Babeeee, quick, wake up, appointment television is back! Vince Gilligan (the baddie behind Breaking Bad) is back with a freaky new suburban drama. If you’re not watching Pluribus, drop everything (texting your ex and shading your work nemesis on Slack can wait), because this series fantasizing about the end of the world is a lot more entertaining than fixating on whether or not that’s actually happening IRL. In case you weren’t paying attention in Latin class, the show’s title, Pluribus, comes from the phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” meaning “of many, one.”

In the case of this Apple series, the number one girl in this group is a secretly snarky but beloved romantasy author named Carol, whose success hasn’t provided her the joie de vivre that makes life worth living. Unfortunately for Carol, her life becomes way too special when almost everyone on earth, including her partner, Helen, gets absorbed into a hivemind called Joining (or dies). But why TF did she become the main character of dystopia in the worst way possible? I can’t decide between these wild theories about why Carol was immune to the hivemind in Pluribus.

Pluribus Theories About Carol

Is Carol an alien in Pluribus?

What if the reason the virus that created Joining didn’t infect Carol, like other earthlings, is because she isn’t one? The reason fans suspect Carol could be an alien is because of a potential Easter egg dropped by Vince Gilligan himself. The show-runner told THR that his heroine is partially named after a fictional character from an episode of The Twilight Zone: William Sturka, who appears to be a typical American father. Apols for the spoiler, but at the end of “Third from the Sun,” it’s revealed that William plans to escape an international nuclear crisis by traveling to Earth — meaning he’s unknowingly been from an alien planet (at least to the viewer) the whole time. Could the same be said for his namesake, Carol? Maybe she’s unwittingly a descendant of alien ancestors with non-human DNA.

To be fair, in the same interview, Vince did insist fans are good at finding hints that aren’t really intentional since his writers’ rooms come up with major twists as the episodes are completed.

Carol’s Book, The Winds of Wycaro, Is Predicting The Future

I love horny pirates as much as the next gal (if Dustin Hoffman in Hook wasn’t a part of your sexual awakening, that’s a you problem). But I feel like there might be a reason we got so many deets about the “speculative historical romance literature” of Wycaro in the pilot. Amarathine slipsand, Mandovian spice fruit, a two-masted schooner — jot those down! So far, a female version of Raban has shown up, so maybe this crisis has already advanced to “page 218.”

I know it might seem a little kooky, but what if Pluribus is like that Bryce Dallas Howard movie (with an absurd, choreographed dance scene that really isn’t discussed enough)? In Argylle, BDH is an author of a fiction series who accidentally reveals a real-life spy conspiracy implanted into her brain. Similarly, Carol could’ve been subconsciously aware of this hivemind plot twist before it unfolded, and thus plotted to lace herself and other carefully selected survivors with a secret cure. Her silly little books could’ve been proactively spelling out the path to fixing everything the whole time. Hell, maybe Carol’s unknowingly a godlike author of this whole situation, and completing her next novel will flip everything on its head.

Carol’s Drinking Problem In Pluribus

And speaking of an antidote, if Carol (or someone else, for that matter) is discreetly protecting her, it could be orchestrated through her constant alcohol supply. The early episodes of Pluribus feature soooo many shots of Carol’s drinking problem that it’s v plausible there’s more to it than just laying the groundwork for future character development when she eventually quits. Does that explain how 12 other people also became immune? No, no, it does not, but I didn’t say I had all the answers, okay.

A Secret Medical Condition

One of my favorite tropes in a TV show or movie is when a character subtly declares something up front that turns out to be the truth everyone was searching for. On the plane with Deshpande, the last d-bag on earth with very expensive taste, Carole screams that there has to be some undiagnosed medical condition causing him to be so obnoxious. What if the writers are telling us right then and there that there’s a secret something something in their DNA that saved them?

Is Pluribus about magic?

Celtic Druid priests might sound out of left field, but stay with me here! In the third episode, Carol watches Golden Girls, of which Apple licensed a suspicious amount of airtime. In one clip, your favorite bimbo, Rose, makes a joke about virgin sacrifice by ancient Druid priests. Having done a little historical research on Druid folklore once upon I time, I know that beyond the arts and sciences, some are said to have dabbled in mystical religious rituals that got a little bit witchy, like around the festival of Samhain. Zosia also tells Carol the hivemind’s name sounds better in Celtiberian. What’s Celtiberian? Oh yeah, a Celtic dialect…are there ancient supernatural forces at play in this series, and is Carol meant to be a human offering to some higher power? I’ll certainly be watching to find out.