‘Pluribus’ episode 5: Why is milk so important?

Pluribus has milk on its mind in its fifth episode, aptly titled “Got Milk.”

Drinking takes center stage as Carol (Rhea Seehorn) continues to investigate the Others, who have now abandoned her due to her drugging Zosia (Karolina Wydra) in Episode 4. Isolation is both a curse and a blessing. A curse, because even the most miserable woman in the world needs companionship (and someone to pick up her trash). A blessing, because Carol can now do her detective work away from the prying eyes of a global hive mind.

Surprisingly, what she discovers while snooping has everything to do with milk. It is the drink of choice for many troubling TV and movie villains, from A clockwork orangeIt’s Alex who is going The boys‘Homelander, so the Others are in good company. Of course they’re nowhere close as violent or depraved as the other milk drinkers on screen, but their takeover of the human race certainly puts them in antagonistic territory.

But while other milk-guzzling villains like Homelander enjoy the drink with Oedipal undertones, the Others seem to treat it solely as a means of sustenance. What is really going on between them and the milk?

The others in Pluribus I love their milk.

Carol notices that the only items in Albuquerque’s recycling bins are milk cartons. She can’t drink all that milk herself (although I’d be mildly impressed and mostly disgusted if she were), so she thinks it’s the Others’ only source of food.

The discovery of the carton led her to Duke City Dairy, where all the milk was made. There she learns that this is not the case In fact milk (sorry to Homelander and co.) but a mixture of water and a strange white powder. The resulting liquid is a light amber or straw color, as Carol says. It is neutral on the pH scale and has the texture of “olive oil, but finer”.

So, what does this mysterious milk-free liquid actually do to the Others? Is it just their food, or does it help strengthen the hive mind? Is it a physical manifestation of the “psychic glue” that holds them together?

The key must be in the white powder, which Carol next investigates. Through a barcode search, she ends up at Agri-Jet, a manufacturing plant full of mysterious products and items packaged in plastic bags. Whatever’s in there is probably what’s reduced to that white powder, right?

Well, apparently that’s no use either, because when Carol peeks under the plastic, she puts her hand over her mouth in terror. Cut to black, leaving us to speculate on the true nature of the Others’ “milk” for another week.

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What’s in the bag Carol finds at Agri-Jet?

What could have made Carol react with such horror? Unfortunately, there’s only one thing I think of when I’m presented with the idea of ​​”absolutely sinister food sources”, and that’s human corpses.

That’s right: I think Carol made the great discovery that in addition to being a parasitic hive mind, the Others are also cannibals.

We know that the Others are incapable of killing anything. However, they could definitely eat something that’s already dead, and you know what Earth has in large quantities right now? Dead humans, due to the trauma of joining and Carol’s emotional outbursts. These incidents resulted in millions of deaths, giving the Others a free supply of meat that they did not have to kill outright.

However, the implications of cannibalism may be a distraction intended to confuse us. Maybe what’s under the plastic isn’t corpses at all. This is perhaps an allusion to what the true alien forms of the Others look like, wherever they come from in the universe. Or maybe this is some sort of experiment that proves they can bring Carol or the other survivors into the fold.

For now, I’m sticking to my initial theory. Pluribus brings its own touch to Soylent Green. And guess what? They are still people.

Pluribus is now streaming on Apple TV, with a new episode every Friday and episode 5 airing Wednesday, November 26.