Vince Gilligan’s latest venture, the sci-fi mystery series “Pluribus” on Apple TV, has become a breakout success for the streaming platform. As the first season unfolds, viewers are left with some intriguing questions that they hope will be addressed by the season finale.

For a detailed exploration, you might want to check out Looper’s video, but here’s the gist: “Pluribus” features Rhea Seehorn, known for her stellar performance in “Better Call Saul,” taking on the role of Carol Sturka. Carol is a celebrated novelist who suddenly finds herself as the sole individual not absorbed into a collective hive mind following a significant global event. Everyone else, from children to pilots, shares knowledge and skills, yet Carol alone comprehends the unsettling implications of this new world order.

Now, onto the peculiar questions that have got fans buzzing. The first mystery revolves around the fate of household pets during the mass event that integrated the global population into a hive mind, a process initiated through saliva. Are pets influenced by this phenomenon, and if so, how? Remarkably, as the characters traverse this altered reality, not a single abandoned dog or cat is in sight. What happened to all the pets?

If the pet conundrum seems tame, consider this: How does intimacy manifest within a hive mind? Is everyone capable of experiencing another person’s intimate moments? This question arises early in the series when Koumba Diabaté, portrayed by Samba Schutte, chooses to indulge in a hedonistic lifestyle alongside the hive mind. He even seeks Carol’s approval to form a romantic connection with Zosia, a hive mind representative played by Karolina Wydra. Given that hive mind members tend to share experiences, such as collapsing en masse when Carol’s anger is directed at one of them, this adds a complex layer to personal relationships.

Okay, maybe the pets question isn’t all that weird, so how about this — how does intimacy work within the hive mind? Can every human on earth experience another’s carnal pleasure? This becomes an issue early in “Pluribus” when one of the few other unaffected humans, Samba Schutte’s Koumba Diabaté, elects to live a debaucherous life alongside the hive mind and asks Carol’s permission to take hive mind representative Zosia (Karolina Wydra) as his lover. Because the hive mind does seem to experience many of the same things together — like how groups of them collapse when Carol gets too angry at just one of them — this is a particularly odd issue!

This is a truly unsettling follow-up question, but seriously: what’s it like being a kid as a part of the hive mind? Instead of growing up and learning things in a “normal” way, are you simply plagued with the knowledge of all of humanity the second you’re born? How do the concepts of learning and art co-exist with a hive mind that all experience the same things? Can art ever truly be subjective again, or does everybody just love all the same stuff now? What is dreaming like when you’re part of a hive mind?! 

There are plenty of bizarre questions to ask about “Pluribus,” and the Looper video above explains even more of them — and this all speaks to Vince Gilligan’s talent at world-building, ultimately. “Pluribus” airs new episodes on Fridays and concludes Season 1 on December 26.