When Carol was asking Zosia about her former life and partner, does anybody get the sense that Carol was purposefully and carefully wording her questions to avoid receiving any hints about the real Zosia's sexuality? Maybe I'm overthinking things, but to me, it felt like Carol was scared to confront the possibility that Zosia may have been straight because that would force Carol to acknowledge the gravity of what she has done.
100%. Carol took a pause before saying ''they'' exactly because she wanted to be as vague as possible about the gender of Zosia's ex, and even Zosia replied with ''they'' (cant lie, but also knows it would hurt Carol by saying the original Zosia was in an heterosexual relationship)
Another 100% from me.
That pause spoke/yelled volumes of meaning.
I'm active in a book fandom that has a lot of theory making and discussion. It amazes me how unsubtle some of the fans can be with stuff similar to this.
Point us towards that group!
/r/Wycaro
👏 bravo. Well played.
wow, scrolling through that sub and seeing speculation from over a year ago is wild. some of the posts/comments thinking zosia would be some kind of jesus-esque religious figure, people taking photos from outside the set, the theories that it would be about aliens being disguised as humans- kind of sad i missed out on all of it, lol
And how some people reject the idea of discussion completely. I've seen a few people on here doing exactly that. Someone will suggest a pretty interesting theory, leaving room for others to come in and discuss it further, but then there'll always be someone just trying to shut it all down. All but calling people stupid for wanting to theorise and discuss where the show could be going.
Both of my fan theory posts on this sub were deleted.
Yes. It's not conducive to open discussion, ironically on a sub about a series that is all about ambiguity and false assumptions.
Yep. X 100
The other interesting thing is that by Zosia admitting "they" aren't in the hive, it means one of three things:
Zosia's previous partner died before the joining (she did say the relationship was a long time ago).
Zosia previous partner died in the joining (seems likely since they lost nearly a billion people during it).
Or (and this is the unlikely but narratively interesting one) Zosia's past partner is one of the immune that Carol hasn't met.
I could see that 3rd point as a really interesting development in S2 if true.
The middle one would have the most narrative impact. What if we get to see joining day as Zosia experienced it. Say she was so grimy because she and her partner were traveling in a bus that crashed. Then she immediately walked away to start harvesting the dead.
Maybe her partner was the first protein she helped put on a dairy truck 😳
She did say that it was a long time ago. I doubt that equates to 78 days.
She said she had a partner a long time ago, not that he died a long time ago
It can't be the middle one.
The hive contains all those who died during the joining, or did you forget that Helen is in there despite dying during the joining?
Someone could have died prior to joining during the convulsions via blunt force trauma. Maybe the dead person in the car whose body she was helping to recover was her partner.
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There's nothing to even suggest that in the show. The joined brought many thousands in quietly the first month and none were ever harmed. Joining does not "burn out their brains".
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The massive amount of death makes me think that there was also a large amount of violence that has not been mentioned. Perhaps in some places it seemed like a zombie outbreak and people were killing members of the collective?
10% of humanity dying seems like wayyyy more than could be accounted for by people falling down or crashing vehicles.
In Ep. 2, Zosia says “… but then the military discovered us and, to avoid even more bloodshed, we had to accelerate the process” — which seems to support your theory.
That is not confirmed. Helen died after being joined. She regains consciousness with the vapid hive smile, then dies.
It's difficult to explain the hive not realising that Manousos isn't joined if the people who die during joining have their memories harvested. He wasn't hiding before, so somebody must have known where he was to within a pretty short timescale. Seems likely the hive assumed he died on joining.
Helen also gained consciousness for a moment only to then die. For a moment she was actually part of the hive
Besides Helen I don't recall any deceased individuals memories being mentioned
You have to survive the process of joining to have your memories harvested. If you die before it's complete, your memories are lost.
They’re not in the hive, their memories are. Otherwise they could have sent Helen in someone else’s body.
Helen fell to the ground, seized for a few minutes and then survived for the next 20-30 minutes in the back of a truck. It's completely possible that Zosia's partner was killed within the first second of the joining starting.
The first (1) is possible, and would be the most straightforward reading of Zosia's claim. However, while we know that while the Hive won't outright lie, it can be rather "lawyerly" in how it relates information. And "a long time ago" is vague enough to mean a lot of different things.
So I would favor (2): Zosia's partner - male or female - was lost in the joining. That would give her a certain parallel with Carol. While the Hive wouldn't care one way or the other, the writers would, and that would provide them substantial grist for the mill.
