Vince Gilligan's Pluribus is as great as you guessed it would be. It's also just as surreal

In 2024, a group of scientists wrote a paper warning about the end of all life on Earth. Or not the end, really — instead, it would be a kind of new beginning.

See, all cells have a structure, and those structures have an orientation. Given that Pluribus, the new sci-fi mystery that is all about this, is a Vince Gilligan joint, you may even be familiar with the concept. Because if you watched Breaking Bad, the generational smash hit that first put Gilligan on the map, you would have heard chemistry teacher-turned-meth kingpin Walter White explaining it.

It’s called chirality. For all us D science students in the audience, it basically amounts to the idea that the smallest building blocks of life are oriented a certain way, and if flipped, they wouldn’t be the same things anymore. In simple terms, you can think of them as being either left-handed or right-handed.

But theoretically, there could be opposite versions of those building blocks: “left handed” versions of “right handed” ones. If those backward blocks then formed a backward cell, you’d end up with something exactly reversed and wholly unnatural. And if those opposite cells then came together, they could make an opposite version of a living organism — what those worried scientists up top referred to as “mirror life."

That could prove incredibly useful for some long-lasting medical treatments, as your body wouldn’t be able to break them down. But also, as those scientists explained in their paper, that mirror life could eke out an unopposed existence: no natural predators, and no immune responses could whittle away their population. 

That is kind of the setup of Pluribus — though not really. At least, it’s what we can kind of say about the secretive followup to Gilligan’s Breaking Bad Expanded Universe — still largely set in his beloved Albuquerque, N.M., and once again returning Rhea Seehorn of his Better Call Saul series as a main character.

This time she plays Carol Sturka, a fantasy-romance author with an insipid book series she hates, a secretive relationship with her manager, Helen (Miriam Shor), and a barely managed drinking problem.

Oh yeah, and a frantic defence against the mirror life-esque, world-altering change reshaping the face of the Earth. 

See, this is a show about change. The new status quo — a terrified and confused Carol is soon informed by a confoundingly cheery man on her television  — is a new way of life.

It's a happy one, a grinning woman (Karolina Wydra) assures her, while offering a water bottle she absolutely promises isn't poisoned — an insidiously joyful change that (without spoiling the goods) will eventually come for Carol, too. That is, unless she can figure out a way to undo what’s been wrought on the planet.

If this description sounds somewhat coy, that’s because it is. Much of Gilligan’s show is blanketed in mystery, twists, turns and mindbenders — coming alongside a refreshing update to his dust-swept, early aughts esthetic.

Instead of the grainy, kitsch maximalism of his earlier productions, Pluribus is sleek in its isolating atmosphere.

Bright yellow pleather, cascading sparks from sharply broken telephone poles and wide, empty frames stretch throughout the new world on display in the two episodes premiering Friday on Apple TV — emphasizing both the pervading themes Gilligan works through and an updated sensibility (and, most likely, budget).

Some of these themes are, to be fair, a bit annoyingly reductive. As Carol travels halfway across the globe to put her resistance into action, she even addresses the somewhat cliché aspects of the plot: “I’ve seen this movie. We’ve all seen this movie,” she shouts. “And it does not end well.”