Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Pluribus Episode 5.Happy early Pluribus day! Yes, you read that right — this week’s episode of Vince Gilligan‘s Apple TV sci-fi show has dropped a whole two days ahead of schedule, likely in part due to the impending Thanksgiving holiday for those of us celebrating, and likely also to get ahead of the return of another sci-fi streaming show that people will be binging this weekend. Whatever the reason, “Got Milk,” written by Ariel Levine and directed by Gordon Smith, doesn’t waste any time before launching into the immediate ripple effects of last week’s cliffhanger.
When romance author Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) concocts a reckless plan to drug a member of the hivemind — in this case, Zosia (Karolina Wydra) — and demands an answer about how to reverse the alien phenomenon that linked almost every survivor on Earth, the Others… don’t take it very well, to say the least. Their collective decision to ice Carol out for what’s treated like a pretty personal violation of boundaries is the first time we’ve seen them really push back against any behavior from the immune, and it could have lingering consequences heading into the back half of the season — especially since the Others’ absence ultimately allows Carol to make what seems like a pretty harrowing discovery about them. But “Got Milk” is also an episode that forces Seehorn to carry Pluribus on her shoulders for the bulk of the hour, and she does so in stunning fashion.
The Others Need Some Space From Carol in ‘Pluribus’ Episode 5
Back inside the hospital, Carol’s idly squeezing a stress-reliever toy while waiting for an update on Zosia’s condition. The phone at reception rings, and it’s Laxmi (Menik Gooneratne) on the other line, who’s incensed with Carol once again for making her son cry right along with the other members of the hivemind. Carol doesn’t even manage to offer enough evidence in her defense — including the reveal that the Others can’t lie about anything, including the possibility of a cure — before Laxmi hangs up on her. She’s not the only one who seems to be upset, either; when Carol inquires about Zosia after finding her hooked up to a breathing tube, she’s given a rather curt answer in response. Grabbing a few hours of shuteye in a corner of the waiting room provides the Others with the opportunity they need to get out of Dodge — or, in this case, Albuquerque — and Carol wakes up to find the hospital empty of everyone, including Zosia. When she dials the line that normally connects her to the Others, she’s greeted by a recording instead:
“Hello, Carol. This is a recording. At the tone, you can leave a message to request anything you might need. We’ll do our best to provide it. Our feelings for you haven’t changed, Carol, but after everything that’s happened, we just need a little space.”
Carol races out of the hospital and over to the tallest building she can find — in this case, the Crowne Plaza hotel — but by the time she makes it to the roof, she’s only greeted by various taillights as the Others’ vehicles drive off in every direction that’s away from Albuquerque. For someone who’s barely, begrudgingly tolerated the hivemind in her space up until now, this seems like it would be a dream come true, and initially, Carol takes advantage of the distance they’ve asserted, including writing a speech so that she can record a message for her “fellow survivors” about what she’s recently learned. (Never mind that she’s still wearing half of the handcuffs she previously used to attach herself to Zosia, which arguably makes her look a little… unstable, but I digress). When she leaves a voicemail for the Others, instructing them to pick up her video and make copies for distribution to the other immune, they send a drone instead of directly interacting with her.
Night falls, and brings with it a more disquieting sense of truly being alone; Carol is finally able to sleep in the bed she once shared with her wife, Helen (Miriam Shor), but can’t bring herself to look at the empty pillow beside her own. Before she can drift off, the sound of wolves getting into the trash outside propels Carol to the back door, golf club in hand, as she yells at them in an attempt to scare them off. It turns out that shutting down the power outside of Carol’s cul-de-sac to conserve energy and then vacating Albuquerque entirely has allowed nature to creep back in in invasive ways; Carol immediately picks up the phone and leaves a message demanding that the Others turn everything back on, everywhere, before falling asleep with every light in the house turned on.
Is history doomed to repeat itself in Vince Gilligan’s newest series?
Carol Makes a Disturbing Discovery About the Others in ‘Pluribus’ Episode 5
Come morning, Carol’s cleaning up the mess the wolves left behind and calls up the Others’ voicemail to request a trash pickup. When they respond to her message with a call of their own, she almost looks disappointed when she realizes they’ve left her another recording with precise instructions, including a weight limit per bag. Things don’t go nearly as smoothly with their drone this time, though, as it struggles to lift an oversized garbage bag, gets tangled up around a lamppost, and then ultimately rips the bag open, spilling all of its contents onto the sidewalk. When Carol seemingly takes pity on the Others and disposes of her trash in a public receptacle, she notices an oddly large number of empty milk cartons in the recycling, and finds even more of them when she goes dumpster diving. Every carton has been processed at Albuquerque’s very own Duke City Dairy, so Carol heads over in the police car she’s been driving around since last week’s episode. The plant itself is abandoned, given the Others’ exodus from the city, but Carol’s more interested in the fact that the cartons themselves aren’t being filled with milk.
Regardless of whether the carton is labeled for plain, strawberry, or chocolate milk, they all contain some sort of strange amber liquid, made from combining water with an unknown white powder. One at-home science experiment (in the form of pH and drinking water test strips from Carol’s hot tub) later, and Carol hasn’t figured out much, but what she can report — in another message recorded for her fellow immune — is that it doesn’t smell like anything, it has an olive oil-like texture, and it has a 7.1 pH level, which is slightly basic (think celery). Whether the Others are willingly delivering her findings to the other survivors is unclear, but they do send another drone, completely ignoring the one wrapped around the lamppost, to pick up the video.
Later that night, the wolves come back, and this time they’re not content to simply dig through the trash. The realization that they mean to unearth Helen’s body from where it’s buried in the backyard is horrifying, but Carol doesn’t have time to think, or even pause to figure out how to unclip the shotgun inside her commandeered police vehicle. Instead, she drives the car through the back fence, sirens and lights fully blasting, to scare the pack off, and spends the rest of the night keeping a restless vigil over her wife’s grave. In the morning, Carol drives over to a local building supply warehouse to pick up some heavy outdoor tiles, which she spends most of the day laying over Helen’s gravesite until every inch is covered — and then hand-paints a headstone with her wife’s name as the finishing touch.
You’d expect Carol to spend a night drinking in quiet meditation after a lot of long, hot, sweaty work, but when she spots a barcode on the bottom of the bag containing that strange white powder, it sparks a new idea. While the scanner at the Sprouts that the Others have kept well-stocked for her doesn’t work, it turns out the bag itself is a match to a brand of dog food that’s once again packaged locally, at a facility called Agri-Jet. Again, the place is empty, so Carol sneaks in, flashlight in hand, and goes searching, eventually discovering a giant walk-in filled with various perishables, fruits and veggies, you name it. There’s also a lot of stock that’s been wrapped in plastic, and when Carol lifts the cover, we don’t see what it is — but she does, and her shocked gasp is more than enough to signal to us that she may have just stumbled upon something truly horrific. What is in that powder the Others have been consuming, and is it responsible for keeping this whole phenomenon going? We’ll have to wait until next week to find out more.
- Release Date
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November 6, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV
- Directors
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Adam Bernstein, Zetna Fuentes, Melissa Bernstein
- Writers
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Ariel Levine
- The Others’ decision to ice Carol out is an intriguing indication of their personal boundaries.
- Carol’s disturbing discovery about what the Others may be consuming leaves off on a terrifically agonizing cliffhanger.
- We already knew Seehorn was great, but this episode proves it, with very few scene partners for her to rely on to maintain the episode’s energy.
- Is it bad that I miss Zosia and the Others already?
