Pluribus Stars Rhea Seehorn And Karolina Wydra Talk Carol And Zosia

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Friday’s “Pluribus.”

Carol didn’t want to be alone anymore on “Pluribus”… and now she’s definitely not.

In this week’s penultimate episode of the Apple TV sci-fi series’ freshman season, Carol spent a lot of time with her hive-mind handler Zosia, playing card games and hiking picturesque trails, and Zosia even took her to a rebuilt version of the old diner where Carol used to write. Carol was still wary, though, accusing Zosia of trying to “knock me off course” and insisting: “Someone has to put the world right, even if it means you all leave me again.” Then Zosia suddenly walked over and kissed her… and Carol kissed her back, with the two ending up in bed together.

So why did Carol end up letting her guard down after resisting the Others for so long? “I think Carol was very, very psychologically broken from the isolation period,” star Rhea Seehorn, who plays Carol, tells TVLine in the video above, adding that Carol was left with “the horrific thought that this will be her life forever, unless she makes a change.” On top of that, “we already knew that she was attracted to Zosia, so that’s already present. But I also think it’s coming from a very vulnerable place of just, like: We all need people. I need some kind of companionship.”

About that kiss, “I’m not sure that she would have initiated it,” Seehorn says of Carol: “I find it a very interesting question that’s open to interpretation about whether or not that was a manipulative act on their part or not.” But manipulative or not, Carol was simply tired of fighting, Seehorn theorizes: “Am I just gonna keep swimming against the current until I’m just dead? She’s really suffering with the options she has left, and this one seems like the way to go, and at least have some kind of peace, instead of just raging against the machine.”

Karolina Wydra, who plays Zosia, also points out that “Zosia was someone who has been very kind and loving towards [Carol]… She’s done everything for her to make her happy. So her coming back, it’s someone that’s familiar, it’s someone who she maybe feels safer with, not to be alone.” She has questions about the Others’ motivations, too: “With that kiss that happens, is Zosia really falling for Carol? Is that kiss coming from a place of, ‘Wow, I’m having these feelings for Carol’? Or does it come from a place of: Oh, these people have the highest emotional intelligence in the world, and they can see that Carol is suffering? And she’s confused with her feelings, and they want to make her happy, and they think this kiss is what she needs?”

After their tryst, Carol asked Zosia what her favorite food used to be, before the hive mind, and Zosia told her it’s mango ice cream, as she remembered eating it as a child. So how much of the old Zosia is still present in the Zosia we know?

“This is a philosophical question which I don’t really know the answer to, but: Are you your memories?” writer and executive producer Gordon Smith ponders. “Is your consciousness reducible just to your memories? Like, if everything that was Zosia, everything up until the moment of joining, as an individual human being, is present, they can access all of her memories. But the consciousness seems different because it’s seven billion times stronger.”

Wydra thinks that we do see a glimpse of the old Zosia when she’s conjuring up that childhood memory: “Zosia did have to detach herself from the collective mind and go into the memory of who she once was to bring that memory up. And the joy of finding that moment, like ‘Ahhh! Oh God, that’s what I love, it’s mango ice cream’… We had so much fun playing that and discovering that and finding that.” In that moment, she says, Zosia really has to think: “‘Wait, what does this individual like? What did she like? Who was she before?’ So that was really fun, finding those moments.”

Press PLAY above to see more of Seehorn and Wydra talking Episode 8, and hit the comments to share your thoughts on Carol’s decision.