Ha! I know it may be fingernails on a chalkboard for you, but
"were" was correctly used. You always use "were" for wishes (ding, ding!), hypothetical, and counterfactuals.
But he's just that intelligent, and has good instincts.
He's kinda like that guy from The Stand, Harold, who was kind of a loser, but was highly intelligent, and ended up being very good at surviving the apocalypse.
Likely if he would have if he was intelligence(unless he was a Portuguese speaker whose focus was on brazil), but that doesn't preclude other military or survival training
Both Paraguay and Columbia(where he emigrated from) have mandatory national service, and part if his emigration backstory could have been being involved in one of Columbia's anti-government guerrilla groups
I'd imagine some sort of anti-social, self-righteous zealot and hermit with an extremely rigid way of living. Basically someone who you'd not get along well with IRL
When Carol asks Zosia if he is dangerous there is an awkward silence, so I think he did some bad stuff in Colombia before going to Paraguay, maybe cartel related stuff? Or he maybe fought the FARC's as a soldier for the colombian army (there was a lot of battles between 1996 and 2003). He also knows how to use a radio and how to survive in a jungle, so I guess ex-soldier.
I think sheās simply referring to the fact that he held one of them at knife point and is actively hostile to them. Donāt say someone was in FARC or a cartel just cuz theyāre Colombian lmfaoooo
I reaaaalllyyy hope they donāt add some cartel thing to his story. As a Colombian, we are sick of that shit. Also, someone who was in a cartel prob wouldnāt be all worried about using someoneās house, using their car, or getting gas without paying for it somehow. I really hope they give my country some other exposure! Would be a great chance to tell the other side of the story and have him be a victim of Colombiaās history (hence fleeing to Paraguay) instead of depicting him as a ābadassā drug lord
He might have just worked at the storage center. He has the keys and leaves notes too. Jungle survival is just something every Paraguayan is born with so that answers that.
Colombian diaspora was a thing in all South America in the 80s, 90s and Y2K. I'm seriously thinking Manousos has at least some military training (with army, guerrillas or drug cartel) and then he deserted and fled to Paraguay to live a low profile life.
If there is a country that South American people don't really think as internal destination for emigrate is actually Paraguay (I'm venezuelan living abroad btw, so I know quite well about emigration).
Paraguay is like that small, forgotten and not-that-relevant country. The perfect place for an ex-soldier running away of his past.
Him being cartel makes no sense. He is willing to kill and sell drugs for money but then refused to steal during the apocalypse and tried to save the world instead of living in luxury.
With carols background thereās no way she would stumble upon the radio waves with I think is a major break through. Manusos was likely just trying to find any survivor frequency but stumbled upon the plurb accidentally. Dude was so paranoid he was eating straight up dogfood
None of them feel like solving shit. Carol has already accepted her AI girlfriend before she got reality checked that they don't give a fuck about consent if they can find a way around hurting her.
Remember the nerd from her book signing that was correcting her on technical sail inaccuracies? She's a big picture thinker that doesn't consider the fine details at all.
Bruh Vince having to open up a can of worms and bring in a debate on the ethics of abortion to the show in order to eliminate this plot hole has me dying lmao.
They wouldn't give her the eggs if she asked nicely. And I'm sure she did. We've seen that their moral code is basically this, from the most to least important:
1) Do no harm - nobody and anything should suffer
2) Spread out - join as many subjects as possible
3) Be happy, truthful and useful - make everyone feel part of the organism, valued and happy
Keeping Carol happy is not as important as spreading the biological imperative.
"Fun" bonus parallel - Zosia said this episode that they essentially want to save Carol, from herself and her mind, and did so wearing a fake smile. Just like what people at the conversion camp did.
2 is above 1. They killed 800 million people during the joining, and they fully knew a lot of people would die in the process, for the purpose of joining.
Well yeah, it wanted to make her happy and now that's no longer a concern. It prioritized her happiness and mental wellbeing. But as a part of the hive its irrelevant and inefficient
The hive has always been pretty open about that. You view as manipulation but you could just as easily say genuine concern for her wellbeing.
If Iām honest with myself.. Iād totally delude myself in the face of the hive mind, the death of everyone and everything I ever knew, and 40 days of isolation..
I keep thinking back to what Carol told Laxmi in episode two. She said Laxmi's Plurbed son is also her dad, her mom, a physicist, and a pilot, or something like that.
Then with Zosia, she forgets all that? She's making out with her high school teacher, her neighbor, and possibly her relatives. It just seems odd that she overlooks that so quickly.
I understand that she was perfectly manipulated through the hive, creating a fantasy woman who fills the hole of her dead spouse. Still, it seems like she would remember that she is dating a cannibal, biologically altered chameleon.
I agree 100%. Carol wasn't persuaded, she was broken down. 40 days of Solitary Confinement came on top of finding out the other '12' were going out of their way not to talk to her.
It bugs me (although itās authentic to the character) that Carol didnāt make any further efforts to mend her relationship with the other ā12.ā She could have apologized, offered to simply listen at the meetings, anything.
I mean, transparently, those people are clowns. They don't care about saving the world. It would just be fake for her to do that just like its fake for her to date the hive.
The show tells us constantly that Carol is stubborn, that it's her way or no way. She's extremely controlling. Offering Manusos a drink before even knowing if he drinks or not. Her not reaching out and apologizing after she called them all traitors to the human race would not align with her character. Even once she eaves to join Zosia and Manusos calls her out on her decision and despite thinking negatively about the others initially, she's flipped at this point and won't change her mind.
Carol is a miserable woman who has a different image of herself in her head from how we see and perceive her. She thinks of herself as this strong independent person who is capable of living a life of her own, and hates being told what to do. But that's not her in reality. When Helen was alive, she would do everything to restrict Carol from sabotaging herself. She kept her alcoholism in check, travelled with her to tours and played the role of a companion that looked after someone so miserable because of past circumstances that made them feel like they're a different person who doesn't belong in this world. She projects being a strong person, she isn't. She can break easily, she can get manipulated very easily. The hive manipulates her first by giving her a sense of control, she tries to be too hard on them, builds a wall around herself to feel protected and hurts Zosia in the process, so they abandon her. She gets lonely because the image she was projecting doesn't sit well with others who weren't plurbed, giving the hive the perfect opportunity to comeback into her life and manipulate her even more, except now she is ready to strike that wall down and understand them. But because of her broken persona, she cannot stop herself from being sucked into the world that Zosia shows her. That's how miserable people work, they want people, but are hesitant and difficult, they want happiness, but are constantly looking for ways to keep themselves unhappy because they're so used to being mistreated and called different. They need someone to look after them, hence Zosia comes into her life as a chaperone, filling the place that Helen once occupied, with Helen's memories that serve as a token of relatability.
The hive chose Zosia because it knew Carol would find that body hard to resist. It has the knowledge of every player, neuroscientist, psychologist etc in the world, it chooses to use that knowledge and its knowledge of the remaining individuals to seduce them.
Now many viewers will see Carol as selfish, only going back to Manousos after she learned that she was in danger of being turned. I think it was just the thing needed to make her realize that it doesn't really care about her in a human way, she had started to let herself believe that it did, hence her shock when it told her it cares about Manousos in the same way as her even after they did it.
Temptation, consent, manipulation, there's heaps of themes here relating to autonomy. The fact people are even in doubt that the hive is manipulative means the writers are doing a good job illustrating just how effective charm is.
This is making me appreciate the significance of this episode opening with the Peruvian girl being joined. We saw them all put on this front of her culture, the beautiful spiritual song, all these things that made life in her village unique. And then the second she was joined, they packed it all up because it did not matter at all once the cards were down. They do not actually appreciate or see value in anything uniquely human like culture, identity, sexuality or love, and Carol finally realizes that Zosia does not value this in her either at the end of the day, as badly as she wishes she did.
Last episode didn't zozia say that they keep the pets together that are really fond of their previous owner & wouldn't survive on their own?