The third (3) seems almost impossible, given what we know about the immune. We've accounted for pretty much all of them. So unless she was married to that muezzin, the 6-year-old girl, etc., it seems impossible, unless he/she was immune but died in the joining in an accident... like the one that dirtied up Zosia. Hmm... That would be interesting. Suppose Zosia was a survivor of a plane that crashed in Morocco, and her spouse died in that crash. I could see that possibility. However, the statistical odds that he/she was immune, only to die in that crash or accident, seem fantastic. More likely, he/she was a failed joining, like Helen, or died in an accident caused by pilots going into epileptic shock.
If it were one of the immune surely they’d be asking for her constantly
I feel like if it were the third one Zosia would be assigned to them, same way the others have their family near them. If Helen had lived, she'd be the one looking after Carol.
the third point actually interested me as a real possibility bc there is the fact that we've only seen SOME of the uninfecteds... just the ones who know how to speak English... and there's a good chance that neither zosia nor her partner knew how to speak english.
Bingo. All we know about pre-joined Zosia is that she was Polish and in Morocco at the time of the joining. Was she living there? On vacation? Something worse? No idea.
I was half expecting Zosia to get unplurbed this season, but with a 4-season arc in mind it makes sense they might want to save that for s2/s3. But when/if it does happen, my bet is she doesn't speak English at all.
I mean, with the whole "actress needs to speak Polish" thing, it pretty much confirms that's gonna be a plot point
it'd be a hell of a long shot though
iirc, the unmet immunes are two old men from Istanbul and Sardina, an 8 year old girl from South Africa, a 22 year old man from Yemen, and a sushi chef in Japan. Really only those last two would be potential partners
Zosia's partner also could have been one of millions killed by Carol.
Ah, but then Zosia would likely have answered that they were in there, the same way Helen is in there. The body might be deceased, but all the memories would be present.
Unlikely. Said partner is not a part of the Plurbs as Zosia claimed.
Yeah it's not like being gay would make it better, but being straight would make it worse
Yup, this show nails the details (from a queer perspective)
Worse… Zosia also said “they” (her ex) is not part of the hive, so it’s possible that Zosia is a widow. Perhaps her S/O was killed during the joining but was not joined.
I was watching this episode with polish subtitles, it might be a SPOILER or just translators being lazy - if anyone watching in other language, or someone who knows how translation on such shows work, could confirm it then Zosia’s partner was a woman. When Carol asked Zosia if her partner is „in there” with them Zosia replied with „they are not” - in polish it was translated to something along the lines of „she’s not”
Be real. Person making the subtitles is not Vince so they don't have this information. It's just bad job translating, not a hidden hint
I'm gonna watch it in German now to see what it says. We don't really have "they/them" to refer to a singular person
Wow! I just jumped to that scene, and Zosia says “ist sie nicht”. So, that’s singular feminine. No question. If it were “they are not”, obviously (to a German speaker) that would be “sind sie nicht”. It’s not ambiguous- grammatically speaking.
Now, I will add that I have seen many German shows on YouTube where you can’t turn off the English subtitles, and I can’t help but notice that the translators often take liberties with dialogue and totally change what people said. For example, I just rewatched Der Tatortreiniger, and in one scene I saw yesterday the main character said he was going out to get a beer and a Döner (it’s a Turkish-German version of gyros), but the English subtitles had the character saying “I’m going to the pub to get a beer and a cheeseburger”! Ha!
But the “she” versus “they” thing is a huge deal in a big budget show in Apple TV. And they said “she” in the Polish version? WTF? Why would they make it ambiguous in English? Could this be Apple totally not translating properly? She could have said “sind” in German and that still could have left open the possibility it was a woman. But they said “she”. Hmm.
Is Zosia allowed to mislead?
Just to add to your reply to provide extra clarification for non-German speakers: sie can mean both “she” or “they” (or “it” depending on noun gender). It’s the conjugation of “to be” here (ist vs sind) that makes the distinction.
hmm hard to say, but they did include an easter egg spoiler ish in the subtitles before with the yellow "milk" (instead of writing yellow like carol said, they gave the hex code for the color in the subtitles) so it might well be intentional.
Finding out that Zosia is straight would shatter the fragile facade she's built. She'd have to face that this is a random person plucked from across the world with no individuality whatsoever. She's been trying to force individuality where there is none.
Wasn't that already addressed? Literally picked Zosia from the cover of Carol's book.
Carol is just lonely and deluded.
I have to admit I was 100% wrong about her doing all of this to trick them.
