The series follows Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a cynical novelist who soon finds that she is one of the few survivors of an alien virus outbreak that turns most of humanity into a permanently optimistic hive mind. The episode depicts the discovery and subsequent outbreak of the virus, largely from Carol's perspective.
The episode received widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers praising Gilligan's script and direction, Seehorn's performance, and the episode's tension and unique tone, with several comparing it to the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Plot
Astronomers at a remote research facility discover a radio signal from a star system 600 light years away, which they find to be a single line of data repeating every 78 seconds. One scientist, Bob, deduces that the signal in fact corresponds to an RNA sequence; over the next year, government researchers manage to reproduce the sequence in a lab.
Novelist Carol Sturka is in Dallas on the final stop of the book tour for the latest entry in her speculative historical romance series The Winds of Wycaro. She signs autographs from a horde of devoted fans before being driven back to the airport alongside her manager and romantic partner Helen. The two return to their hometown of Albuquerque and go out for a drink, where Carol expresses her disdain for her Wycaro novels and its fans, bemoaning that her success comes from writing "mindless crap"; Helen encourages her to finish the long-gestating draft of her more serious project, the novel Bitter Chrysalis.
Meanwhile, at a nearby lab, two scientists, Deshpande and Jenn, are testing samples of the RNA sequence on rats. Jenn finds one rat apparently dead and takes off her protective gloves to check for a heartbeat; the rat suddenly awakens and bites her finger, and Jenn rushes to disinfect the wound. However, she suddenly begins convulsing uncontrollably; Deshpande attempts to help her, only to become infected himself. The two begin infecting the rest of the lab staff, transmitting the virus to others via saliva by kissing them on the mouth. The infected individuals form a collective acting in unison, working to rapidly spread the virus by contaminating petri dishes in shipping boxes.
At the bar, Carol and Helen go outside and notice planes flying overhead in an oddly uniform manner. A man crashes his truck into another car in the parking lot; Carol runs to help him, but finds him convulsing; she turns to Helen, who is also convulsing and suddenly falls on the ground, hitting her head. She runs into the bar seeking help, but finds everyone else similarly unresponsive. Unable to drive her own car due to failing the breathalyzer interlock that activates it, Carol steals the man's truck, loads Helen's unconscious body onto it, and speeds to a hospital, finding the city engulfed in flames along the way.
Carol arrives at a hospital only to find everyone there already infected. Helen soon dies from her injuries despite Carol's attempts to resuscitate her. Suddenly, everyone else around her awakens and gathers around her, addressing her by name; a doctor kisses Carol on the lips, but she does not become infected.
A terrified Carol drives home with Helen's body, finding the door locked. Two infected children from the neighboring house arrive and remind Carol that she left a spare key under the pot; Carol is shocked as to how they could know this information. Carol enters her house with the spare key and searches through several off-air TV stations until she finds C-SPAN with a live feed of the White House press room, showing a man waiting at the podium and a phone number displayed onscreen asking Carol by name to call. Carol calls the number and speaks to the man, who identifies himself as Davis Taffler, an under secretary in the USDA. Davis apologizes for the chaos Carol witnessed, and explains that the virus originated from the extraterrestrial RNA signal, rendering nearly all of humanity into a single hive mind. He tells Carol that she is one of only twelve people known to be immune to the virus, and that the hive mind wants her to "join them". Carol hangs up the phone and breaks down in tears while Davis attempts to reach her on the answering machine, insisting that the hive mind "just wants her to be happy".
Development
Vince Gilligan conceived the series's premise after becoming "weary of writing bad guys"[1] after a decade of working on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.[2] After Better Call Saul ended in August 2022, he pitched a new series that he would develop with Sony Pictures Television.[3] A bidding took place, and Apple TV won the rights to the show in September 2022, giving it a two-season order. Gilligan was formally named to serve as showrunner and executive producer. Rhea Seehorn, who had starred as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul, was cast as Carol Sturka, a discontented but successful romance novel author. Gilligan wrote the character specifically for Seehorn and crafted the character to be a "flawed good guy" who tries to save the world.[4]
Reception
Rhea Seehorn's performance in the episode was widely praised by critics.
"We Is Us" received widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers praising Gilligan's script and direction, Seehorn's performance, and the episode's tension, originality, and stylistic influences. Scott Tobias of Vulture gave the episode 5 stars out of 5, calling it a "terrific premiere" and drawing comparisons to John Carpenter's They Live (1988). He praised Gilligan's writing and Seehorn's performance for "expertly" capturing Carol's "confusion, trauma, and fury at what’s happening to her and to Albuquerque and to the world she cannot yet see." He also praised the episode's suspense and handling of information, "the exciting part of the premiere is that it hits us with a grand-scale alien apocalypse while telling us tantalizingly little about what it all means."[5] Noel Murray of The A.V. Club gave the premiere an A-, noting Seehorn's "unusual ability to express steely certainty and raw vulnerability within the same scene—or even the same shot", and praising Gilligan's depiction of the virus outbreak, writing, "these scenes are so strange, creepy, and funny that they’re entertaining even when it’s not clear right away exactly what’s going on."[6]
Josh Rosenberg of Esquire found the episode's tone "perfect", praising its balance between being "incredibly scary" and containing moments of "incredibly smart and witty dialogue".[7] Scott Collura of IGN, reviewing the first two episodes, gave the premiere an 8 out of 10, praising the episode's inversion of popular sci-fi tropes from films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and feeling Gilligan "does something new with an old idea". He too praised Seehorn for "somehow depicting Carol as she digests not just the insanity that has erupted around her, but also the tragedy", and noting the "slightly comedic" vibe of the episode, "as if the preposterous nature of the situation can’t wait to come out and play in future episodes."[8] Sean T. Collins of Decider noted influences from several science fiction works in the premiere, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, and the TV series The Prisoner. He praised Gilligan as "a filmmaker whose eye works as well along the temporal axis — stretching out takes to diabolical lengths and immersing the viewer in the chaos — as it does along the spatial axes — frequently framing Carol to look either trapped or dwarfed by the events surrounding her."[9]
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