Which wouldn't support letting the goat out like that (thats probably raised and cuddled since out of the womb). I guess tho a goat is a farm animal and a dog really is on a whole different level of companion/dependency
Carol knows the hive manipulates her but prefers to ignore it because itās easier. Just a moment before Zosia kisses her she literally tells that to their face. āYou are manipulating me because you know I wonāt give upā (or something along the lines)
She very deliberately chooses to use natural pronouns when talking about Zosiaās previous relationships because she knows there is a huge possibility that the real Zosia isnāt straight and she is using her, by forcing her to do something the original Zosia would never consent to. She isnāt carried away or anything, she knows she is dating a fake version of Zosia and doesnāt like it so she just ignores it.
She liked the life she was living with Zosia and didnāt want to change it. (That was if course the hives plan, but Carol is aware of it)
That is just selfish. When she thought she was in danger she was actively fighting the hive but when she learned she couldnāt be converted she chose the ease path of playing house with Zosia. Thats exactly the same as Diabate playing James Bond scenes with the hive. I donāt see a difference of the hive playing a Bond villain and Zosia playing Carolās lover. Itās acting in both parts.
Carol knows the hive manipulates her but prefers to ignore it because itās easier.
She was isolated in a way that's taught in torture books, she is deeply traumatized by everythingāand everyone responds to trauma differently. The whole freaking world has ended, I would be curled up as a ball of goo. A lot of the Carol criticism is trauma shaming. Coming to terms with things is a process. Nobody does the right thing immediately, it's a process, and it would be boring if the show had such straightforward characters.
The show is about her misanthropy and coming to terms with needing people. There are going to be missed exits on her journey. There always are in good stories.
We lie to ourselves all the time. Women who get beat by their partners can stay in the relationships and their minds construct two realities to make it make sense, even if it doesn't to the outside.
Denial and wishful thinking are huge human traits. "This seems OK, maybe it is OK." It can take time to realize it isn't.
If it's selfish, people deserve to be selfish. I would be tempted to do anything to not go insane with how profoundly horrible the genocide of the human race (and culture) is. Drugs, sex, whatever. Eventually you hope to come to terms with it.
Manousos is strong and wilful as a counterpoint to Carol. His presence helps her clairfy and find her way in the storm. It's strange to me to assign words to TV characters in a judmental (not descriptive) way, but "selfish"? We're all selfish. Everything we do is selfish; even seemingly altruistic things.
Carol did not cover herself in glory this episode.
Which was intentional by the writers, who are writing a complex character who is evolving, starting from a VERY dark place of misanthropy.
This is my favorite meme for so many reasons... chief among them is that you need to create a custom variation if you want to mimic it. None of that meme generator bullshit
It requires the exact individuality the Plurbs seek to erase
Donāt worry. AI stole this memeās eggs. Give it 2 or 3 months and weāll be able to replicate it perfectly!
We just want to make you happy OminaLoca :)
tbh maybe even dumber than koumba. koumba seems to understand the hive isnt "in love" with him and that they are role playing. carol actually fell for it
It's his complete refusal to engage that is keeping him on a straight path, I think. Carol had a lot of trauma and mental issues that were really easy hooks to grab onto and steer her, along with her initially being open to talking with them from the jump.
Manousos caught a lot of flak in this subreddit for his refusal to interact and people saying it was unwise and kept him in the dark as far as information. He didn't know that they could not lie, and he did not know what effect talking to them could have. It is clear that talking to them openly like Carol has and does leaves you wide open for their emotional manipulation. They can't infect her with the virus by speaking, but they can infect in other ways. Get their hooks on the right areas of her brain and her heart to manipulate her to their goal. Zosia pouncing Carols bones right as she was about to have a breakthrough/meltdown and likely snap out of denial to focus on the goal? Manipulative as hell.
Once Carol made it apparent to Manousos that they could not lie and their voice itself was not dangerous, he immediately locked in on that. He also noticed from the outside of that phone call Carol had in front of him, and just the way she spoke to Zosia, that Carol was being heavily manipulated. Calling Zosia over for him to interrogate was a pretty smart two birds at once kind of move. He pushed Carol to snap her out of the denial like she had done with Laxmi and her son, and he also was just fully downloading every bit of information he could extract from them. Probably learned a lot more than just Carols relationship and how to make them seize up.
He clearly is not stupid or some hard-head that cannot change and will get himself killed by that flaw. He very quickly met Carol on her own terms to try and solve this stuff, and he clearly isn't being irrationally stubborn about the hive, he is wisely being very deliberate and careful in the steps he takes. Darien Gap was a slip-up, but I think he was cornered there, and I think they were quietly manipulating him as best they could too. They know him through peoples memories, so they must know somewhat what kind of guy he is, and it would be apparent to them that the helicopter parent shit and creepy unison speech and having his mother who he hates fucking creep up out of the darkness like that would push him to isolate from them. I think they were quietly manipulating him into that dangerous situation so that he would overextend and be compromised so they could swoop in and catch him in the net. They were very purposeful in the isolation strategy with both Carol and Manousos, they just had Manousos thinking the isolation was his idea.
Same thing with Kusimayu. I bet money she didn't ask for them to pretend to be her family. They have enough memories and brainpower to know what works on these people. They have everyone, including Carol and Manousos, a lot more dialed in than we might realize. They cannot speak an untrue statement, but their fundamental purpose is false. They don't want to make you happy, they want to make You into We.
She has some particular emotional / parasocial needs that he does not. It would not surprise me to see an episode next season where they try to find some hooks to use on him.
People thinking itās a mistake that Carol is disliked right now but itās part of her redemption arc. We start off loving her rebellious spirit and hating laxmi and diabate for their actions. Stuff happens and we end up with a Carol who is fallen into the same patterns that they have. The audience going on that slippery slope jounrye with Carol gives us AND her a little more understanding of why those characters behaved the way they did.
Manousos comes along with his stubborn morals and need to save the world as a reminder of what Carol was like at the beginning. And the juxtaposition shows how far sheās changed.
The end of her arc is her seeing all that and choosing to go back to his side/her original mission.
Her language in this episode defending the hive to Manousos pretty much exactly mirrors the other survivors' language directed at her right after the joining
The world wnded, She lost her wife, almost killed zosia, was the only person on earth for 40 days...between the changes, the greif, the guilt and the loneliness...thats gonna mess with someone's head.
The look of absolute sadness and loneliness on her face when she found out she was left out of the immune group chat was telling. That truly hurt her, and made her think "The whole world hates me"
Manousos is simply THE man. A true defender of mankind and future pope. But serously, I love that character. He might be stuborn but his hearth is in right place.
*heart
Manousos is my model, too, flawed but principled and caring.
Kinda like Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction, curt according to the situation but not without manners.
Me too. I was such Carol Sturka defender. Not defender in a way she is perfect and she can do no wrong but defender in the way her wife just died and the entire world is ending and no one seems to care way.
She was so eager to destroy the hive and get the world back to normal. She launched full on investigations to figure out what that āweird milkā they drink is or got all the immune together (even calling the other immune traitors for refusing to help and putting their personal differences over the good of the world)
But the moment she understood HER individuality is not in danger she simply didnāt care anymore. She just turned herself into another Diabate. (not as extreme but still very similar)
She went in vacations, fucked Zosia and just didnāt care to communicate or get along with Manousos at all. Creating petty differences FOR NO REASON. WHO CARES IF YOU ARE INSIDE THE HOUSE OR THE AMBULANCE?
She abandoned him for hurting Zosia and the Hive despite the fact that she had done something very similar before herself.
But the moment she underwood that HER individuality is actually still in danger suddenly she wants to save the world again?
I swear people on here just wipe what happened previously because idk how people still don't understand how awful 40 days of isolation can do to someone. Anything over a week I believe is literally considered torture by the military.
And once that same situation presented itself of course you'd do anything to not have it happen again.
What bothers me a bit is that even after that and Zoisa returning they showed us she was still working on fixing things. Still working on the secret whiteboard. To me this sudden shift kind of came out of nowhere after she slept with Zoisa.
You know what youāre so right I didnāt even think about it as a tactic from the hive. Abandoning someone completely as a way to get at them and manipulate them in the only way they can. Oof this show is creepy lmao
Smart! I can def see that because if you divorce while in some cult then everyone leaves you alone as a punishment and seize all communication, friendships etc.