She did it because she was lonely. I actually like her more for it. And even more that she worked through it.
I think it started that way and over time Carol started liking them as well as thought she was getting through to Zosia specifically.
And having essentially all the other survivors hate you might seem like you can’t do anything so it was probably easier for her to delude her self like this cause what else (in her mind) can she do?
"I did it for me"
"I did her for me."
"I did them for me."
“I liked it. I was good at it.”
"I liked it. They were extremely good at it."
“I was… I was unjoined”
Dammit, now I wanna rewatch breaking bad again. Which will lead to a better call Saul rewatch… I don’t have time for this!
what a sick joke
you HAVE to stop him!
Yeah that’s what i believed. She started to become too fond of all of them but at least she didn’t want to become one of them and it woke her up
I think both things are true
I kind of do too to be honest. I was probably being a little more self-deprecating than I needed to because people admitting they are wrong is so few and far between in these kind of shows.
I was thinking about this and if a plurb’ed chris hemsworth was my ‘chaperone’, I don’t know how long I’d be able to resist either. I really wanted a post credit scene of Koumba, where kind of like what happened at the beginning with Kusimayu where the facade dropped when she turned, we see him playing to up for the plurbs, and he walks away, dropping a facade of being happy because he also came to realize it’s not fun anymore.
I think that's coming, I think maybe his life was pretty rough before so he's taking advantage and living it up, but he's going to start feeling the hollowness of it and maybe ultimately join Carol and Manousos.
Alternate possibility -- he wants to keep it going and tries to use the Plurbs against Carol and Manoussos, giving them instructions they would not act on on their own.
I don't think they want to make Diabaté a purely evil character. I read an interview about the difficulty of finding an actor that could still be a somewhat likeable character even with what he's doing.
Fair point, but the thing that gets me is, you wouldn't just be having sex with Chris H. You're having sex with everyone in the world. I couldn't do it. It's too creepy and over exposed. Literally everyone i see on the street has seen me naked during the worst period of my life?? Hard nope!
That was Carol's stance the first week but 40 days of isolation broke her. So depending on the plurbs behaved & manipulated you, could your resolve break? They broke Carol and that's why I'm giving her some grace. Carol's locked back in after a rude awakening but her almost going full Koumba needed to happen for her resolve to strengthen. Even if it just looks selfish.
It is selfish, yep.
Also, side note: why didn't she just ask for her eggs back? They have to do whatever she says. So give me my damn frozen eggs, stat!
They don’t have to do whatever she says, because she’s asked them not to join her many times and they’ve repeatedly told her they are going to do it anyway. Asking them to stop working on/with her eggs is basically asking them the same thing so they’d most likely just say no
Exactly. They would never stop & if they did give her anything, it would be samples they no longer need.
It was already too late to ask at that point. They already got what they needed from the eggs. Plus they would just dance around the topic & give her any eggs that weren't viable anyways.
If you’ve ever had sex with anybody currently Plurbed (which Carol has) the hivemind already has seen you in that state anyway so it almost doesn’t matter. But Carol clearly was just tricking herself into seeing Zosia as an individual with just some connection to the hivemind (much like Laxmi does with her son actually) so I don’t know if she even saw it that way
They already have seen it all though, unfortunately. Everything you’ve ever done.
Really, the one thing I find unrealistic about this show is that none of the survivors is a genuinely terrible person. Like none of them is a convicted murderer or a swindler or etc., they’re just normal family people. And whatever Manousos is.
That's why it was so strange that she rejected a real person in favor of the fake plurb. She KNOWS.
She had the opportunity to have a real human interaction and rejected it in favor of her delusion until she was personally threatened.
Exactly, I saw people complaining about this as a pothole but loneliness makes people do crazy things.
I think her attitude toward it would also be informed by her experience with conversion therapy. She would be, in a way, forcing someone into a relationship that is against their sexuality.
What’s sad is that Carol saw that Bri, the waitress from her old diner, was plucked from her old life and made to perform for Carol’s pleasure, but she convinced herself that Zosia and her feelings were “real.”
It did get shattered anyway when she realized that they are scheming to turn her. Maybe she asked her in the helicopter or she didn't care about that anymore
This part confuses me though, because she clearly talks to the group early on about how everyone is everyone and knew/experiences everything. So she was aware that she was with someone who was everyone on earth and the implications of that..?
The real problem is that Carol was starting to think of Zosia as a person. She wanted her to start referring to herself as “I” (which she did a few times) which fed Carol’s desire to be with someone who is not “them”. For a while she thought she had found something she could live with in that messed up world. Glad she snapped out of it because she was starting to piss me off.
