Casey

Also re: CC's pregnancy reveal gatekeeping...at least in this case Scully had no idea she was pregnant until the final scene. The decision makes much more sense to me in that context than for MSIV, where it may have affected Gillian's performance choices

Need a Mulder t-shirt and/or mug that says "wrong, but beautiful" STAT

Jenn's delight when describing the possibility of an onscreen death for Diana is perfection 😅 and add me to the list of people who think this would have been an amazing series finale! Can't wait to hear more about that in part 2. This makes me want to watch the pilot and this back to back!

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

Obviously, there are so very many things wrong with the man, but sometimes I wonder, how does he get away with these very basic things, that I can't IMAGINE any person not finding extremely irritating...at the very least.

Has anyone ever asked a Trump supporter what they think when he says things like "nobody has ever done more for X than me" or "if it wasn't for me, X wouldn't exist" etc? Not to argue about his blatant lies, but just to try and understand how they feel about his obsession with himself?

❤️

In Zosia's case, as far as we know, she had not choice but to join the Hive, but the case is different for Kusimayu. And should that change how we judge either? I don't have an answer, just find it all very interesting to think about, especially when comparing to real world cult dynamics.

Loved your discussion about Hive Zosia vs original Zosia. It reminds me of how society struggles to determine culpability when judging cult members. When does the original person lose all responsibility for their actions, if ever?

It's silly BUT perhaps she had the snake follow Mulder? 😅😅 and then took advantage of the situation? I kind of WANT this to be true because thinking about Morgan and Wong working out the details of the "snake eats a guy" scene is so fun!

Great ep! I think the final message is for Mulder and Scully. I take it as Paddock used them as bait to take down the others (Shannon's dad and then the rest of the PTC), which was always her goal. My theory for how she knew Mulder would meet with the dad...

Can Ralph Fiennes just be in all the things? Go see The Bone Temple, he's spectacular in it. I can't wait to watch it again. This 28 Years Later trilogy is really something special.

Also, regarding how Manousos learned he could cause the seizures, I figured he just learned this from Zosia. I'm sure he grilled her about exactly what made the hive abandon Carol, so she had to divulge this?

Here are some Fun Facts I pulled from wiki about oxytocin, which I think may be more important to how the hive works than we realize?

Omg I have so many thoughts about this amazing finale! Totally agree with Annie, the opening is my fave scene so far and was absolutely devastating. The perfect distillation of what the hive is really doing to humanity.

Regarding the chemical convo...

Tonight's double feature: A Muppet Christmas Carol and Black Christmas. This is the correct answer.

THIS!

The most important Christmas Eve tradition 👻🎄

Fantastic interview! You definitely do NOT suck, Carol! 😉

But seriously, Pluribus fans don't miss this. Rhea is the best!

One of my fave books that explores this is The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. Not exactly a dystopian novel, but I HIGHLY recommend! In the book, tech has been invented that allows humans to upload all their memories to a collective consciousness that anyone in the collective can access and "watch"

Intrigued by your discussion re: memory for the plurbs vs humans. Memory in humans is notoriously unreliable (we remember things the way we LAST thought about them, not how they actually occurred). Fascinating to think about what it would be like to remember everything EXACTLY as it was...

A 1,200-mile journey into David Lynch’s creative and spiritual Midwest The visionary filmmaker’s art looked at the broken psyche inside America. His life showed a way to fix it.

This is just lovely ❤️

Also, I loved the mirroring in this episode of Carol packing to visit Diabate and Manousos packing to make his own journey to Carol. Def share your excitement about these two finally meeting!

This is my fave ep of the series so far! The John Cena video proves context is everything (seeing body parts shrinkwrapped in a warehouse? NOT a great way to learn about HDP! Plurbs' corporate PSA on the other hand...😅)

Philes! Check out this ep of the @heythatsmepod.bsky.social featuring director Robert Mandel discussing the filming of The X-Files pilot! Very cool to hear about how he partnered with CC to create the tone,vibe, and overall look of the series. And also his memories of that famous Vancouver rain 😅

Great ep! If they are eating the dead, it's another element of the show that makes me think about similarities to AI. How it consumes everything we "feed" it to get "smarter". Maybe learning her son eats people will finally be Laxmi's breaking point? 😅

Agreed!!

Also to be clear, I know she didn't use the heroin this time 😅 but the hive clearly has info that she has in the past!

Glad I'm not the only one who likes this ep!

What I'm wondering now is...Carol used to do heroin? More evidence of a darker past. She seemed very confident with that needle and also, the pharmacist remarked it had been years since she's "injected". Very curious to learn more about this period of her life...