The ambulance situation was not petty, bro shows up with a machete and an ominous suggestion on his capacity to harm from the hive. Only other thing she knows about this guy is he blindly screamed at her on the phone, and would you look at that fifteen minutes into their talk he admits they should kill all the joined if they cant be helped.Ā
the hive has said they won't protect her from other survivors but yeah homegirl has to be down with climbing into an enclosed space with a total stranger who is also armed and could physically overpower her in a fight, very reasonable ask /s
She sold the fuck out for sure and only came to her senses when her individuality was threatened again. Far from noble.
My heart sank when they showed that montage of her delusional little globe-trotting honeymoon. She was escaping into saccharine fantasy the way Wycaro's readers were, but her fantasy was tangible of course. I thought she was smarter than that, but I guess she'd been through a lot lately etc etc.
Still, all that'd been missing is a little situationship with the dream girl? Really?
This could have a lot of significance since her relationship with Helen probably had a lot to do with survival/necessity/convenience. Offered a chance of a happily ever after with the girl she used to fantasize about, I guess it was hard to refuse.
I guess as far as "flawed heroes" go, ours is particularly flawed. Looking forward to seeing more of her character and what really makes her tick.
I might be the last remaining Carol Sturka defender but I donāt think itās as simple as her thinking āoh it doesnāt affect me I donāt care anymoreā
I think when they left her she lost all hope of āfixingā things which left her sitting in front of fireworks not caring if she lives or dies. She truly hit rock bottom and felt entirely alone on the planet. To her she had 2 options: drink herself to death watching the golden girls alone or embrace the hive while still trying to make sense of it all by asking questions.
Sheās definitely privileged and that plays into how she was more willing to embrace the hive than Manousos, she definitely doesnāt have the same determination to cross the world to find a solution to all this, but she was completely mentally broken. This caused her to delude herself into thinking she could just live in the world as it is and tried to make the best of a bad situation but as weāve seen she canāt be happy for long and it was always obvious to me that no matter how distracted she kept herself with Zosia she was always going to go back to fighting against them.
When Manousos showed up it was a harsh reminder of the reality of the situation that sheād been trying to ignore and she couldnāt face it so she ran away but at the end she came back because she knows the situation isnāt right even if she was able to delude herself for a little while. Sheās not evil, sheās not a villain, sheās a flawed human being with a shit ton of trauma going through an insane situation and idk why people donāt give her more grace.
Itās also weird how many people Iāve seen claim that she stopped caring when she stopped believing the hive could turn her when we are literally told otherwise. We see in episode 8 that sheās actively collecting information on the hive the whole way through. We see that she recognizes sheās becoming more and more contented with things and has to remind herself that they eat people. She has an entire breakdown in that episode where she outright states that sheās grown fond of the hive and Zosia but also feels like she canāt stop because someone has to put the world right, and that is when the hive chooses to kiss her and feed into the belief (one that most of the survivors seem to have) that there really is an individual in there who can love her personally and individually. The Hive is also very deliberate with the language they use to describe Manousos so as to make him seem as dangerous and crazy as possible, and then she sees him trigger the hiveās breakdown (something that she did accidentally twice and still feels immensely guilty over because she believes herself to have killed millions of people) on purpose, and thatās when she leaves him. Her leaving Zosia at the end there isnāt just her realizing that she personally might be affected by what the hive is doing, itās her realizing that the hive really are willing to do whatever deceitful and underhanded things they need to do convert everyone, all while repeating the same ābecause we love youā rhetoric she probably heard over and over at conversion therapy.
They hive manipulated the fuck out of an emotionally distressed woman grieving her wife with a lifetime of trauma and yet everyone hates her because sheās not a brooding ābadassā powering through inhospitable jungle.
I also havenāt seen anyone call out Manousos for triggering the meltdown in the plurbs on purpose but when Carol did it by accident everyone called her a selfish murderer.
No one can convince me Carol isnāt being held to a higher standard of behaviour than the male characters.
I will say not wanting to get into a van with a literal random man from South America as a woman with literally no one else around is completely understandable lmao
She wanted to save the world but she was repeatedly chastised by the other survivors as a pig headed crazy person. She was faced with the seemingly impossible task of finding a cure with little to no relevant education and quite literally the entire world against her. She broke after 40 days of total isolation and was being intensly manipulated.
From her perspective literally no one wanted her to cure this, and pursuing a cure meant the rest of her life will be torture . Manuosos came to her offering help after she had already been broken and become content with the new way of the world.
Every single one of yall would do the same and this new found hatred is weird.
Alternatively: āThe moment she found out her individuality wasnāt in immediate danger (shortly after learning that the āeating humansā thing isnāt actually a dealbreaker for the other survivors and no one else wants to undo the joining and also they donāt want to speak to her, and then she surprisingly doesnāt feel motivated to jump back into her world-saving plans when she goes home where sheās been abandoned by an entire city, and so she just decides to live for awhile and possibly process the recent death of the one person who truly understood her and/or the trauma of surviving a global apocalypse, and then after holding out for a month she succumbs to the mental and emotional torture of total isolation and then finally decides to take comfort in the first human she encounters who also happens to be her exact physical ideal and also who kisses her first) she didnāt care anymore.ā So weird, right?Ā
She was essentially put in solitary for 40 days, left totally isolated. The hivemind expertly leveraged this isolation and her human need for physical and emotional contact to bring her to heel and placate her like an emotional abuser. Carol is imperfect and has big feelings. I think it's great writing.
IMHO this isn't fair. What broke Carol wasn't the belief she was safe, it was her overwhelming loneliness after 40 days in what amounted to solitary confinement.
As for "who cares if you're inside the house or the ambulance", she's effectively alone with a strange man she knows nothing about, and if he turns out to be a rapist, there is literally nobody on the planet coming to save her - the Plurb Mind has already told her that they can't intervene in conflict between unplurbed humans.
"No I'm not getting in your car" is a perfectly sane reaction.
Jokes aside, it's finally good to see Carol past the last stage of grief. I imagine that vacation was her acceptance stage. Hopefully, we get a more level-headed Carol now.
There's so much discussion on this show. I love it.
Gilligan does a great job of painting complex tapestry of moral grays.
Here, Its easy to just say carol is terrible for her choices, but she's a human being that has gone through a LOT... yea, she left to be happy with zosia after terrible tragedies and loneliness. If I was in her shoes, and resigned to the fact that the world has ended... I dont know for sure if my choices would be different
We were all rooting for Carol to get with Zosia not thinking weāve also been duped by the hive into thinking Zosia is anything more than another pretty face the hive uses to control the immune. Still I felt bad for my homie Carol the first heartbreak from your hive situationship is the absolute worst
I just wanted Carol to get some hive affection so she wasnt lonely, but when she dipped to the Alps i was like "cmon girl, you got laid now get back to work"
We? Whoās we? I didnāt want Carol to be with Zosia because I knew it was all a manipulation tactic. Plus, the actual Zosia probably isnāt even lesbian
Yeah Carol was huge hypocrite. In full addict mode. She even made the comment about the feel good and asking zosia about the chemicals. She is a protagonist but no angel
And the way she tiptoed around the pronouns of the real Zosia's lover, not wanting to face the possibility of her being hetero and breaking the illusion of their situation, ugh. Not cool, Carol. Understandable behaviour, but also very disappointing.
This is a great point: as the hive was manipulating Carol by pulling out all the stops with its "charm offensive" (everything from the diner business to Zosia), the hive clearly succeeded in manipulating much of the audience as well.
I was also pissed at Carol for much of this episode, but I think it was an interesting character arc for her. It wouldnāt have been as interesting if she and Manousos were on the same side as soon as they met, but she came to her senses and sheās ready once again to do what it takes to save the world, and herself.Ā
It also shows the downside of Manousosā distrust and stubbornness with the hive. If heād just accepted their offer to fly him to Albuquerque right after he watched her first tape, he would have met Carol a lot earlier, at a time when she would have been on his side. But because he refused their help, Carol wasnāt in the same place anymore.
But who knows if the hive would have manipulated him too, or even if they took his stem cells in that hospital, knowing now the depth of their mendacity
It was kind of crazy people were calling Diabete legitimately evil in the first few episodes, I thought I was a bad person for thinking itās not as simple as that.