Theres that interesting pause, which could simply be “I’m tuned in to the visitor”, but could also be that Zosia was enjoying her memories as an individual and came close to being unique for a moment.
Yes, and the fact that Zosia didn’t volunteer information about it, referring only to “they,” suggests that Carol wouldn’t like the answer. If Zosia could please Carol by revealing the gender, she would.
Absolutely she was. If she found out the original Zosia was straight then that would make what she's doing even worse.
Yeah. Carol isn't stupid...I'm sure at some point it crossed her mind that the original Zosia isn't into women. She was nowhere near ready to hear it laid out concretely though.
But, to be fair, the hive mind isn't exactly stupid either. There are probably other women who look a lot like how Carol originally envisioned her pirate queen. It's entirely possible that the individual they chose was attracted to women on some level. In fact, being an intrinsic part of that character, I wouldn't be surprised if that is true.
It's also entirely possible that she wasn't. In other words, we'll have to see.
I thought of that, but they made the exact same mistake with the diner too, thinking that she would find it charming, and not realizing that seeing the waitress would send her down a loop of overthinking how it was done.
If they had the subtlety and forethought to pick a lesbian single Raban, maybe even find one in the Wycaro fandom who would honestly be DTF with the author, just in case Carol later asks background questions, then they would have also thought of not dragging the recently married waitess ac cross the country.
Personally, I think the diner incident could be argued either way in favor of your theory or of mine. They went to the trouble of bringing that waitress back (and rebuilding the diner in the first place) because authenticity and nostalgia seemed important.
The hive mind only made the mistake that they tried too hard, they made it too obvious they were trying to distract Carol, or maybe they tried too hard to please her.
So did they choose Zosia because she resembled the pirate queen on the surface, or were they trying to please Carol by choosing someone who would even have acted much like her pirate queen?
Stepping away from framing this through lore, I also have to say that it would be a very messy and difficult issue to navigate if they go with the angle that the individual that was Zosia was straight. Imagine a situation where Zosia is somehow severed from the link. Would she remember everything that happened? If so, she's going to remember the grenade, the adverse reaction to that drug, all the time they spent together and the dubious consent involved. There's more than enough conflict there.
Now I really want to see Zosya unplurbed!
Personally I would think they would choose the individual that most closely resembled the original Raban above all else. The hive mind is all about efficiency and practicality, they would not consider the individual's previous sexuality or personality because it doesn't have any actual impact, they can inject any personality they see fit into her. "Zosia" is just a meat puppet to them, so they would choose the person who is physically the closest to Carol's ideal woman because nothing else matters.
Well, mathematically the odds would be around 10% that the random lady the Hive picked for Carol is lesbian or bi. So Carol is aware that Zosia probably isn’t into women, but as long as she doesn’t directly ask about Zosia’s sexuality, Carol doesn’t know Zosia isn’t into women and doesn’t have to confront the likely truth.
Carol knows she straight… she’s just trying to live in that shadow of a doubt
Yeah felt like she didn’t want to get the wrong answer and have her heart broken. But regardless she ends with bad news towards the end.
100% she was pronoun gaming her with "them" instead
I think Carol is trying to reconcile the fact that she doesn't know who she's having sex with at all. Zosia came from Morocco, but she's Polish I think. Carol tries to understand if any individual human is still there. I think it's so twisted into so many pretzels here.
If Zosia was a lesbian, does it mean she'd be attracted to Carol? Would she have enthusiastic consensual sex with her?
I feel very icky about Mr Diabate, he is such a sleazebag. And Carol is probably going to have lots of feeling about her relationship with "Zosia" going forward.
Yeah, Zosia's Polish. She confirmed it herself in episode 8.
well yes, and she has the most gorgeous and typical Polish face. but I am curious why she was in Morocco! :)
Vacation
but still, she looked very poor in morocco. For a while, I thought she was just a very poor moroccan woman.
There might be some tragedy there
The infection of humanity made vast numbers of people look "poor" (bloody, dirty, etc).
It was the deadliest disaster in human history, with every surviving body immediately performing cleanup duty, and it made everyone fall down into the dirt.
I also think she may have been sex trafficked
Christ that'd be an absolutely horrible plot development if they free Zosia.
She's been miserable all her life, and then she was 'happy' all to be brought back into misery
Adds a really depressing layer to her relationship with Carol if so.
