Pluribus Episode 6 Features A Major Homage To A Horrifying '70s Sci-Fi Classic
This article contains spoilers for "Pluribus" season 1, episode 6
The cliffhanger at the end of "Pluribus" season 1, episode 5 ("Got Milk") teased it, and this week confirms it: The liquid in the Others' milk cartons is people. Well, parts of it, at least. The huge discovery at the end of Carol Sturka's (the superb Rhea Seehorn) admittedly clever detective work is a gigantic cold storage where chopped-up human bits wait to become ingredients in a nutrient mulch, dispensed to members of the hive mind in handy milk cartons.
As /Film's Devin Meenan has pointed out, the show's hive-minded "pod people," Others, make Pluribus come across as a secret remake of the sci-fi classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The reveal that the hive mind has added human remains to its diet is a nod to another old-school science fiction great, "Soylent Green" (1973). Set in the distant future of the year, uh, 2022, Richard Fleischer's film stars Charlton Heston as Robert Thorn, a detective whose investigations lead him to the horrible truth behind the movie's corporate-controlled dystopia: that Soylent Green, the supposedly plankton-based food that's taking over as humanity's favored source of nutrition, is actually made from human remains.
Heston's desperate "Soylent Green is people!" remains one of the most iconic lines in science fiction, and Carol certainly treats the discovery with similar severity. Unbeknownst to her, of course, all the immune people who actually communicate with the Others already know about the situation, and it's not quite as ominous as it appears to be ... but the fact that Carol eventually gets the wind taken out of her sails doesn't make the initial reveal and the obvious "Soylent Green" homage any less effective.
The Others are what they eat, but they don't particularly like it
To their credit, the Others aren't particularly happy about feeding on their dead, either. As hive mind member John Cena's handy explainer video points out, they find the situation just as unpalatable as Koumba Diabaté (Samba Schutte) and Carol do, and use corpses as just one ingredient of their carton-packed nutrition smoothies instead of going full cannibal.
Still, beggars can't be choosers. Despite the Others' extreme aversion to taking animal and plant lives, they need to get their sustenance somewhere. Since they're effectively reduced to foraging and people keep dying anyway — and, thanks to the massive casualties of the hive mind's "Joining" and Carol's later contributions that turned her into the most dangerous Vince Gilligan protagonist, have been doing so at a particularly massive rate as of late — it makes a grim sort of sense to put their remains to good use in a situation where food supplies can't be readily replenished.
The matter of diminishing resources, incidentally, raises some interesting questions about the future of humanity. Unless a solution emerges, the world will eventually face a situation where it will find out first-hand whether a billions-strong hive mind where virtually every member is slowly starving to death can still be as benevolent as it currently seems to be. After all, the Others have already shown a measure of displeasure toward Carol by eyeballing her and eventually avoiding her altogether after she tried too hard to find out how to "fix" them in episode 4 ("Please, Carol"), so they can feel things that aren't just pure bliss. It remains to be seen how happy their changed brain chemistry can keep them if they all get hungry enough.
"Pluribus" is streaming on Apple TV.