Yeah honestly it's kinda deranged, I used to be a strong carol defender and kinda felt weird when people hate her when I find her very understandable and most relatable, but the moment she sucked up the the plurbs made me get pretty annoyed.
But when I think clearer, all her actions feel understandable still. It feels like things are hopeless, everytime she tries to find for a cure just makes the last other survivors hate her and the plurbs abandon her and mentally manipulate her, so her finding out they "can't turn her" and Zosia being Zosia is definitely enough to lull most people in her shoes to give up.
I'm just glad I think we're getting old Carol back after her tone on episode 9. Wondering how her and Manousos would cause chaos.
Manousos meanwhile feels neurodivergent coded or is it just me? He definitely lacks social awareness, unlike Carol who is more arrogant and abrasiveness comes from intention, I think Manousos just mostly appears oblivious to social cues.
Either way, both definitely are gonna be different flavors of strong flaws and bitch behavior.
I donāt think Manu is ND, I think those are cultural differences and the language gap between him and Carol. American social norms are very different from what acceptable in Paraguay and other countries around the world.
Bro you're replying to clearly hasn't spent time with anybody from non-western non-english speaking countries before if he thinks Manousos' behaviour is "neurodivergent".
Besides being terminally online and not touching grass, I also blame online communities for the blatant misuse of psychiatric terms
It also did not help that Carol spoke in very colloquial and idiomatic English which kept confusing Manu like when she said bug which was translated into insect.Ā
I think Manousos is just poor and coming from a developing country, hence a certain roughness around the edges. He was also probably an unhappy guy even before the Joining. Middle-aged, working as a security guardhe apparently owns the self-storage place, so I guess it's not so badĀ living alone with no spouse or children: the Hive sends him his mother to communicate through, to which he replies that his mother is actually a bitch and would never talk to him nicely like that. So pretty much a total loner, unfulfilled and collecting dust like that old car of his he'd been saving for a special occasion. In a way, the Joining is the time for him to shine, to be somebody, to save the world. He's clearly someone with remarkable intelligence, resourcefulness and determination whose potential had gone on unrealized for whatever reason.Ā
Manousos is originally from Colombia (the actor is Colombian) but lives in Paraguay. My theory is that he has a paramilitary or military past (considering Colombia's history) and emigrated to Paraguay to escape it. That's why he has so many resources and training.
Ah, I was just thinking whether he had a military past. Something about the way he carries himself and his resourcefulness, yes. Even the way he chooses to dress is military-adjacent.
Also I feel like at this point in the show, it's easier to like Manousos since we as an audience don't really know him on the same level we do with Carol. If he experienced the same mental and emotional manipulation Carol did, I'm sure he wouldn't be always making "right" choices.
my read on manousos was that after everything he went through, he isn't terribly concerned about the little things, plus he definitely underestimated how easy it would be to get along with carol. he's thinking big picture, life and death, and probably thought carol would be on the same wavelength
Manousos I think is a very well-written character in the sense that it would take a gigantically anti-social asshole to mentally withstand the situation he finds himself in, and when he meets Carol we are forced to confront the fact that he is, in fact, an asshole.
I can't hate her. And I hope she gives an epic sermon on the other uncontaminated vagabonds. If she did "nothing," as some say around here, the others did even less.
N O T H I N G wrong with flawed female characters.
Carol is still a well written actor and Rhea does a great job acting as her....but I get this meme. Hey, she came around and honeslty....saving the world seems like too much work. If I had no shot at being joined then yeah, I would be as chill as Carol was too.
I swear itās like half of yāall forgot she almost blew her head off two episodes ago - sheās just being a silly Billy and living life in director mode
I pray to be as locked in as Manousos , this mf was reading science textbooks as if he was preparing for finals whilst Carol was on vacation
And learning english while doing it
Manousos is who my parents wish i were
Manousos is who I wished my parents were
Sadly relatable and few will understand it š
Don't worry. One day, you'll master english.
Manousos is my spirit animal.
Manousos is a man of focus, commitment, and sheer fucking will!
*was, manousos couldāve got that right smh
*were
Ha! I know it may be fingernails on a chalkboard for you, but "were" was correctly used. You always use "were" for wishes (ding, ding!), hypothetical, and counterfactuals.
What's even his background? dude was ready for the apocalypse
My take?
I think he was just some dude.
A nobody who worked at a storage facility.
But he's just that intelligent, and has good instincts.
He's kinda like that guy from The Stand, Harold, who was kind of a loser, but was highly intelligent, and ended up being very good at surviving the apocalypse.
Loving the random Harold Lauder appreciation! This made my night.
I get the feeling he served in the military, likely in some sort of intelligence.
I doubt it, as he definitely would have known English then.
Likely if he would have if he was intelligence(unless he was a Portuguese speaker whose focus was on brazil), but that doesn't preclude other military or survival training
Both Paraguay and Columbia(where he emigrated from) have mandatory national service, and part if his emigration backstory could have been being involved in one of Columbia's anti-government guerrilla groups
*Colombia
I'd imagine some sort of anti-social, self-righteous zealot and hermit with an extremely rigid way of living. Basically someone who you'd not get along well with IRL
As someone that's also an asocial, self-righteous zealot and hermit with an extremely rigid way of living we 'd get on like a house on fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XU5iqrhwW0
When Carol asks Zosia if he is dangerous there is an awkward silence, so I think he did some bad stuff in Colombia before going to Paraguay, maybe cartel related stuff? Or he maybe fought the FARC's as a soldier for the colombian army (there was a lot of battles between 1996 and 2003). He also knows how to use a radio and how to survive in a jungle, so I guess ex-soldier.
I think sheās simply referring to the fact that he held one of them at knife point and is actively hostile to them. Donāt say someone was in FARC or a cartel just cuz theyāre Colombian lmfaoooo
I reaaaalllyyy hope they donāt add some cartel thing to his story. As a Colombian, we are sick of that shit. Also, someone who was in a cartel prob wouldnāt be all worried about using someoneās house, using their car, or getting gas without paying for it somehow. I really hope they give my country some other exposure! Would be a great chance to tell the other side of the story and have him be a victim of Colombiaās history (hence fleeing to Paraguay) instead of depicting him as a ābadassā drug lord
No creo que vayan por ese lado, para mi van a decir que es un ex policĆa o militar, tal vez FARC o paramilitar pero no de los carteles.
He might have just worked at the storage center. He has the keys and leaves notes too. Jungle survival is just something every Paraguayan is born with so that answers that.
Smart, driven man who was held back by his extreme righteousness, anti social attitude and lack of opportunities in general.
Uhā¦. That dude almost died pretty hard in that jungle
I mean there's jungles and jungles
More like there's jungles and then there's the Darien Gap.
He was 100% dead without the hive saving him. He is an idiot in that regard.
Yep, I also thought that.
Colombian diaspora was a thing in all South America in the 80s, 90s and Y2K. I'm seriously thinking Manousos has at least some military training (with army, guerrillas or drug cartel) and then he deserted and fled to Paraguay to live a low profile life.
If there is a country that South American people don't really think as internal destination for emigrate is actually Paraguay (I'm venezuelan living abroad btw, so I know quite well about emigration).
Paraguay is like that small, forgotten and not-that-relevant country. The perfect place for an ex-soldier running away of his past.
Yeah, actually I'm thinking of moving to Paraguay (I'm from Brasil), it's lowkey a good place to live, lots of freedom, low tax, and really affordable
Him being cartel makes no sense. He is willing to kill and sell drugs for money but then refused to steal during the apocalypse and tried to save the world instead of living in luxury.
Carol was drowning in delusion puss and he was cracking the quantum code šš
Carol cracking some pluribussy and Manousos cracking the quantum code š
I canāt š¤£
..with her fake gf who only wants to plurb her
she only wants to sturk her pluribus
she carol on my sturka till I pluribus
I donāt get why Carol or some others werenāt doing that sooner. None of them had a scientific background so might as well get to reading.Ā
With carols background thereās no way she would stumble upon the radio waves with I think is a major break through. Manusos was likely just trying to find any survivor frequency but stumbled upon the plurb accidentally. Dude was so paranoid he was eating straight up dogfood
Carol's heart is pretty much defined by her loneliness, so her passion for saving humanity died like a month in lol
Being rejected by the literal last humans left on the planet made her decide 'fuck it' and go with the flow
Are we watching the same show? None of the others were even interested in helping even if it were possible.