These are the kind of stories I am waiting to hear, as terrible as it sounds. Juxtaposing it with the immune...Diabaté has alluded to growing up without much of anything, and many of the other un-joined are living a life free of negativity and hardship when before it was probably not the most fancy. Pre-plurbed Zosia may have also had a particularly tough life. We haven't had anyone break off of the hive yet to tell their story, I'm going to assume that is coming in season 2 which will drive momentum to the conclusion of the story which goes one of two ways... everyone gives in or everyone breaks free.
Carol may as well have been the most "well-off" of any of the un-joined financially - best selling author, living quite comfortably, but it's clear that her personal life has been emotionally unstable and rocky and it's painful for her to experience those revelations through the hive.
I cannot imagine having sex with one person and then as a result, everyone in the world knows what you're like in bed.
Laxmi’s son knows..
lol someone should mention that to her, carol just slept with your family laxmi XD
right? they pretty much broadcasted their sex to 7B people
https://i.redd.it/mt2gjb4gu79g1.gif
Not just broadcast but they all experienced it
Think of how many people died while having sex with Carol, just statically speaking lol
The plurbs already knew that because they’d assimilated Helen’s memories.
They don’t judge though. People’s fear comes from feelings of inadequacy and judgement. The hive has none of those.
Do Carol’s actions make her just as much of a sleazebag or do we think the fact that she had a conscience about it makes her closer to morally just? I’m not sure either way myself.
I think it’s easy for us to say “No way!” when faced with the idea that we’d even consider going the Diabate route but it’s a bit scary to be faced with the fact that many could work their way up to it just as Carol did.
I think they're both human beings in a unique situation where societal influence has changed dramatically, so they're figuring out the answers to these questions along with the audience.
So, you see D take a ton of the candy that the hive offers (lots of sports cars and sexual partners), C some of the candy (a rolls royce and one sexual partner), and M minimal candy (borrows an ambulance and no sexual partners).
M would say having sex with the hive is morally wrong because the body's true owners can't consent. But he would also say that taking the rolls royce is morally wrong too for the same reason - if one is claiming the public interest take a cop car.
D would say having sex with the hive is fine. The individuals are collectively part of the hive, the hive can't lie, and the hive freely consents. The world has fundamentally changed, and D argues for the better, so D is just living his life.
C is in the middle and wants a drink. 🍷
The show has not presented us with a clear answer. According to conventional public morality, C & D are probably wrong. BUT this is fiction and in fiction sexy taboos are often explored - like in romantasy - and it's not an accident that Carol is reading a scene of a protagonist female captain having her way with an underling to a turned on crowd.
I think Carol was really, really lonely. I don't think Diabate was. He just took advantage of the situation. It's interesting that he shows empathy for Carol when he's talking on the phone about how lonely she is.
You don’t think that the hive sent Diabate beautiful seductive model(s) to come onto him? Like they tailor picked female Rabban? To still vilify Diabate but excuse Carol is just being intellectually dishonest with yourself imo. We haven’t seen Diabate’s origin story but we know how the hive acts. They put up a charade for Kusimayu, and stopped when it was done. They manipulate, they give you everything you’re used to (e.g. family with Laxmi and culture with Kusimayu) and everything you desire.
Me personally yes, I think that Diabate is more of a sleazebag as he immediately jumped into the hakuna matata mode. Carol gave in after weeks of mindfucking and manipulation. Both of them have used the hivemind as servants, maintaining resorts, giving massages, cooking, etc. It's costly! It's humans working for them. Someone had to run a ski resort just for her basically.
I don't expect Carol to be entirely morally just, that would make the show boring. I think that Carol is really conflicted and will remain a complex character that we'll be discussing and having complex feeling about :)
I wonder if Diabate is going to do a reverse arc, where he slowly becomes disillusioned with all the distractions, and becomes crucial to the cause.
I wonder if, and then how, he's going to react to the fact that the hive took Carol's eggs: so the fact that the survivors essentially can't refuse to join after all! He's not nearly as safe as he thought he was.
He may like to mess around with the Plurbs this season but that may quickly turn around once he realizes he's toast.
Not to be gross but if they can use only eggs to turn someone, they can maybe use sperm and I'm sure they have his.
yeah I think I read not long ago about turning sperm cells into eggs and the middle stage is a pluripotent cell for conceiving a child from two males, so yes, it is possible
Especially since they got a lot of his DNA lmao
I think so. I wonder if his life before was really rough so it's kind of understandable that he'd want to live it up and take advantage. But I think he'll start feeling the hollowness of the situation and perhaps join Carol and Manousos.
