The “Breaking Bad” creator’s new sci-fi series ends its first season with a surprise delivery.

Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan talks season 1’s finale shocker: ‘It’s an ultimate mic drop’

The "Breaking Bad" creator's new sci-fi series ends its first season with a surprise delivery.

By Tiffany Kelly

Tiffany Kelly

Tiffany Kelly is a staff editor at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wired, GQ, and Ars Technica.

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December 24, 2025 2:30 p.m. ET

Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga) in season 1, episode 9 of 'Pluribus'. Credit:

**Warning: This article contains spoilers for *Pluribus *episode 9, "La Chica o El Mundo."**

*Pluribus*, Vince Gilligan’s sci-fi series that sees almost all humans on Earth overtaken by an extraterrestrial hive mind, leaves a lot of unanswered questions in season 1.

But one question the *Breaking Bad* creator didn’t want to leave viewers with was, “What’s in the box?”

In the last few minutes of the season 1 finale, Carol (Rhea Seehorn) arrives back home at her cul-de-sac in Albuquerque via helicopter, along with a giant shipping container that is placed in front of her house.

Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga), who has been researching ways to disrupt the hive mind, comes outside and asks her, “What is this?”

“Atom bomb,” she replies while walking away.

Gilligan tells ** that he never thought about ending the episode without Carol answering that question.

“I think it’s an ultimate mic drop,” he says. “What’s in the box? 'Atom bomb.' I thought that was awesome."

Executive producer Gordon Smith, who co-wrote the finale with fellow EP Alison Tatlock, agreed that the last line was necessary for the "big ending."

Karolina Wydra as Zosia and Rhea Seehorn as Carol in season 1, episode 9 of 'Pluribus'.

"We’re going out with saying, here’s a declaration that Carol, who has gone through a difficult journey through the first season, of trying to figure out her relationship to the Others, trying to figure out her own grief and all of these things, for her to say, even wearily, 'we save the world, I’m in, I’m on this quest,' the atom bomb sort of certifies for whatever use she has in mind for it,” says Smith, who also directed the episode. "It’s kind of a physicalization of, no, no, she’s in, this is her quest. Wherever it will take her, we don’t know."

Carol first mentions the possibility of acquiring an atom bomb at the end of episode 3, when she asks the Others if they would give her one. When they ask why she would want one, she says, “To blow shit up? For kicks. I mean, does it matter?”

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The arrival of an atom bomb on her doorstep in episode 9 reveals that they actually decided to give her one following Carol's decision to end her romantic interlude with Zosia (Karolina Wydra).

As Seehorn told EW in a separate interview, she doesn’t think Carol knows what she plans to do with the atom bomb. The request was an "impulsive” decision fueled by "bottled-up rage."

However, she doubts Carol actually wants to use the bomb to kill people.

"I believe she didn’t think she would ever resort to violence," Seehorn explains. "And I don’t know if she does now."

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When asked whether the arrival of the atom bomb signals a darker tone for the upcoming season 2, Gilligan says, "not necessarily."

"We go — and this was the same way with *Better Call Saul* and *Breaking Bad *— where the characters tell us to go, we go where the story takes us,” he shares.

All episodes of *Pluribus* season 1 are streaming on Apple TV.******

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Source: “AOL Sci-Fi”