When Carol said āIām a writer, I could come up with shit like robots all day longā, I lost a lot of respect for her.Ā
None of them feel like solving shit. Carol has already accepted her AI girlfriend before she got reality checked that they don't give a fuck about consent if they can find a way around hurting her.
She's a writer. Not a reader.
Remember the nerd from her book signing that was correcting her on technical sail inaccuracies? She's a big picture thinker that doesn't consider the fine details at all.
i was yelling sellout at the tv and then I made this because CMON CAROL!!! you canāt fuck the biological imperative away
https://preview.redd.it/7zpa725ip79g1.jpeg?width=1069&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d09c625b89ad5ad683cb5df99e71507703ff0cf5
I really just wanted Carol to say that having her eggs back (or destroyed) would make her happy.
We can't destroy life.
Bruh Vince having to open up a can of worms and bring in a debate on the ethics of abortion to the show in order to eliminate this plot hole has me dying lmao.
They wouldn't give her the eggs if she asked nicely. And I'm sure she did. We've seen that their moral code is basically this, from the most to least important:
1) Do no harm - nobody and anything should suffer 2) Spread out - join as many subjects as possible 3) Be happy, truthful and useful - make everyone feel part of the organism, valued and happy
Keeping Carol happy is not as important as spreading the biological imperative.
"Fun" bonus parallel - Zosia said this episode that they essentially want to save Carol, from herself and her mind, and did so wearing a fake smile. Just like what people at the conversion camp did.
2 is above 1. They killed 800 million people during the joining, and they fully knew a lot of people would die in the process, for the purpose of joining.
Don't see how it's a plot hole; the hive has made it expressly clear that their biological imperative trumps a lot of otherwise fine situations
https://preview.redd.it/26eiqzzs5b9g1.jpeg?width=589&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf7a0d8545ad9642031c55a69883269d7b3844ee
[removed]
Pluribussy sourced from the very depths of her soul and modeled after a lifelong fantasy. Hard to resist
And dropped on her laps during a great calamity and peppered with 40 days in the desert
A little solitary confinement in the form of total isolation brought her back.
*brought her to heel
Not gonna lie. If the hive offered me Ella Purnell and Salma Hayek I'd fold like a wet paper towel.
You're on your own now Manousos lad. Good luck.
Mr Diabate knows what's up
If the Hive sent over Vera Farmiga with an opium-den smile and all those trivia facts, I'd be all, "Ay, girl, how many em stem cells you need?"
Nah you gotta string them out. The second you join, they stop singing and release the goats.
That part got me... It was all a show to get her in.
Well yeah, it wanted to make her happy and now that's no longer a concern. It prioritized her happiness and mental wellbeing. But as a part of the hive its irrelevant and inefficient
The hive has always been pretty open about that. You view as manipulation but you could just as easily say genuine concern for her wellbeing.
Preach. I love beautiful women and aimlessly reading Wikipedia, so the Hive would have me dead to rights there.
Yessss Ella Purnell!
If Iām honest with myself.. Iād totally delude myself in the face of the hive mind, the death of everyone and everything I ever knew, and 40 days of isolation..
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I think it's the initial grandstanding only to totally fold. Diabete doesn't kid himself.
Being in solitude can mentally break a person.
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I keep thinking back to what Carol told Laxmi in episode two. She said Laxmi's Plurbed son is also her dad, her mom, a physicist, and a pilot, or something like that.
Then with Zosia, she forgets all that? She's making out with her high school teacher, her neighbor, and possibly her relatives. It just seems odd that she overlooks that so quickly.
I understand that she was perfectly manipulated through the hive, creating a fantasy woman who fills the hole of her dead spouse. Still, it seems like she would remember that she is dating a cannibal, biologically altered chameleon.
She should be, she spent 40 days in complete solitude which absolutely broke her psyche and is willing to overlook it now for companionship's sake
I agree 100%. Carol wasn't persuaded, she was broken down. 40 days of Solitary Confinement came on top of finding out the other '12' were going out of their way not to talk to her.
She bounced back in the finale.
It bugs me (although itās authentic to the character) that Carol didnāt make any further efforts to mend her relationship with the other ā12.ā She could have apologized, offered to simply listen at the meetings, anything.
I mean, transparently, those people are clowns. They don't care about saving the world. It would just be fake for her to do that just like its fake for her to date the hive.
Some of them may have better ideas and designs for world saving but so far our protagonists (and their POVs) havenāt shown us any such thing.
The joining of Kusimayu was disturbing to watch.
The show tells us constantly that Carol is stubborn, that it's her way or no way. She's extremely controlling. Offering Manusos a drink before even knowing if he drinks or not. Her not reaching out and apologizing after she called them all traitors to the human race would not align with her character. Even once she eaves to join Zosia and Manusos calls her out on her decision and despite thinking negatively about the others initially, she's flipped at this point and won't change her mind.
Carol is a miserable woman who has a different image of herself in her head from how we see and perceive her. She thinks of herself as this strong independent person who is capable of living a life of her own, and hates being told what to do. But that's not her in reality. When Helen was alive, she would do everything to restrict Carol from sabotaging herself. She kept her alcoholism in check, travelled with her to tours and played the role of a companion that looked after someone so miserable because of past circumstances that made them feel like they're a different person who doesn't belong in this world. She projects being a strong person, she isn't. She can break easily, she can get manipulated very easily. The hive manipulates her first by giving her a sense of control, she tries to be too hard on them, builds a wall around herself to feel protected and hurts Zosia in the process, so they abandon her. She gets lonely because the image she was projecting doesn't sit well with others who weren't plurbed, giving the hive the perfect opportunity to comeback into her life and manipulate her even more, except now she is ready to strike that wall down and understand them. But because of her broken persona, she cannot stop herself from being sucked into the world that Zosia shows her. That's how miserable people work, they want people, but are hesitant and difficult, they want happiness, but are constantly looking for ways to keep themselves unhappy because they're so used to being mistreated and called different. They need someone to look after them, hence Zosia comes into her life as a chaperone, filling the place that Helen once occupied, with Helen's memories that serve as a token of relatability.
Yep this is right on the money.
Bingo, and this tells me I wouldnāt stand a chance if I were in place of Carol.
She tells her to play her fantasy person. Forces her to use individual pronouns etc. she losing her shit and gives in.
Probably scanned her browser history too in order to learn her uhh preferences
The hive chose Zosia because it knew Carol would find that body hard to resist. It has the knowledge of every player, neuroscientist, psychologist etc in the world, it chooses to use that knowledge and its knowledge of the remaining individuals to seduce them.
Now many viewers will see Carol as selfish, only going back to Manousos after she learned that she was in danger of being turned. I think it was just the thing needed to make her realize that it doesn't really care about her in a human way, she had started to let herself believe that it did, hence her shock when it told her it cares about Manousos in the same way as her even after they did it.
Temptation, consent, manipulation, there's heaps of themes here relating to autonomy. The fact people are even in doubt that the hive is manipulative means the writers are doing a good job illustrating just how effective charm is.
This is making me appreciate the significance of this episode opening with the Peruvian girl being joined. We saw them all put on this front of her culture, the beautiful spiritual song, all these things that made life in her village unique. And then the second she was joined, they packed it all up because it did not matter at all once the cards were down. They do not actually appreciate or see value in anything uniquely human like culture, identity, sexuality or love, and Carol finally realizes that Zosia does not value this in her either at the end of the day, as badly as she wishes she did.
Good point. Even that goat was like, āBroā¦ wtf?ā
that shit was so sad. l
Last episode didn't zozia say that they keep the pets together that are really fond of their previous owner & wouldn't survive on their own?
Which wouldn't support letting the goat out like that (thats probably raised and cuddled since out of the womb). I guess tho a goat is a farm animal and a dog really is on a whole different level of companion/dependency
She said some pets still hang around their old owners and won't leave, they just dont get in the way of that
Not to mention using isolation as a manipulation tool/tactic, straight out of the cult playbook.