Funny how the whole sub has basically stopped calling diabate a rapist now, and implore for nuance because otherwise they would have to say carol is too.
But still feel the need to act morally superior, call him sleazbag, and pass judgement.
It seems likely that the hive would have sent seductive models to Diabate to begin with, but people still want to call him a sleaze. Both Diabate and Carol gave into temptation. With the hive unable to even pick an apple, that’s a religious allegory re the garden of Eden. Carol and Diabate are more alike than this sub wants to reconcile with.
Re the sub still wanting to pass judgment on Diabate but excuse Carol, I think people are being intellectually dishonest with themselves. I posted more on this ITT.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pluribustv/s/FCtfm55sJS
Well and now some people can feel morally superior towards the whole sub! It’s truly a gift that keeps on giving :)
Yep, the show has not shied away from showing Carol's flaws : 1. Obvious romantic and sexual relationship with Zosia's body. Though not matched by scale, how different is it really from Diabetes? 2. She is not able to morally defend her actions to have called back the Joined to come back, when she replies with "No Say" when Manosous questions why they came back after deserting her for 40 days. 3. Though a continuation of the second point, her flustered reaction when Zosia is alone with Manousos and when she finds out Zosia told him everything indicates (at least that's how I interpreted it) that she has strayed from her moral compass by getting involved romantically and sexually with the joined via Zosia.
In contrast, Manousos too has been alone for the same duration as Carol, but has stood his ground to the point of death while crossing the gap.
"No se" means "I don't know" in Spanish
Funnily it works as a pretty good pun because Carol is straight up lying - "no say" the truth about Zosia/calling the plurbs back
"Diabetes"? Lol
Regarding point 1, I'd say it's different for a few reasons.
They specifically sent her as a honeypot for Carol
It took Carol being left alone for an extended period of time and going a bit nuts from the isolation before she did anything with Zosia.
He just assembled a harem instantly
I think the supermodels showed up the way Zosia did. The Others had them both sussed. Diabaté just gave in sooner than Carol.
Yes but at the end of the day they are both doing the exact same thing. Both of them are sleeping with people that did not consent to being plurbed as far as we know. Carol is no better
You don’t know that he assembled a harem rather than the hive offering itself to him. The hive seeks to please everyone to get them to not fight them. Why would they not be doing the exact same thing with Diabate?
Carol also had her partner killed through the joining. Perhaps if she had no partner she’d have been more receptive to Zosia to begin with and if Diabate had lost one, he’d be more resistent. My point is, I don’t think it’s fair to give Carol all the credit of circumstance and Diabate none.
I’m more curious about how all of Zosia’s exes are not in the hive… is Zosia a black widow?
1 out of 8 people died in the joining. I don't think it's that unlikely that her Great Love was one of them.
Those who died during the joining are still “absorbed” by the hive eg Helen.
It’s very clear that Zosia’s ex passed before the joining.
No, Helen died right after the joining. People who died in accidents etc while they were still seizing were not absorbed into the joined mind.
Not necessarily, Helen regained consciousness before dying, likely they got her then. They haven’t established if the people who died instantly also joined them.
Yeah, I think the Joining represents the virus having enough active agents believe that enough of the host population are infected, and so trigger the "no more violence and unity" state, while still being interesting in spreading the virus further.
I think the virus could be a modified space virus intended to bring peace to the signal source planet, but in having it take over the host, it forced its Hive to spread itself.
However all, what's the difference between then and us?
Well, Helen did complete the joining process. We see this when she briefly regains consciousness and gets that creepy smile in the bed of the truck at the hospital.
If someone died during the joining, and not right after, I suspect that their memories etc. would not be fully uploaded. It seems like these casualties could have been a substantial proportion of the dead
unless they died before the joining could finish instead of just being knocked unconscious like helen was
Some who died in the joining, like Helen, are in the hive (well, the hive has their memories, anyway), because they died after getting infected. I imagine that if someone died fast enough their memories might not have been 'uploaded', but I suspect in the case of Zosia's ex the insinuation is rather that he or she died before the joining (if only because that would then suggest a tragic backstory).
I still think there could be more logic to the people who died in the joining than we’ve been explicitly told.
We did learn that everyone who joined at first was fine, it was only as the hive expanded that people started dying when they joined. Was that deliberate in some way to prune their numbers?
Altho I am starting to question everything the hive has said and done, including all the rules Carol has discovered. They’ve put on elaborate acts for other normals, how elaborate is the facade and the acting they’ve constructed for Carol?
