The Obliging Apocalypse of “Pluribus”

Civilization outlasts humanity in the new sci-fi drama “Pluribus.” On the night that the world as we know it is destroyed, a novelist named Carol Sturka (played by Rhea Seehorn) sees cars and planes veer off course, an emergency room full of convulsing bodies, and her city, Albuquerque, on fire. The President dies under mysterious circumstances, and, more devastatingly for Carol, so does her live-in partner, Helen (Miriam Shor). Then, in less than an hour, the apocalypse cleans up after itself. People stop convulsing. They put out the fires. Granted, they’ve been hijacked by an extraterrestrial virus—but, when they move to retrieve Helen’s body and Carol tearfully protests, they listen. “We just want to help, Carol,” they say, in unison. Not since “The Twilight Zone,” when aliens arrived p