Carol knows the hive manipulates her but prefers to ignore it because itās easier. Just a moment before Zosia kisses her she literally tells that to their face. āYou are manipulating me because you know I wonāt give upā (or something along the lines)
She very deliberately chooses to use natural pronouns when talking about Zosiaās previous relationships because she knows there is a huge possibility that the real Zosia isnāt straight and she is using her, by forcing her to do something the original Zosia would never consent to. She isnāt carried away or anything, she knows she is dating a fake version of Zosia and doesnāt like it so she just ignores it.
She liked the life she was living with Zosia and didnāt want to change it. (That was if course the hives plan, but Carol is aware of it)
That is just selfish. When she thought she was in danger she was actively fighting the hive but when she learned she couldnāt be converted she chose the ease path of playing house with Zosia. Thats exactly the same as Diabate playing James Bond scenes with the hive. I donāt see a difference of the hive playing a Bond villain and Zosia playing Carolās lover. Itās acting in both parts.
She was isolated in a way that's taught in torture books, she is deeply traumatized by everythingāand everyone responds to trauma differently. The whole freaking world has ended, I would be curled up as a ball of goo. A lot of the Carol criticism is trauma shaming. Coming to terms with things is a process. Nobody does the right thing immediately, it's a process, and it would be boring if the show had such straightforward characters.
The show is about her misanthropy and coming to terms with needing people. There are going to be missed exits on her journey. There always are in good stories.
We lie to ourselves all the time. Women who get beat by their partners can stay in the relationships and their minds construct two realities to make it make sense, even if it doesn't to the outside.
Denial and wishful thinking are huge human traits. "This seems OK, maybe it is OK." It can take time to realize it isn't.
If it's selfish, people deserve to be selfish. I would be tempted to do anything to not go insane with how profoundly horrible the genocide of the human race (and culture) is. Drugs, sex, whatever. Eventually you hope to come to terms with it.
Manousos is strong and wilful as a counterpoint to Carol. His presence helps her clairfy and find her way in the storm. It's strange to me to assign words to TV characters in a judmental (not descriptive) way, but "selfish"? We're all selfish. Everything we do is selfish; even seemingly altruistic things.
Which was intentional by the writers, who are writing a complex character who is evolving, starting from a VERY dark place of misanthropy.
This is my favorite meme for so many reasons... chief among them is that you need to create a custom variation if you want to mimic it. None of that meme generator bullshit
It requires the exact individuality the Plurbs seek to erase
Donāt worry. AI stole this memeās eggs. Give it 2 or 3 months and weāll be able to replicate it perfectly! We just want to make you happy OminaLoca :)
Atom Bomb is my new best friend
Yeah, Carol did not cover herself in glory this episode. Even when she finally made the right decision, it was for completely selfish reasons.
Basically Carol became Koumba until she learned they have her eggs. More like Carol Stumba
tbh maybe even dumber than koumba. koumba seems to understand the hive isnt "in love" with him and that they are role playing. carol actually fell for it
People do stupid things when they lose something essential to humanity (connection)
Koumba hadn't lost that yet. At least he had the other survivors to talk to
She literally is just female suburban Koumbaš
If this sub gets flairs I'm using this one
We need them. I know nothing about how to set those up but Iām sure the mods know how. Would be a lot of fun ones
To be fair, she had a planetary hive mind with knowledge of how to push her buttons working to distract her.
Manousos seems to be holding up just fine.
It's his complete refusal to engage that is keeping him on a straight path, I think. Carol had a lot of trauma and mental issues that were really easy hooks to grab onto and steer her, along with her initially being open to talking with them from the jump.
Manousos caught a lot of flak in this subreddit for his refusal to interact and people saying it was unwise and kept him in the dark as far as information. He didn't know that they could not lie, and he did not know what effect talking to them could have. It is clear that talking to them openly like Carol has and does leaves you wide open for their emotional manipulation. They can't infect her with the virus by speaking, but they can infect in other ways. Get their hooks on the right areas of her brain and her heart to manipulate her to their goal. Zosia pouncing Carols bones right as she was about to have a breakthrough/meltdown and likely snap out of denial to focus on the goal? Manipulative as hell.
Once Carol made it apparent to Manousos that they could not lie and their voice itself was not dangerous, he immediately locked in on that. He also noticed from the outside of that phone call Carol had in front of him, and just the way she spoke to Zosia, that Carol was being heavily manipulated. Calling Zosia over for him to interrogate was a pretty smart two birds at once kind of move. He pushed Carol to snap her out of the denial like she had done with Laxmi and her son, and he also was just fully downloading every bit of information he could extract from them. Probably learned a lot more than just Carols relationship and how to make them seize up.
He clearly is not stupid or some hard-head that cannot change and will get himself killed by that flaw. He very quickly met Carol on her own terms to try and solve this stuff, and he clearly isn't being irrationally stubborn about the hive, he is wisely being very deliberate and careful in the steps he takes. Darien Gap was a slip-up, but I think he was cornered there, and I think they were quietly manipulating him as best they could too. They know him through peoples memories, so they must know somewhat what kind of guy he is, and it would be apparent to them that the helicopter parent shit and creepy unison speech and having his mother who he hates fucking creep up out of the darkness like that would push him to isolate from them. I think they were quietly manipulating him into that dangerous situation so that he would overextend and be compromised so they could swoop in and catch him in the net. They were very purposeful in the isolation strategy with both Carol and Manousos, they just had Manousos thinking the isolation was his idea.
Same thing with Kusimayu. I bet money she didn't ask for them to pretend to be her family. They have enough memories and brainpower to know what works on these people. They have everyone, including Carol and Manousos, a lot more dialed in than we might realize. They cannot speak an untrue statement, but their fundamental purpose is false. They don't want to make you happy, they want to make You into We.
Excellent comment. I love the read on how they may have played him to make him too paranoid
She has some particular emotional / parasocial needs that he does not. It would not surprise me to see an episode next season where they try to find some hooks to use on him.
Thatās why heās so adamant about ignoring and not interacting with them , he knows nothing good can come of it
god forbid people react differently to things
Manousos, as far as we know, wasn't dealing with the loss of his spouse during all this
Because he's refused to interact with them. Eventually they might get to him too now that that barrier is down.
Sheās still doing more than 90% of the remaining human race.
Which was intentional by the writers, who are writing a complex character who is evolving, starting from a VERY dark place of misanthropy.
I really hated the part where she was possessive of the hive like "you love me more, he calls you names", like wtf. she even shot at him.
She has more in common with Laxmi than she thinks
Probably the whole point of Laxmi at least for this season.
To show that Carol demeaned her, then became her.
People thinking itās a mistake that Carol is disliked right now but itās part of her redemption arc. We start off loving her rebellious spirit and hating laxmi and diabate for their actions. Stuff happens and we end up with a Carol who is fallen into the same patterns that they have. The audience going on that slippery slope jounrye with Carol gives us AND her a little more understanding of why those characters behaved the way they did.
Manousos comes along with his stubborn morals and need to save the world as a reminder of what Carol was like at the beginning. And the juxtaposition shows how far sheās changed.
The end of her arc is her seeing all that and choosing to go back to his side/her original mission.
lol at anyone thinking itās an accident. I used to like carol. I screamed at her the entire final episode. But also believed that she went that way
Sheās a wonderful character. I am so invested and engaged. And currently super disappointed in what it took to get her back.
At one point she askedĀ Manousos āhave you ever even tried talking to them?ā. Exact parallel with what Laxmi asked her on the plane.Ā
Her language in this episode defending the hive to Manousos pretty much exactly mirrors the other survivors' language directed at her right after the joining
and with her it was at least her child - I get that
I was mad as well, then I realized itās prolly her grief from Helen. Made me feel really sad for her, wrapped up in the delusion of it all.
Grief post-Helen, but alsoĀ all the unhappiness she had even when Helen was around.
The world wnded, She lost her wife, almost killed zosia, was the only person on earth for 40 days...between the changes, the greif, the guilt and the loneliness...thats gonna mess with someone's head.
Also, I agree... why she gotta be so damn f...