I believe it is mentioned in Spain that the initial virus roll out was compromised by something at the military base and it had to be expedited, resulting in 800 million deaths. I thought maybe Carol danced around the question of her former partner because she worried she might have killed them when she went into rage mode. The answers about her sexuality make more sense, though Zosia would have the collective consciousness of millions of lesbians.
Maybe she looked like she did in ep 2 because she survived in a car wreck mostly unharmed but her partner didn't. She said it was "a long time ago" but what's a long time to the hive? Maybe 71 days is enough to say that, who knows. Or maybe she was single and they died some other way.
She says that her relationship "was a long time ago" and they're not in the Hive. For me it was clear her partner died and she didn't meet anyone else after that. It's not really uncommon to only ever having had one relationship, especially if it ends tragically
It means they are dead. Could have died during the joining, when many many died. Or could have died pre joining for unrelated reasons.
I guess we’ll see.
She said it was a long time ago, I know that's a subjective statement but I don't think most people would call less than 90 days a long time
That’s where I thought they were going with it. Carol realizes the real Zosia is actually a psycho killer and that snaps her out of her fantasy so she goes back to Manousos
Don’t forget that the hive also has the collective consciousness of every serial killer alive on earth.
That's a twist that hadn't occurred to me. LOL
We don't actually know if the hive has the consciousness of anybody. All we know is it has their memories.
The Zosiac Killer
Not a bad theory. When we see her for first time she look like she was in morocan/turkish (whenever they were) prison.
Morocco. She was in Tangiers where she flew the C-130 plane from.
All? I only remember Zosia citing one “a long time ago.”
I took it as her love had died some time before the joining
My guess is he died when they were young some other way
Maybe not every ex but it seemed like there was only one relationship of major significance, and he must have been dead before joining day or he’d be like Helen and in the Hive too
Maybe he died before the joining for unrelated reasons
I don't think this was subtle, no. You're not overthinking things
Carol was 100% trying to avoid being confronted with the possibility that Zosia is straight. She may very well be but she could also be a lesbian or bisexual.
Zosia told Carol that she told Manousos everything because he asked very specific and detailed questions. In this instance, Carol was purposely being vague, so the answer was vague. Carol used "they" so Zosia answered "they". Had Carol been more specific, she would have gotten a clear answer.
They sent Zosia because she was Carol's "ideal woman" and I guess the question is, is that based on just looks, or does it go beyond that. Billons of people to choose from that I'm sure there were other women who also physically fit the part.
I do hope we get a Zosia backstory.
I disagree. Zosia clearly held a pregnant pause, measuring her words. She understood the impication of why Carol phrased her question that way, and went along with the offered opportunity to give a non-answer, that is from her, as we repeatedly learned, also an answer.
But she wants to please Carol, so she would have absolutely would have replied to a "they" question with a "she" answer just to pacify her.
I think Carol actually noticed this, which pushed her away to be more more critical and notice her next non-answer.
I'll have to rewatch and check out the pause.
Zosia's ex could very likely be a man, and if it is, that still leaves the possibility she's bisexual.
I just think the Carol/Zosia relationship has been too pivotal in the overall development of Carol and the show, that having Zosia be straight, doesn't fit. Nor making Zosia Raban to Carol's Lucasia.
Maybe I'm like Carol and living in delusion but I guess we'll see. But first things first though, Zosia has to be unplurbed.
I noticed Carol reading the Left Hand Of Darkness, a classic sf novel where the main character is from a species that can be either gender, depending on circumstance of who they’re around. Whether that applies to Carol or Zosia or both, I can’t say yet. PS I mean changing sides metaphorically, not literally changing genders
I noticed that book, too! Le Guin was a fantastic writer.
Zosia’s partner was definitely male, she wouldn’t have used “they” otherwise I think, because she didn’t want to upset carol. Zosia still might be bisexual though. Statistically, out of 7 billion there are probably a solid amount of women who resemble Raban, so it doesn’t seem that unlikely to me that the hive would choose someone more morally acceptable as a companion for Carol’s sake.
I don't think the hive would care at all about sexuality because sexuality no longer exists for the hive. Being with another lesbian would only be considered less morally unforgivable from Carol's perspective (which the hive has lots of trouble understanding) not from an objective standpoint or the hives perspective. They wouldn't pay any heed to that just like how they didn't see any weirdness about a fast food worker piloting a plane until Carol explicitly told them that makes her uncomfortable. They probably just chose the girl they thought would resemble the character the most
"gravity of what she has done" — I mean, it's not worse if someone isn't the "correct" sexuality for whatever these individuals are being used for [use the terminology you think best applies to what the hive is doing with/to/as these people]. But it certainly shatters the illusion she wants, which is that somehow Zosia the individual still exists and loves her.
