Rhea Seehorn on Carols explosive Pluribus finale choice: These people have crossed the line
By the end of Pluribus Season 1, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) has conducted the world's wildest trade deal. She lost her romance with Zosia (Karolina Wydra), but gained an atom bomb.
That trade-off to end all trade-offs comes after Carol receives some devastating news. The Others have been secretly using stem cells from her frozen eggs to tailor the hive mind virus to her. She only has a month left, maybe two or three at most, before she's Joined up with everyone else.
That betrayal stood out to Seehorn while reading the finale script for the first time. "I had a whirlwind of emotions for the entire finale," she told Mashable in a video interview. "The fact that they've been stealing my eggs was the first atom bomb."
One figurative bomb begets a literal one, and it's not long before Carol has a weapon of mass destruction outside her Albuquerque house.
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Carol's request echoes her realization from earlier in Season 1 that the Others will give her whatever she desires — even an atom bomb. So what is it exactly about the stem cell revelation that causes Carol to literally go nuclear on the Others? For Seehorn, Carol's choice is an expression of pure anger.
"Carol is quite impulsive, as we've seen, and her rage is something that she's had to suppress," Seehorn explained. "But [in the finale] she's allowing herself to go ahead and be reactionary, like, 'Screw this. These people have crossed the final line that they could have crossed.'"
So what will Carol do with her new nuke? Does she plan to use it, or is it just a warning shot to the Others that she won't go quietly into their hive mind?
"I don't actually know what she's going to do with the atom bomb," Seehorn said. "I gave it a lot of thought. I did ask [creator] Vince [Gilligan]. He did not have a specific answer. They're in the writers' room right now; we should ask him."
Ultimately, though, it's Carol's uncertainty going forward that proves richest to Seehorn as a performer.
"In the end," she said, "I actually think it's more important for me, the way I wanted to play it, that Carol is impulsive in asking for the biggest, most violent, threatening thing she can think of before she even knows what she would do with it."