Contains spoilers for “Pluribus” Season 1, Episode 4 – “Please, Carol”
“Pluribus” creator Vince Gilligan set the hit Apple TV series in Albuquerque because he had built a trusted production team there filming “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” and the relationships he developed there helped fill two important background roles in the fourth episode of “Pluribus, entitled “Please, Carol.”
When Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) returns from the hospital after visiting Zosia (Carolina Wydra), she finds a crew of hive-minded folks bustling about her house putting the finishing touches on hand grenade cleanup. She recognizes one of them as “the f***ing mayor,” who then thanks her for her vote. The smiling face that delivers that line is the real-life mayor of Albuquerque, Tim Keller. On the official “Pluribus” podcast discussing the episode, Gilligan explained how Keller found his way to Carol’s driveway. “I had met him once or twice over the years, spent a little bit of time with him,” Gilligan said. “And we reached out and said, ‘would you be up for this?’ He spent the day on the set and he had some folks with him. And he was doing work in between. He was taking phone calls and doing mayor stuff.”
A stealthier cameo appearance comes when aggressive questioning by Carol causes Zosia to collapse in cardiac arrest. The paramedic who steps in to administer defibrillation treatment is played by Rosa Estrada in her on-screen debut. Estrada served as the health officer and set medic on “Better Call Saul” and is credited with saving Bob Odenkirk’s life after his 2021 on-set heart attack. Seehorn and co-star Patrick Fabian were with Odenkirk when he collapsed — they summoned Estrada with their shouts for help, then watched her revive him on a third try after two unsuccessful attempts with the defribrillator.
There are plenty of cameo opportunities remaking for Pluribus
Vince Gilligan kept Rhea Seehorn’s well-being in mind when shooting the scene with so many similarities to the real-life event she and others on set witnessed a few years ago. On the podcast he mentioned to Seehorn, “I do remember we all felt a little bit protective of you that you would have to go through this scene having been through this real-life experience.” She responded, “You guys were very sweet when I am trying to resuscitate my wife as well in the pilot.”
As “Pluribus” begins to wind down its first season and Gilligan and his team start preparing for Season 2, the buzz around the show will likely lead to more cameos like this. We’ve already been treated to a delightful but brief appearance by Jeff Hiller as Larry, who acts as the voice of the hive mind during an interrogation by Carol. You might have missed the voice of Patrick Fabian on the hive mind’s voicemail greeting, and Gilligan could have as many casting surprises as he does plot twists coming for eager audiences. While companies like Wayfarer Airlines and Fionacom have crossed over from the “Breaking Bad”https://www.looper.com/”Better Call Saul” universe to “Pluribus,” we haven’t seen a character from either series in “Pluribus” through the first five episodes. Although “Breaking Bad” saw many devastating deaths, fan favorites Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) survived both series and the movie special “El Camino.” Viewers would appreciate seeing the pair again, although it would be extra tragic if those two unique personalities were absorbed into the hive mind.