Vince Gilligan doesn’t know how to play it safe — and that’s exactly why his latest series, Pluribus, is a head-scratcher worth embracing. The creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul returns to his sci-fi roots — an echo of his The X-Files days — in this new Apple TV offering. Viewers are placed on a slippery slope, unsure of what lies around each bend. That sense of unease, of possibility, gives Pluribus a certain edge over its Apple TV stablemate Severance.

Gilligan retains two key elements from his earlier triumphs: Albuquerque, New Mexico, remains the story’s backdrop, and Rhea Seehorn — so electric in Better Call Saul — returns here as Carol Sturka. This time, she plays a cantankerous author of “speculative historical romance” novels, suddenly thrust into the centre of an apocalyptic event she neither asked for nor particularly cares about.

It isn’t spoiling much to say Pluribus hinges on a phenomenon that could alter the course of humanity. The world begins to shift… but not that of Carol’s. She alone is left to resist a looming transformation and, inconveniently, carry the burden of saving humankind. Carol despises her own literary success and the fans who adore her; she has a manager who loves her (Miriam Shor as Helen), yet she remains profoundly miserable, prickly, and begrudgingly compelling.

Something mysterious unfolds — an inexplicable force makes nearly everyone on Earth blissful, perhaps a bit too blissful. It’s as if John Lennon’s Imagine has been taken literally, then injected with a chilling dose of groupthink. People become peaceful, gentle… and incapable of harm. This is where the show’s haunting tagline lands: “The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.”

The story unfolds under the weight of a countdown to an earth-shattering moment. Somewhere in the universe, an encrypted transmission arrives. Early on, the laboratory scenes feel like a tilt toward Contagion, but the series resists the predictable.

The signal resolves into an RNA sequence synthesised in a lab — then escapes into the world. What follows is a virus-like event binding humanity into a hive mind. The infected become disturbingly pleasant, like devoted members of a benevolent cult. Carol, immune, watches as personalities flatten into docile sameness. Suddenly, the Latin phrase “e pluribus unum” — out of many, one — becomes a warning rather than a motto. What’s eternal happiness worth if it costs complexity, friction, and the right to be disagreeable?

Gilligan’s visual fingerprints are unmistakable. Colour is never incidental in his work. Here, lab technicians in bright, varied uniforms underscore individuality before inevitable unity. Carol’s yellow jacket during the outbreak hints at independence and defiance, reminiscent of the symbolic palettes in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Zosia (Karolina Wydra), Carol’s unnervingly serene companion from the hive mind, fades into uniformity with dusky, muted tones. Koumba Diabaté (Samba Schutte) — one of only 12 uninfected survivors — embraces the apocalypse as an excuse for decadent revelry, sporting flamboyant prints and colours that scream individual thrill-seeker set loose in a passive world.

The hive mind spreads through saliva — through kissing — echoing, uncomfortably, recent viral history and its global shutdown. A book-tour sequence neatly foreshadows the season: Carol railing against complacency, refusing the soothing lie of collective bliss.

Gilligan’s signature humour remains intact: Off-kilter, sharp, occasionally headache-inducing, like too many espresso shots. At times, you may feel as though you’ve attempted James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake — baffled, exhilarated, and oddly enriched.

Pluribus and Severance sit worlds apart. Severance is hyper-controlled, stylised, a polished fever-dream. Gilligan, instead, leans into the rugged beauty of the New Mexico desert — open horizons, dust, cosmic loneliness. Yet both shows share a destiny: They will lodge themselves in the cultural bloodstream, buoyed not only by bold ideas but by Apple’s bottomless financial ability to keep such visions alive.