1 of 3 | Rhea Seehorn’s sci-fi drama, “Pluribus,” premieres Friday. Photo courtesy of Apple TV
Rhea Seehorn says the novelist she plays on Pluribus is the “polar opposite” of Kim Wexler, her iconic attorney from the crime drama Better Call Saul.
Premiering Friday on Apple TV, the sci-fi series Pluribus imagines what might happen if the world’s population is affected by a virus that not only links together their consciousnesses, but also makes them uniformly happy.
According to the show’s premise, there are only 12 people — including Seehorn’s Carol — who appear immune and still in control of their free will after the pandemic.
Carol is surprised to learn that she is the only English-speaking “survivor” who doesn’t want the world to go back to the way it was.
“No one’s listening to me that the barn is on fire,” Seehorn, 53, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“She is quite cantankerous and always was a bit of a polar opposite to Kim Wexler, for sure,” Seehorn said. “She keeps a lid on it with this professional persona she created, but her wife was the buffer for all of that to smooth everything out. … She’s innately an emotionally reactive person and impulsive.”
Seehorn described Carol’s way of dealing with things before the pandemic as a defense mechanism.
“She’s a fault finder, including with her own stuff,” Seehorn said.
“Making fun of her fans of her own work is not a mockery of them. It’s a mockery of herself. It’s her own self-loathing and wanting to beat somebody to the punch. So, that’s where I think a lot of the fight comes from.”
When the virus takes over, Carol just wants to be left alone, but others keep trying to fix her, which makes her feel like it is up to her to fight to restore humanity’s individuality.
“She’s a very reluctant hero that was not expecting to be the person that’s got to lead the charge,” Seehorn said.
“I think she was hoping anybody in that Spain meeting was going to be the leader and would have some kind of science background or physics background, and that she would just be supplying snacks for the rebels, but not leading it,” she added. “But, here she is, having to pull herself up off the floor.”
The show is laced with dark humor and explores important existential questions such as how happiness and success should be defined.
Seehorn likes that it doesn’t offer up easy answers to these moral dilemmas.
“I’ve been dying for the show to come out for lots of reasons, but one of them is that I want to talk to people about it,” Seehorn said.
“There’s a lot of stuff that me, the crew and the cast stayed up late at night talking about and grappling with. I’m more excited about the questions being posed in the conversations that they hopefully inspire than I am about having an answer.”
The series was created by Vince Gilligan, Seehorn’s old friend from Better Call Saul.
“We had some fun intellectual debates. We have a great time collaborating and Vince is so generous in always being open to other people’s ideas,” Seehorn said.
“We were trying to navigate and find and make and construct Carol,” she added. “Being the lead on this show, it is upon me to solidify tone and dictate tone, which is quite a wily one in this series. So, we would play with different things and I would say, ‘What if we go in this direction?’ And he would say: ‘That’s OK. Let’s try that and then let’s try this.’ So, not a lot of arguments, just some very healthy intellectual discussions.”
Co-starring Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga, Miriam Shor and Samba Schutte, the show has already been picked up for a second season.
Rhea Seehorn, Vince Gilligan attend ‘Pluribus’ premiere
Star Rhea Seehorn attends the world premiere of Apple TV series “Pluribus” at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles on November 4, 2025. “Pluribus” will make its global debut on Apple TV with its first two episodes on November 7, 2025, followed by new episodes every Friday through December 26. Photo by Greg Grudt/UPI | License Photo
