she can without a plan. It just felt right to say, like, “Well, I want an atom bomb, and don’t ask me why.”
Carol at an author event just before the Joining. © Apple TVio9: Near the end of the season we learn a little bit more about the origins of Carol’s literary career. Why do you think Vince Gilligan zeroed in on the romantasy genre in particular, pairing such a cynical character with a genre that’s so earnest?
Seehorn: I don’t know. You’d have to ask him. It felt right to me that—it’s almost the ideal world to her that she wishes we had. She’s such a cynic. And this world that she’s describing, and even visually, she makes fun of herself with the purple sands, but she made those decisions because she was creating this beautiful world where everybody gets to be themselves, even though she herself was afraid to make the lead character female. But it definitely is fantasy. I could see Carol loving to live in fantasy sometimes.
io9: Did you do any research or read any particular romantasy books while you were figuring out the character?
Seehorn: I read a couple of chapters of a couple of different styles, just to hear some different cadences, and frankly I was more surprised by, I’m embarrassed to say, the breadth of different styles of the romantic genre. It’s not like they’re all written like these steamy novels. I went to the Ripped Bodice, which is a romance novel store here in Culver City, and I was blown away by how many subgenres there are and how specific it gets. And I went to a couple of book readings, and just listening to the fans talk about the author was very eye-opening.
io9: Speaking of earnest, The Golden Girls is Carol’s comfort show. Did you imagine any backstory behind why she’s so drawn to it, especially in times of crisis?
Seehorn: Sometimes [Vince] will ask me my thoughts on some sort of specific thing that they’re picking [for the character]. On that one, they didn’t, but I had no questions immediately. I completely understand why The Golden Girls would be somebody’s comfort place. I also understood on a technical level why it’s very humorous, even from the theme song, “Thank you for being a friend,” and it’s literally her only friend in that moment.
But I also was thinking it’s a bunch of independent women with their own agency, of all different types, living together and finding a way to be in the same community—but they have extremely individualized thinking and independent thought about everything and still are managing to live in harmony. And that’s part of what Carol’s fighting for.
io9: She’s definitely a Dorothy, maybe a little bit of Sophia. Now, I know you can’t reveal anything about Pluribus season two, so I’ll just say I’m very excited to see what happens.
Seehorn: [Laughs] I don’t know anything, so it’s easy to not reveal it!
Pluribus‘ nine-episode first season is now streaming on Apple TV.
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