The look of absolute sadness and loneliness on her face when she found out she was left out of the immune group chat was telling. That truly hurt her, and made her think "The whole world hates me"
Manousos is simply THE man. A true defender of mankind and future pope. But serously, I love that character. He might be stuborn but his hearth is in right place.
https://preview.redd.it/ws1tdv0rsd9g1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f03704ff8473725efaa7048887fb3267b38d112
*heart
Manousos is my model, too, flawed but principled and caring.
Kinda like Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction, curt according to the situation but not without manners.
Me too. I was such Carol Sturka defender. Not defender in a way she is perfect and she can do no wrong but defender in the way her wife just died and the entire world is ending and no one seems to care way.
She was so eager to destroy the hive and get the world back to normal. She launched full on investigations to figure out what that āweird milkā they drink is or got all the immune together (even calling the other immune traitors for refusing to help and putting their personal differences over the good of the world)
But the moment she understood HER individuality is not in danger she simply didnāt care anymore. She just turned herself into another Diabate. (not as extreme but still very similar)
She went in vacations, fucked Zosia and just didnāt care to communicate or get along with Manousos at all. Creating petty differences FOR NO REASON. WHO CARES IF YOU ARE INSIDE THE HOUSE OR THE AMBULANCE?
She abandoned him for hurting Zosia and the Hive despite the fact that she had done something very similar before herself.
But the moment she underwood that HER individuality is actually still in danger suddenly she wants to save the world again?
You donāt deserve Manousos, Carol.
I think carol initially gave up because every other human survivor had a secret zoom group chat and they all side with the hive anyway
Yeah thereās no way she wouldāve given up if the other survivors embraced the cause. She was left entirely alone and it broke her.
They gave us an entire episode showing the effects of isolation on Carol and how the Hive wore her down and people said it was too slow and filler
I swear people on here just wipe what happened previously because idk how people still don't understand how awful 40 days of isolation can do to someone. Anything over a week I believe is literally considered torture by the military.
And once that same situation presented itself of course you'd do anything to not have it happen again.
Yeah, and Mano would've been in isolation longer and at risk of breaking down if it wasn't for Carol's video. That video gave him a spark of hope.
lack of empathy intertwined with misogyny
What bothers me a bit is that even after that and Zoisa returning they showed us she was still working on fixing things. Still working on the secret whiteboard. To me this sudden shift kind of came out of nowhere after she slept with Zoisa.
You know what youāre so right I didnāt even think about it as a tactic from the hive. Abandoning someone completely as a way to get at them and manipulate them in the only way they can. Oof this show is creepy lmao
Itās a cult tactic btw
Smart! I can def see that because if you divorce while in some cult then everyone leaves you alone as a punishment and seize all communication, friendships etc.
Me when I'm not in the group chat (I will now abandon humanity)
The ambulance situation was not petty, bro shows up with a machete and an ominous suggestion on his capacity to harm from the hive. Only other thing she knows about this guy is he blindly screamed at her on the phone, and would you look at that fifteen minutes into their talk he admits they should kill all the joined if they cant be helped.Ā
the hive has said they won't protect her from other survivors but yeah homegirl has to be down with climbing into an enclosed space with a total stranger who is also armed and could physically overpower her in a fight, very reasonable ask /s
She sold the fuck out for sure and only came to her senses when her individuality was threatened again. Far from noble.
My heart sank when they showed that montage of her delusional little globe-trotting honeymoon. She was escaping into saccharine fantasy the way Wycaro's readers were, but her fantasy was tangible of course. I thought she was smarter than that, but I guess she'd been through a lot lately etc etc.
Still, all that'd been missing is a little situationship with the dream girl? Really?
This could have a lot of significance since her relationship with Helen probably had a lot to do with survival/necessity/convenience. Offered a chance of a happily ever after with the girl she used to fantasize about, I guess it was hard to refuse.
I guess as far as "flawed heroes" go, ours is particularly flawed. Looking forward to seeing more of her character and what really makes her tick.
I never made the connection between her books and her new life
Oh thatās such a good way of putting it, that she fell for the fantasy just like her own readers did
I might be the last remaining Carol Sturka defender but I donāt think itās as simple as her thinking āoh it doesnāt affect me I donāt care anymoreā
I think when they left her she lost all hope of āfixingā things which left her sitting in front of fireworks not caring if she lives or dies. She truly hit rock bottom and felt entirely alone on the planet. To her she had 2 options: drink herself to death watching the golden girls alone or embrace the hive while still trying to make sense of it all by asking questions.
Sheās definitely privileged and that plays into how she was more willing to embrace the hive than Manousos, she definitely doesnāt have the same determination to cross the world to find a solution to all this, but she was completely mentally broken. This caused her to delude herself into thinking she could just live in the world as it is and tried to make the best of a bad situation but as weāve seen she canāt be happy for long and it was always obvious to me that no matter how distracted she kept herself with Zosia she was always going to go back to fighting against them.
When Manousos showed up it was a harsh reminder of the reality of the situation that sheād been trying to ignore and she couldnāt face it so she ran away but at the end she came back because she knows the situation isnāt right even if she was able to delude herself for a little while. Sheās not evil, sheās not a villain, sheās a flawed human being with a shit ton of trauma going through an insane situation and idk why people donāt give her more grace.
Itās also weird how many people Iāve seen claim that she stopped caring when she stopped believing the hive could turn her when we are literally told otherwise. We see in episode 8 that sheās actively collecting information on the hive the whole way through. We see that she recognizes sheās becoming more and more contented with things and has to remind herself that they eat people. She has an entire breakdown in that episode where she outright states that sheās grown fond of the hive and Zosia but also feels like she canāt stop because someone has to put the world right, and that is when the hive chooses to kiss her and feed into the belief (one that most of the survivors seem to have) that there really is an individual in there who can love her personally and individually. The Hive is also very deliberate with the language they use to describe Manousos so as to make him seem as dangerous and crazy as possible, and then she sees him trigger the hiveās breakdown (something that she did accidentally twice and still feels immensely guilty over because she believes herself to have killed millions of people) on purpose, and thatās when she leaves him. Her leaving Zosia at the end there isnāt just her realizing that she personally might be affected by what the hive is doing, itās her realizing that the hive really are willing to do whatever deceitful and underhanded things they need to do convert everyone, all while repeating the same ābecause we love youā rhetoric she probably heard over and over at conversion therapy.
They hive manipulated the fuck out of an emotionally distressed woman grieving her wife with a lifetime of trauma and yet everyone hates her because sheās not a brooding ābadassā powering through inhospitable jungle.
I also havenāt seen anyone call out Manousos for triggering the meltdown in the plurbs on purpose but when Carol did it by accident everyone called her a selfish murderer.
No one can convince me Carol isnāt being held to a higher standard of behaviour than the male characters.
I will say not wanting to get into a van with a literal random man from South America as a woman with literally no one else around is completely understandable lmao
She wanted to save the world but she was repeatedly chastised by the other survivors as a pig headed crazy person. She was faced with the seemingly impossible task of finding a cure with little to no relevant education and quite literally the entire world against her. She broke after 40 days of total isolation and was being intensly manipulated.
From her perspective literally no one wanted her to cure this, and pursuing a cure meant the rest of her life will be torture . Manuosos came to her offering help after she had already been broken and become content with the new way of the world.
Every single one of yall would do the same and this new found hatred is weird.
Alternatively: āThe moment she found out her individuality wasnāt in immediate danger (shortly after learning that the āeating humansā thing isnāt actually a dealbreaker for the other survivors and no one else wants to undo the joining and also they donāt want to speak to her, and then she surprisingly doesnāt feel motivated to jump back into her world-saving plans when she goes home where sheās been abandoned by an entire city, and so she just decides to live for awhile and possibly process the recent death of the one person who truly understood her and/or the trauma of surviving a global apocalypse, and then after holding out for a month she succumbs to the mental and emotional torture of total isolation and then finally decides to take comfort in the first human she encounters who also happens to be her exact physical ideal and also who kisses her first) she didnāt care anymore.ā So weird, right?Ā
Also, weāre talking about a couple weeks here. She didnāt leave for years. She took a vacation and was still figuring things out.