Was clearly the entire point.
For sure because then she would have “converted” someone the way her parents tried to do to her as a teenager
Yes it was a man. The hive mind were vague because it outs that she isn’t in a relationship with zosia at all
I also thought that if that previous relationship had been with a woman, the hive would have told Carol that to reassure her and wouldnt have responded with “they”
and at the same time, i suspect the show will never give us that set of flashbacks and will leave an eternal question mark over the issue
Though a flashback where zosia’s life is completely different to the imaginary one Carol has been living would be a brutal cold open. Married to some dude personality completely different. Possibly even having kids (that question was never asked)
I mean forget the sex of the partner, the entire relationship is a fraud. I don’t think they have relationships like this, it’s all just for Carol. The second Carol gets converted they both go on their merry ways.
I agree with you. If they had relationships AT ALL, that little girl would have cared to hug her goat after her joining... but she just abandoned it
The real Zosia was most likely to be straight, because most people are straight and she’s effectively just a random person. She was chosen purely for her physical characteristics, with a presentation designed to appeal to Carol. The collective has only one personality, the only difference between people are their bodies. Information about Zosia’s past life are more like fun historical facts about this particular body, not things that have any influence at all on the presentation that the collective has created for Carol.
Carol was in a bit of cognitive dissonance. She was lying to herself that there was some individuality, that somehow there’s something individual about Zosia. Just because she desperately wanted to have that, because she was so deprived of it.
It seems more likely that the Hive Mind would send a gay woman as Carol's chaperone, given their inability to lie and the likelihood of being asked at some point what individual Zosia's sexuality was.
The bigger question Carol possibly wanted to ask, that transcends individual Zosia's sexuality or love life, still remains:
Would she have liked me for me?
Given how many "doppelganger" people we all have globally, at least where a passerby and not our family would confuse us with the doppelganger the Joined were probably able to find a gay woman who looked astonishingly similar to Raban
I have felt that elephant in the room since they introduced Zosia as her love interest, but that scene very obviously underlined that dilemma.
Yeah for sure, plurb-zosia is basically just a character from her novel that came to life. We still know nothing about zosia at all
Yes. She used gender neutral pronouns very conspicuously. She was finally waking up to the fact that the “Zosia” she knows is not the actual Zosia
Yeah that’s exactly why she paused and said “they”.
Thought she may have been getting through to actual Zosia last episode but guess not.
I don’t think her sexuality matters now, she was just there to keep her distracted either way until they messed with her eggs. Carol has now realised this, hence going forth with destruction
Zosia did come on to her with that kiss.. so maybe that makes it easier to avoid asking Zosia for a definite answer.
I thought she was wording it carefully for whatever reason. Didn't really think specifically that until maybe now
Yes, and I think this was crucial to why the entire discussion then went south.
Carol did unspokenly hope that Zosia would reply to the "they" with a "she", and the cold shower of her giving a non-answer, (and already knowing what that implies from the plurbs), is what led her to get on edge and also notice the following lawyery phrasing about her stem cells.
It's almost like Carol reads this sub.
I would have preferred if that's how Carol broke out of her honeymoon phase and learn that they hive are trying to get her to join.
Instead of learning through the eggs directly, Zosia would reveal she was straight before joining, thus Carol learning that it's all an act from the hive to get her to join. I thought that was what it was leaning to.
Lmao as a lesbian, I was wondering about this scenario too
I mean it was pretty obvious by the BIG pause she took before saying "they"
It's not a matter of sexuality, it's a matter of violation of personal autonomy and Carol's realization/denial that she's doing the same thing to Zosia as what Diabete does to everyone else. She's trying to convince herself that just because Zosia wasn't in a current relationship before the Joining, what she's doing to Zosia now isn't as bad as if Zosia were in a relationship before the Joining. And it almost works because Carol is so enamored with possessing Zosia that she's completely willing to overlook all the moral qualms until Carol realizes that the Plurbs are still working to turn Carol into one of them. She had a leapardatemyface moment where she was okay with the leopards, right up until the point where they started eating her face.
Zosia was likely straight just based on math.
Absolutely - I actually think Carol would have immediately left had it been confirmed that Zosia was not gay
Besides what you posted, Carol also stopped when she wanted to call zosia her partner and change it to "chaperone".