TV Tuesday: Plur1bus (2025) TV-MA

 TV Tuesday: Plur1bus (2025) TV-MA  

 

The research organization SETI makes a discovery that changes humanity forever, leaving only speculative historical romance writer Carol Sturka and a dozen others unaffected.

Apple TV+ bills this as a planet-wide "forced happiness" but that's not quite accurate.  In the first three episodes of this puzzle box series, we discover that it's more like a shared mind consensus with an built in imperative to make everyone happy.  Because Carol is outside the hive mind, and understandably freaked out by everyone's behavior, she is difficult to please.

First of all... that poor, poor man in Paraguay.  I hope Carol studies some Spanish.

While the new reality has an organized structure, it's obviously quite different from normal, so Plur1bus also has overtones of a post-apocalyptic world, and trying to navigate the "new normal".  When Carol organizes a meeting with the five English speaking people like herself who are out of the loop, all the methods of coping these people have adopted become obvious, and hint at the coping methods some adopted after the pandemic.

 Diabate, the opportunist, who takes advantage of this new found world, whoring and eating his way through, using up all of the fallen world's luxuries.  Laxmi, the denier, who refuses to believe her family has changed, including her ten year old son who now has the knowledge to fly the space shuttle.  Kusimayu, who just wants to join the collective so she can be with her family members again.

We see the extraordinary lengths the collective will go to to make the outsiders happy, including restocking an entire Sprouts grocery store in a few hours just because Carol asked for it because she wants to maintain her independance.

You may think that once we know how this collective consciousness was created the mystery is solved, but really it creates even more questions.  Will Manousos finally talk to Carol, and will he ever trust food outside his storage facility?  He seems to be the only other one who is as distrustful as Carol, and hopes to restore the world to the way it was.  And what is he searching for on the shortwave radio?

How does the collective spend its time at night when it's not working?  If they're moving away from private homes to a central location, where do they sleep, and what does that facility look like?  What does the collective do while they're off duty, because they don't even need to speak to each other.  Do they just sit around planning things in their heads?  Are they going to tear down all the unnecessary  buildings?  Is it going to end up being large dormitories, farms for their new vegetarian diet, and processing facilities with Carol's lone house standing in the middle like a protected historical building that they build around?

And what does this do to things like art, music and creativity?  Who needs to write a book when your largest audience already knows everything everyone else knows?  Or a song? Why write a love song, when everyone loves everyone else equally?

It's a fascinating show, and Carol with her anger and resentment simmering under the surface is a fascinating character. If you liked Severance, you will like Plur1bus.

Since this review spans the first four episodes, I won't bother with my usual counts, but there are plenty of laugh out loud moments thanks to Carol and her sarcastic wit.  As a crafting series, it works quite well.  The visuals are merely a beautiful topping on the verbal exchanges, so it works if your eyes are elsewhere, though there are long stretches where characters from the collective interact without speaking, so you may want to glance up once in a while when you don't hear dialogue, if only to catch yucky moments like the community doughnuts.

I eagerly await the second half of the season.  I just hope the writers are already working on season two, unlike Severance who waits until production is complete before they start writing, causing years-long delays. 

Sinners (2025) R

 Sinners (2025) R

 

Two brothers return to the Mississippi delta after seven years in 1920's Chicago to open a Juke joint and start fresh, but opening night takes a terrible turn. 

I once played a PC game called "Where the Water Tastes Like Wine".  This movie has a similar vibe right from the start, and I knew I would not be disappointed.  It takes a long slow burn to get to the supernatural element, but the immersion in the time period is interesting enough that you don't mind drifting towards the rapids on a slow rolling river.

Young cousin Sammie Moore (Miles Caton, musician) is truly the highlight of this film.  The producers needed a singer/guitar player who could make music to stir the ancestors and shame the devil, and he does not disappoint.  Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan, Creed) played both sides during the height of mobster Chicago, and went home to lay low, and Jordan gave a masterful performance in both roles. 

There is a scene after the shit hits the fan where the enemy is whispering names from the shadows.  It inevitably reminded me of the hyena episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer, where legend has it the creatures would learn your name by day, and then lure you out by calling from the shadows after dark.  Much, much more creepy in this film. 

This movie was almost perfect.  If they hadn't added an auto-tuned song at the very end of the credits, it would have been.  And please watch to the end, as Miles Caton gives one last performance before we fade to black.

I don't want to give too much away.  I managed to avoid spoilers until I watched it, so the reveal of what type of evil they were facing was a pleasant surprise.  Two laugh out loud moments, two holy shit moments, and three times I found I dropped my needles, enthralled by the screen, so in this case it may not be a good film to craft to, but in the best way.  Awesome film, I give it 4.5 out of 5 ancient gold coins.

 

Throwback Thursday: The Cabin in the Woods (2012) R

 The Cabin in the Woods (2012) R

 

Five college friends go to a remote cabin in the woods for a weekend away and get more than they bargained for.

I used to be a huge fan of Joss Whedon's work, and I love Fran Kranz, so I was really surprised when I realized that I had never written a review for The Cabin in the Woods. Mild spoilers will follow.

 

 

 At first, you're going to wonder if you're somehow watching the wrong movie.  There's nothing woodsy or cabin-like in the first few minutes.  Definitely not the beginning of a typical slasher film.  Once the title card jump scare is over, it settles into the kind of thing you'd expect from a teen slasher film... the characters are defined, their basic archetype is established, and the rowdy young adults head off for their weekend away.

Interestingly, the control room scenes basically take every groan-worthy trope from slasher films and give them real world explanations.  From the Harbinger, to the handle of a knife zapping the hand of the person holding it to get it to drop it, the drugs, the explosives... they all try to make sense of past movies' failure to make realistic choices.  The only one it didn't explain is why no one in this whole movie looks for a light switch when going into a dark room.

 

 All in all, it's a fun movie with decent slasher kills if you like that sort of thing.  Four laugh out loud moments, usually at Kranz, because he is, after all, the fool and got the funniest lines.  One holy shit moment because I'd forgotten that a kill happens in a moving vehicle, and one needle drop moment just because Sigourney Weaver is so compelling to watch.  One eye roll at when Hadley (Bradley Whitford) finally gets to see his merman.

It's a decent movie to craft to, if you don't care about little details and just want noise.  But I'd give it your full attention on the first watch, the little things will surprise you. Four out of five telescoping coffee mugs.