Review: Pluribus, "Charm Offensive" | Season 1, Episode 8
The Others really want something new to read.
We left Carol and Manousos at critically vulnerable moments last week. Both of their projects to persist in this empty, lonely world have broken down. This week we see how they respond to their failure. For one, it’s complicated. For the other, it’s simple. Even as they draw closer together geographically, their relationship to their predicament slowly, inexorably widens.
As commenters pointed out, Carol could have picked up the phone to ask the Others to come back, but instead spells it out for the eye in the sky—her version of a castaway constructing a HELP message on the desert island beach. It seems to be one of her coping mechanisms: when everything has fallen apart, work with your hands, your muscles, your body. After Zosia returns, Carol has trouble speaking her emotions into existence. They stick to small talk about board games, train whistles, the proper ratio of water to pink lemonade concentrate. Even after spending the night with Zosia twice—once with all the Others on the civic center floor, and then after a bout of passion—it’s not easy for Carol to let her guard down. She’s compromised, and she knows it. She keeps telling herself she has noble reasons for getting close to the Others, but her emotions keep betraying her.
