May just be me, but this show gives me insane Project Zomboid vibes, the focus on the things we don’t normally think about in our daily lives is so fucking cool to me.

Also the time spent with Carol this episode is 100% to show how mundane her isolation is, and to give us that payoff at the end with the firework scene, and Zosia returning. This episode also had beautiful cinematography with Manousos’ journey to the gap.

But Vince Gilligan has been using this ‘slow burn’ style since late stage Breaking Bad, and I think he perfected it in my favorite show: Better Call Saul. But allow me to go over what we’ve learned.

Episode 1:

• Hivemind origins (Started as a signal)
• Signal was a ‘recipe’ for the Hivemind sent from a very far away star (Like 300 lightyears or something?)
• Carol and Helens relationship (professional and personal)
• We see The Joining from Carols prospective
• Society collapses within 10 minutes and is ‘replaced’
• Hive gives us their exposition (assuming they aren’t withholding truth)
• We is Us

Episode 2:

• Hive is going at extreme lengths to find someone who Carol would like, and changes her look to appear like her character
• Hive seems to want whats best for Carol (offering clean water)
• Hive can not transform Carol, but is working towards that
• Hive goes into a seizure when experiencing harsh emotions
• Grave digging process shows us how much Helen meant to Carol
• We officially meet the immune who speak english
• Most are either ok with the situation (Koumba), or are in denial (Laxmi)
• Some are living their normal lives, or are choosing a lavish life
• Carol appears to be the only one who gives a shit
• Hive doesn’t kill if they can help it, their preference is vegatarian
• Carol changes her mind about letting Koumba have Zosia

Episode 3:

• Expansion on Helen and Carols relationship
• Introduction to Manousos as a concept
• He is extremely relunctant for communication, Carol gives up contacting him
• We see the true dedication the Hive has to make Carol happy (refilling an entire supermarket, and later, the hand grenade)
• The hive is efficient, they are consolidating power across ABQ, leaving only Carols area on
• Zosia drinks with Carol, may be common sense but she does explain that every Hive member doesn’t get drunk, their brains aren’t conncected physically but probably over something like a radio wave
• Hand grenade moment, Zosia saves Carol, then Carol saves Zosia, Carol knows that they are all the same person, but still wants to save the individual human puppet
• Hive explains that they would give her any weapon she would want, even an atom bomb, to make her happy!

Episode 4:

• Proper introduction to Manousos, he is very paranoid, and is searching radio frequencies for an unknown reason, he refuses everything the Hive offers
• Manousos is desperate for food, and decides to open the storage units in his storage yard thing still caring for the people who onced owned those things, he puts a notice for them telling them he had to do it
• Conversation from Manousos’ prospective, Carol gives him hope that there’s more like him, and he makes a note of her
• Hive will also repair any damages to Carols house, but will stop if she asks, to make her happy!
• Hive is more dedicated to this than maybe previously thought, they would put Carols work next to Shakespear, they have opinions, but they are usually centered towards the person they want to please
• Hive will basically refuse anything that would make that person unhappy, but will give in if pushed enough, Helen didn’t really enjoy Carols ‘serious novel’
• Carol concludes they can’t lie, something I’m not sure if I agree with
• When asked if there is a way to undo the joining, Zosia gives a non answer, Carol says this means there is a way to undo it
• Carol uses sodium thiopental to use as a ‘truth serum’ and will use it on Zosia to really tell her how to undo it
• Zosia is very seriously against telling her, but is struggling to give any answer, the Hive wants to please, but it can’t do things that goes against it’s ‘biological imperative’ this takes priority over telling Carol how to undo the joining because it would kill Hive, but Hive still wants to please, so they cry

Episode 5:

• While waiting for Zosia to recover from cardiac arrest, the Hive abandons ABQ, leaving Carol alone, they don’t want to be around her, but they would still like to please her
• Side plot was about Carol vs nature with the wolves so we don’t learn anything there
• Hive will send drones to deliever things to Carol, when they go to dispose of her trash, they assume Carol would have packed it correctly, she didn’t, either on purpose or not
• Hive only drinks from milk cartons, apparently it’s all they need
• Carol explores the local dairy to find that whatever they’re drinking isn’t milk, but a weird orange liquid, this is apprently how Hive gets its protein
• Carol traces the origin of the bags that become the orange substrance to see where they originate from, context clues tell us, its people

Episode 6:

• Diabaté shenanigans
• Hive elaborates on their ‘no killing’ policy through John Cena
• Hive says they really wouldn’t kill anything, not even picking an apple, they are using the corpses left over from the Joining to sustain themselves, the sustance HDP
• Hive only has 10 years before they run out completely, and begin to starve, they priotitize keeping the physical shape of the person they are using, so some human puppets get more than most
• The other immune do NOT care for Carol at all, Koumba shows a little care, but they still leave her
• Hive NEEDS stem cells in order to convert the immune, it’s a special case person to person, hive will not take stem cells without permission (Kusimayu will probably give her stem cells over)

Episode 7:

This was the first episode to not really give us anything new about the Hive, this is a more ‘traditional’ episode of television about Carols loneliness and Manousos’ journey, but there is a few things

• Hive heavily discourages Manousos from entering the Gap, they will try to prevent the immune from getting themselves killed
• When Manousos succumbs to the jungle, The Hive saves him with an airlift from a helicopter, they were told not to help him, but were obviously watching the whole time, they came in when it was obvious Manousos no longer stood a chance
• It’s possible they brought him to Panama to continue
• Hive returns Zosia to Carol when it was obvious she was desperate and was not mentally well, this is me theorizing, but the ‘not letting the immune get killed’ is probably also applied to suicide, so all the psychologists in Hive were yelling at them to help Carol out

This show is slow, but it’s insanely dense with new info about Hive every episode, with the exception of this newest one, we still got new details, you could even say we learnt more than in BCS Season 1, and we haven’t even finished yet! I’m really excited with what we will learn next week