Plus... we're only 3 (soon to be 4) episodes in? I'm old enough to remember waiting for an entire season to be completed before passing judgment on the thing as a whole. Like, more power to you if you hate the thing, but let its first season happen first, maybe?

I think some folks are caught off guard by how it's really a character study of a single person, cloaked in the trappings of an invasion story. I may end up liking it less as it goes on, but so far, Vince has my interest and my faith.

This is less a sci-fi action thriller, and more of a sci-fi rooted drama. I hate aimless mystery box shows, but so far there haven't been dangling plot threads and ambiguous statements from characters--so far, we've just seen the first 4 days of a catastrophe someone's still processing.

Like... literally imagine the only person in your life is cruelly killed in an event that wipes out (functionally) the minds of 8 billion people, who now constantly stalk and manipulate you. Save for a scant few who don't agree with you, you are now truly alone in the world. How else would you act?!

I mean... the first episode speedruns from an alien signal to an apocalypse--that could have been 2 eps unto itself, and she's already meeting the other immune halfway thru ep 2 (I can see other shows delaying that much later)

I can think of two shows that had slow-burn storytelling and mystery elements with unlikeable protagonists, and they're both by Vince Gilligan, and they did pretty well

Until someone pointed out she was trying to sit as physically far away as possible from the flight crew, I thought the same thing LOL

Shocked at how many people didn't realize that the woman at the start of E2 is, well, Zosia, not realizing she got cleaned up and made up at the airport before heading to Carol's for the first time

Spot on--someone commented the show would be more interesting if Diabate was the protagonist?! Like, yeah he cracked a few jokes here and there and made one or two good points, but he's basically going full Epstein?

If you like Vince Gilligan's meticulous, thoughtful, slow-burn style of storytelling, and don't mind if a protagonist is difficult on purpose (I mean, that's Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul to a tee), then yes!

The comments against the show fall into "it's toooo sloooow", "Carol's too unlikeable!" or both, despite this being a Vince Gilligan show, and he's made bank and classic TV with slow-burn unlikeable anti-heroes, so... not sure why they're surprised?

I think Gilligan a) wanted to work with Rhea Seehorn as the protagonist, b) complicate things by having her be the only one on her continent who's immune, and c) flip the script of other invasion stories & have no one back the protagonist. Fair goals all, but the result does give it a certain look.

Carol tries to articulate that in E2--she points out the other immune's family members aren't really them anymore--but she of course doesn't do a great job of it. It is "American exceptionalism" coded optics-wise...

But... it's not that? Everyone's mind has been wiped out--it's not 7 billion individuals linked together, it's one mind replacing them all, and now there are 7 billion puppets. There's also (so far) no more new art, culture, parties, music, or other human endeavors. Just all ants now.

Live through a mind genocide, have your partner cruelly die because of it, and be constantly stalked and manipulated by everyone on Earth and see how cheerful you are? Like, she's not gonna be Eleanor from the Good Place.

We of course don't, and may never, know what makes Carol who she is, but as for how she's been acting, I'm mindboggled at anyone who's like "Pfffft, who's the Negative Nancy?" in the face of mind genocide, her partner's death, and constant stalking and manipulation.

I mean, we all agree this is basically a guy living out his own Epstein dreams, right?

We'll work on figuring things out, so we can fix them. So they can *join* us.

"It's Plurbin' Time"