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Warning:\u00a0This article contains major spoilers<\/strong> for episodes 1 and 2 of “Pluribus.”<\/em><\/p>\n What the heck is “Pluribus” even supposed to be? We’re not referring to the literal title, which is rather quickly explained in the first half of the premiere<\/a>. Instead, the Apple TV series from “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call\u00a0Saul” visionary Vince Gilligan has had something else up its sleeve all along. Prior to release, the marketing has seen fit to keep the actual premise almost completely under wraps.\u00a0All we’ve known going in is that the story follows Rhea\u00a0Seehorn’s\u00a0Carol Sturka as, apparently, “the most miserable person on\u00a0Earth” and very little else. Vaguely ominous and possibly apocalyptic imagery in the bite-sized teasers have hinted at something larger going on, not to mention fan-theories running rampant and ranging anywhere from zombies to alien invasions to everything in between.<\/p>\n The truth, as it so happens, might as well be the best of both worlds. The debut episode, titled “We Is Us” and written\/directed by Gilligan, knowingly plays into the extraterrestrial angle by opening with astronomers working on the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) or a SETI-like organization. This is further amplified upon the discovery of a strange signal of unknown origins, which fully kicks off the events of the series. But when things inevitably go awry when \u2014 as so often happens \u2014 a pair of scientists get a little too casual handling animal experiments, the next genre Gilligan leans into appears to be a potential viral outbreak. When this<\/em>\u00a0doesn’t exactly prove to be the case, the next logical assumption is that this is secretly a zombie narrative.<\/p>\n