Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn has revealed that writers on the Apple TV sci-fi drama are currently “working their butts off” on the highly anticipated second season.
From Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, the series imagines a surreal scenario in which the world’s population (barring a handful of exceptions) becomes the single unitary hive mind of an extraterrestrial entity.
Jaded former novelist Carol Sturka (Seehorn) is one such individual who, by mere twist of genetics, finds herself immune to the mass absorption of human consciousness – and is now scheming to restore Earth to its previous state.
Taking cues from The X-Files and The Twilight Zone, the mind-blowing sci-fi drama earned critical acclaim upon release for its ambitious sequences, compelling characters and fascinating moral quandaries.
The future of Pluribus was assured long ago with an initial two-season order, but we’re still a long way away from seeing new episodes, as Seehorn told Radio Times at an Apple TV event for BAFTA TV Award nominees.
“I know that they are definitely sweating it in the writers’ room, like working their butts off,” she began. “And I think Vince [Gilligan, creator] said publicly recently that they are halfway through ‘breaking’ episodes, meaning just like the extremely detailed outlines.”
“I don’t know [when season 2 will come out],” she continued. “I’m as anxious as the fans are!”
Indeed, some viewers were left slightly concerned by creator Gilligan’s candid admission that he’s not sure where a major twist in the Pluribus season 1 finale will lead. Be warned: spoilers follow!
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After a period of bliss, in which Carol appeared to accept the new status quo – and even began a romantic relationship with her ‘hive mind’ chaperone Zosia (Karolina Wydra) – the world came crashing down upon her once again.
Horrifyingly, she learned that while the other immune humans would be allowed to live out their days in peace, the unnamed alien entity would actively try to convert her to their side using eggs she’d had frozen years prior.
This tore apart lovers Carol and Zosia, leading the former to make good on an earlier threat, demanding from the appeasing hive mind a weapon of terrifying destructive power: a nuclear bomb.
Gilligan told Rolling Stone in March that, upon reflection, he and his team don’t “really know” what that development will mean for the remainder of the story – but notably, the writer did take a similarly loose approach to his earlier esteemed works.
Radio Times asked Seehorn, who previously co-starred in Gilligan’s Better Call Saul, whether she trusted that her collaborator would figure out how to manage such a weighty new element.
“I have absolute trust in him,” she said. “When I first started doing Better Call Saul, you didn’t have any idea of where it was going, and he’s now said this publicly.
“He and Peter Gould weren’t even sure how long my character [lawyer Kim Wexler] would stick around – much like Aaron Paul’s character, Jesse Pinkman [in Breaking Bad]. They thought they’d kind of just be there for a short time, and then it grew and grew.”
Seehorn continued: “I got used to working that way on Saul, and now that trust has just grown and grown and grown and been magnified… I know he’s finding the story, planting different seeds [and] seeing what blooms.”
For her part, the three-time Emmy nominee said that she doesn’t worry about the long-term, adding: “You just play presently… what’s the moment that you have at hand?”
Pluribus was nominated for Best International Programme at the BAFTA TV Awards 2026, alongside fellow Apple TV hits The Studio and Severance, plus Disney+ series The Bear, Netflix’s The Diplomat and HBO/Sky’s The White Lotus. The award ultimately went to The Studio.
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