Carol’s moaning was sweet, it was hot, it was tender and moving and erotic, and it got me to thinking. Carol reacts to kissing Zosia the way that she does because she’d kept every victim/beneficiary of “the Joining” at arm’s length, and they she, this whole time. But of course it’s insane to completely remove yourself from humanity, even the strange form of it represented by members of the hivemind like Zosia. You need that contact, however peculiar it has now become. Or Carol needs it, anyway: When she was totally cut off, she really did begin losing her mind.
Yet at the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was also insane to talk with Zosia, to befriend Zosia, to make love to Zosia, like Zosia is a real person, when in fact she’s…well, all real people, all at once. She is the original Zosia. She is Carol’s dead wife. She is Carold’s dead wife’s relatives. She is Carol’s own relatives! She is every woman Carol ever fucked, and every woman they ever fucked, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Is the intimacy required for even the most exhibitionistic and non-monogamistic sex possible when your partner is every living human being, minus one dozen? What about the intimacy required to confide, to conspire, to share hopes and dreams and frustrations and inside jokes? To stargaze amid incredible romantic red lights, to play croquet on the 50 yard line, to get massages, to visit an old haunt like the Mulholland Drive–esque diner the plurbs rebuild for Carol’s enjoyment? To do all the things friends and lovers do?
Keep in mind also that Zosia is also all of the world’s greatest lovers. She is every woman who’s ever given head and every woman who’s ever been given head. She’s every man in that same equation, if for some reason that knowledge should come in handy. By the time she and Carol have sex, the episode has already established that Zosia is literally unbeatable in games of skill or knowledge, having instantaneous access to the thoughts — but not the physical or emotional feelings — of every human being on earth. Tough to imagine this idea was introduced in the same episode where she and Carol fuck out of pure coincidence, right?
So is it mind-blowing? Is it the best sex she’s ever had? Is it tailor-made to match the performance and preferences of a familiar lover, like her wife? Is it deliberately dialed down by a collective consciousness that knows every sexual trick in the book, including how not to overwhelm your more inexperienced inamorata? Is there a reason it’s happening now?
I reviewed this week’s Pluribus for Decider.
Tags: decider, horror, pluribus, TV, TV reviews