What Does ‘Pluribus’ Mean? The Definition Of ‘Pluribus’ Is A Key To Understanding The New Apple TV Hit Series

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan is back with a highly-anticipated new series on Apple TV: Pluribus.

With a Certified 100% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, and Better Call Saul alum Rhea Seehorn as its lead, Pluribus is already sparking massive interest among TV lovers and starting to dominate the cultural conversation. But those who have yet to watch the genre-bending sci-fi thriller’s first two episodes, or those who have watched but are hoping for some extra clarity are likely wondering, “What is Pluribus about?” and “What does Pluribus mean?”

Apple TV’s official synopsis of Pluribus is as follows: “The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.” And understanding the title and definition of the word is key to understanding the new hit series.

So what does “pluribus” mean in English? And, crucially, what is Pluribus about? We’ve got answers. Just be warned, some Pluribus premiere spoilers appear ahead, but we’ll be sure to give you an extra warning before we dive in.

What Does Pluribus Mean In English? Pluribus Definition:

First things first! What does “pluribus” mean in English? As noted in Decider’s full Pluribus review, “The title and several key concepts explored in Pluribus were inspired by America’s motto, ‘E pluribus unum,’ which translates to “Out of many, one” in Latin. So pluribus means “many,” and just as the motto envisions all states and people from the country coming together as one united nation, Pluribus sees almost everyone in the world come together through shared happiness.

Pluribus production notes provide some additional context on the title, explaining, “The title came early to series creator Vince Gilligan, but feeling it perhaps arrived a little too easily, he played with hundreds of other potential names before returning to it. ‘Now I can’t think of a better title,’ he says. ‘It feels right to me.’”

What Is Pluribus About?

As noted, the non-spoilery version of Pluribus‘ plot is that Seehorn’s miserable character Carol tries to save the world from contagious happiness. But if you want to understand the storyline, and the meaning of pluribus as it relates to the show more deeply, read on for some spoiler-heavy premiere recapping.

Towards the end of the pilot, Carol rushes home and turns on C-SPAN desperately searching for answers, only to find a White House official standing at a podium awaiting her call. When she dials the number on the screen, the man on her TV screen, America’s Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation, Davis Taffler (Peter Bergman) picks up and gives a rundown of the unprecedented events Carol just endured.

While he claims the contagious happiness everyone was infected with wasn’t the result of an “alien invasion,” there was extraterrestrial interference: “14 months ago, astronomers discovered a radio signal from 600 lightyears away. There’s no telling how long it’s been repeating, maybe throughout all of human existence. The signal is made up of four tones, representing guanine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine. It’s a recipe for a nucleotide sequence. RNA. Scientists have created this sequence in a lab, and it’s not a living thing, per se, it is more akin to a virus. Though it’s not that exactly either. It’s kind of a psychic glue capable of binding us all together.”

Taffler went on to explain that every person on Earth, except for Carol and 11 others like her, were experiencing a shared consciousness, or hive mind. In other words, they went from many to one. And their hope is to figure out why Carol and the others were immune from the virus, so they, too, can join, and everyone can co-exist in shared happiness.

In what some may see as a twist, considering everyone on Earth presumably aspires to be happy, Carol doesn’t want to conform to their forced unity. She longs to maintain her free will and individuality, even if it means being miserable. And furthermore, she wants to restore humanity to its former state of emotional freedom. As Carol makes it her mission to save others from happiness, Pluribus challenges characters and viewers to examine the dystopic costs of pursuing a utopia.

New episodes of Pluribus premiere Fridays on Apple TV.