I haven’t seen anyone point out the political symbolism here too. I don’t think it’s a stretch considering Carol’s statements earlier.

This episode shows an American, formerly considering herself the leader of the free world, in a hedonistic death spiral. Meanwhile, a South American pursues his dream to save the world, encouraged by the history of said American, by taking the absolute hardest path. The South American takes it upon himself to learn another language while undertaking his perilous journey, ready to assimilate to the culture.

The entity is absolutely, deliberately manipulating Carol through social isolation. The collective knows what social isolation does to people; there’s a million or so therapists it can draw that info from. There are also many ways to perhaps combat it that they could be offering to Carol, but they aren’t doing that. The entity has its own agenda, likely a set of Asimov-esque rules of robotics, serving a primary goal of propagation (with most of the human race out building satellites and radio antennas powered by solar to blast the signal further).

Traveling logistics. For the entity to be able to deliver items to Carol while she is on the road so quickly, I imagine there’s a fleet of cargo trucks following her around, just a few miles behind her (beyond her view), with delivery drones ready to fetch and deliver whatever she asks for.

You think this show is slow? There is a big difference between a series that is paced with deliberation to cultivate a tone and establish character motivation… and a series that is just insufferably drawn out. I remember Serial Experiments Lain. Pluribus is fine.

Manousos, ‘nothing, on this planet, is yours.’
Fuckin’ epic. Loved that whole ‘stolen’ speech. Just before the hive offered to take his car with him I knew he was going to torch it. They didn’t understand, it was his sacrifice. (One of many.)

The episode however, as a whole, really laid out the most egregious issue I still have with this show. It’s slow. It drags. It’s honestly just poorly paced. There’s so much to explore, so many questions, yet only so much screen-time.

Some of it is art and artistry, but a lot of it just feels stretched rather than expressive and contemplative.
Here’s an example:

+ Carol listening over and over to the same line on the phone, is an artistic choice that relays the feeling that leads to her suicidal lack of caring at the end. It had meaning. A repetition she’s forced to endure. Albeit she could just ask for them to shorten it, she doesn’t. She’s choosing to listen to it. Even going about useless activities like the scratch’n’win during. That wasn’t stretching screen-time. It was… depressing. And she was, depressed.

- Whereas, Manousos’s montage of Paraguay could’ve been condensed. Beautiful location shots, don’t get me wrong. But when I want to watch a nature documentary I vastly prefer Attenborough. It wasn’t in service to the plot. We get it, red line, map, took a while.

The suicidal lack of moving at the end was good character development. And it’s been headed this way for a bit, notably when she laughed off staying with Diabeté.

PS: As a Canadian seeing fireworks sold in convenience stores is weird. That shit’s dangerous, yo.

Love a series that doesn’t shy on irritating the viewer: Carol was bored and they carried the feeling by using a sloth pace, speedrunning it wouldn’t have conveyed the proper character development that they are masterfully doing in this show.

Manusos storyline is great and every shot during his trip is wonderful and sad at the same time. They show his determination even though he almost never speaks a word, but when he does, he kicks!

Twenty-minutes worth of episode stretched to 45 minutes.

Also, Carol put a shot gun in her golf bag and didn’t use it. Chekhov’s gun denied. For now.

I think Diabaté has the right idea. Not Vegas, necessarily, but generally just experiencing and enjoying what there is to do, now that there are no limits. Also, consider that while they “can’t pick the apple”, they seem to have no problem eating what is already picked–the warehouses full of produce. So, while the vast majority may starve, they don’t all need to die. The unconverted could band together, and do the harvesting part, which seems to be the only roadblock–keeping a small community alive as long as the unconverted live. Small tribes would probably persist, regardless.

I’ve seen elsewhere people say that the hive manipulated Carol, but did they?

The hive was nothing but helpful, Carol attacked one of them, nearly killed one of them, and they backed off, but still helped her. Carol did something wrong, Carol showed remorse, the hive came back.

Both Carol and Manousos want the hive to be “evil”, but they’re not. Diabaté doesn’t view them as evil and he’s enjoying life… but as we saw last episode with the fake storyline and the sandwich something isn’t quite right either. They’re not evil… But they’re not human either. The world isn’t at peace, the world no longer exists.

Nothing on this planet is truly yours. You cannot give me anything because all that you have was stolen.

Sure would be nice to have an episode with some action or story.

These super long no talking cuts are really annoying. I found myself fast forwarding through most of this episode.

I haven’t watched it yet, but at the end of the last episode, when he jumped in the car planning to drive to North America, I wondered how they’re going to deal with the Darien Gap. I’m guessing from the title, it’s going to be a pretty important part of the journey!

Ok, creators of this show really like to torture us: THE SAME PLURBIN VOICEMAIL THREE TIMES IN A ROW!

I don’t find obvious product placement to be an issue there, it adds realism. It’s the same case as in Like a Dragon video game series.

Manousos has amazing mental fortitude, but he’s still just a human and not truly independent. Maybe his rescue will make him change his mind a bit. He may sway Carol to return to her rebellious streak, as she has currently given up.

That song playing during Manousos’s journey is “Esperanza” by Hermanos Gutiérrez

https://youtu.be/DrIQLiB3HPI