She was essentially put in solitary for 40 days, left totally isolated. The hivemind expertly leveraged this isolation and her human need for physical and emotional contact to bring her to heel and placate her like an emotional abuser. Carol is imperfect and has big feelings. I think it's great writing.
IMHO this isn't fair. What broke Carol wasn't the belief she was safe, it was her overwhelming loneliness after 40 days in what amounted to solitary confinement.
As for "who cares if you're inside the house or the ambulance", she's effectively alone with a strange man she knows nothing about, and if he turns out to be a rapist, there is literally nobody on the planet coming to save her - the Plurb Mind has already told her that they can't intervene in conflict between unplurbed humans.
"No I'm not getting in your car" is a perfectly sane reaction.
She did bring a hell of a peace offering in the end though.
Still kinda grieving vs Locked the fuck in
Jokes aside, it's finally good to see Carol past the last stage of grief. I imagine that vacation was her acceptance stage. Hopefully, we get a more level-headed Carol now.
There's so much discussion on this show. I love it.
Gilligan does a great job of painting complex tapestry of moral grays.
Here, Its easy to just say carol is terrible for her choices, but she's a human being that has gone through a LOT... yea, she left to be happy with zosia after terrible tragedies and loneliness. If I was in her shoes, and resigned to the fact that the world has ended... I dont know for sure if my choices would be different
We were all rooting for Carol to get with Zosia not thinking weāve also been duped by the hive into thinking Zosia is anything more than another pretty face the hive uses to control the immune. Still I felt bad for my homie Carol the first heartbreak from your hive situationship is the absolute worst
I just wanted Carol to get some hive affection so she wasnt lonely, but when she dipped to the Alps i was like "cmon girl, you got laid now get back to work"
We? Whoās we? I didnāt want Carol to be with Zosia because I knew it was all a manipulation tactic. Plus, the actual Zosia probably isnāt even lesbian
Some of the people on this sub are genuinely brainrotted if they thought the Zosia situation was anything but extreme emotional manipulation
Yeah Carol was huge hypocrite. In full addict mode. She even made the comment about the feel good and asking zosia about the chemicals. She is a protagonist but no angel
And the way she tiptoed around the pronouns of the real Zosia's lover, not wanting to face the possibility of her being hetero and breaking the illusion of their situation, ugh. Not cool, Carol. Understandable behaviour, but also very disappointing.
This is a great point: as the hive was manipulating Carol by pulling out all the stops with its "charm offensive" (everything from the diner business to Zosia), the hive clearly succeeded in manipulating much of the audience as well.
I was also pissed at Carol for much of this episode, but I think it was an interesting character arc for her. It wouldnāt have been as interesting if she and Manousos were on the same side as soon as they met, but she came to her senses and sheās ready once again to do what it takes to save the world, and herself.Ā
It also shows the downside of Manousosā distrust and stubbornness with the hive. If heād just accepted their offer to fly him to Albuquerque right after he watched her first tape, he would have met Carol a lot earlier, at a time when she would have been on his side. But because he refused their help, Carol wasnāt in the same place anymore.
But who knows if the hive would have manipulated him too, or even if they took his stem cells in that hospital, knowing now the depth of their mendacity
Thatās a good point. I donāt think anyone, no matter how stubborn and principaled, is immune to the hive mind manipulations.
I love the Internet
i'm just thankful we're over calling literally the only character in the show who's having fun (Diabate) a rapist.
It stops being rape once white women start doing it š
It was kind of crazy people were calling Diabete legitimately evil in the first few episodes, I thought I was a bad person for thinking itās not as simple as that.
I saw everyone calling Laxmi evil the first couple of episodes, only for Carol to end up acting exactly like her.
Well Laxmi still sucks, and Carol ended up sucking for a while there
"manousos is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will, something carol sturka knows very little about"
"He almost killed a plurb with a notebook. A fucking notebook."
Yeah honestly it's kinda deranged, I used to be a strong carol defender and kinda felt weird when people hate her when I find her very understandable and most relatable, but the moment she sucked up the the plurbs made me get pretty annoyed.
But when I think clearer, all her actions feel understandable still. It feels like things are hopeless, everytime she tries to find for a cure just makes the last other survivors hate her and the plurbs abandon her and mentally manipulate her, so her finding out they "can't turn her" and Zosia being Zosia is definitely enough to lull most people in her shoes to give up.
I'm just glad I think we're getting old Carol back after her tone on episode 9. Wondering how her and Manousos would cause chaos.
Manousos meanwhile feels neurodivergent coded or is it just me? He definitely lacks social awareness, unlike Carol who is more arrogant and abrasiveness comes from intention, I think Manousos just mostly appears oblivious to social cues.
Either way, both definitely are gonna be different flavors of strong flaws and bitch behavior.
I donāt think Manu is ND, I think those are cultural differences and the language gap between him and Carol. American social norms are very different from what acceptable in Paraguay and other countries around the world.
The snapping was definitely a macho South American thing that Carol detected and snuffed out right away.
That's what I thought too
Bro you're replying to clearly hasn't spent time with anybody from non-western non-english speaking countries before if he thinks Manousos' behaviour is "neurodivergent".
Besides being terminally online and not touching grass, I also blame online communities for the blatant misuse of psychiatric terms
The character supposedly is Colombian. As a Colombian I can tell you he's just kinda an asshole or maybe sexist.
I thought it was Paraguay
It also did not help that Carol spoke in very colloquial and idiomatic English which kept confusing Manu like when she said bug which was translated into insect.Ā
I think Manousos is just poor and coming from a developing country, hence a certain roughness around the edges. He was also probably an unhappy guy even before the Joining. Middle-aged,
working as a security guardhe apparently owns the self-storage place, so I guess it's not so badĀ living alone with no spouse or children: the Hive sends him his mother to communicate through, to which he replies that his mother is actually a bitch and would never talk to him nicely like that. So pretty much a total loner, unfulfilled and collecting dust like that old car of his he'd been saving for a special occasion. In a way, the Joining is the time for him to shine, to be somebody, to save the world. He's clearly someone with remarkable intelligence, resourcefulness and determination whose potential had gone on unrealized for whatever reason.ĀManousos is originally from Colombia (the actor is Colombian) but lives in Paraguay. My theory is that he has a paramilitary or military past (considering Colombia's history) and emigrated to Paraguay to escape it. That's why he has so many resources and training.
Ah, I was just thinking whether he had a military past. Something about the way he carries himself and his resourcefulness, yes. Even the way he chooses to dress is military-adjacent.
Yes exactly!
Also I feel like at this point in the show, it's easier to like Manousos since we as an audience don't really know him on the same level we do with Carol. If he experienced the same mental and emotional manipulation Carol did, I'm sure he wouldn't be always making "right" choices.
my read on manousos was that after everything he went through, he isn't terribly concerned about the little things, plus he definitely underestimated how easy it would be to get along with carol. he's thinking big picture, life and death, and probably thought carol would be on the same wavelength
Manousos I think is a very well-written character in the sense that it would take a gigantically anti-social asshole to mentally withstand the situation he finds himself in, and when he meets Carol we are forced to confront the fact that he is, in fact, an asshole.
Her desire to save the world goes from 100 to 0 the moment she learned they can't turn her, and the back from 0 to 100 the moment she learns they can.
I can't hate her. And I hope she gives an epic sermon on the other uncontaminated vagabonds. If she did "nothing," as some say around here, the others did even less.
She got blinded by pussy
Pluribussy
Don't get me wrong.....
NOTHING
N O T H I N G wrong with flawed female characters.
Carol is still a well written actor and Rhea does a great job acting as her....but I get this meme. Hey, she came around and honeslty....saving the world seems like too much work. If I had no shot at being joined then yeah, I would be as chill as Carol was too.
I swear itās like half of yāall forgot she almost blew her head off two episodes ago - sheās just being a silly Billy and living life in director mode
Na, I love Carol AND Manousos (and Zosia, give Karolina her flowers too!). Great episode! š
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This mf was studying like he got finals next week , i wish i was as locked in as Manousos.
https://preview.redd.it/1p6x8v75889g1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec4f71f75ad69eb04c6a78f39e912bde92a4de9d
āSend me another oneā
I've been fuck Carol since the last episode. She's completely lost her way.