Vince Gilligan has suggested that fans may have a while to wait until a second season of Pluribus is ready.
The series is that latest from the mastermind behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and follow’s Rhea Seehorn’s Carol Sturka following an extraterrestrial virus taking over Earth, and uniting nearly all of humanity in one collective hive-mind.
It opened to huge critical acclaim towards the end of last year, with the final episode of the first season airing on Christmas Eve. It has already been confirmed as the most-watched show on Apple TV, and seen Seehorn take home the Critic’s Choice Award for Best Actress for her role.
Apple TV has also already ordered a second season of the show, but according to a new interview, it won’t be available to stream anytime soon.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Gilligan said that he isn’t wanting to rush the storyline set up in the first season, and is still exploring how things can continue given season one’s finale.
“We’re working on it,” he said. “It takes us a while. I would love to go faster if I could.”
Executive producer Gordon Smith also chimed in, telling the outlet: “You know how on a timeline, there’s usually an arrow that points towards infinity? Well, I think we’re on the arrow somewhere.”
As highlighted by Forbes, if Gilligan is still in the writing process now, it will likely be at least two more years before the second series will be available to watch. As it outlines, if filming were to kick off this spring, it would be 21 months before the show was ready to air – provided it follows the same timeframe as the first season. That would put the release date between December 2027 and January 2028.
When asked about how it felt to discover the show was the most popular release yet on Apple TV, Gilligan said he was “amazed” by the news, and felt “very fortunate that people are responding so favourably to this show.”
He also clarified that, while he is appreciative for the huge response, he is refusing to let fans’ expectations pressure him to rush the writing process for the second season.
“As much as I am so grateful for the fans digging this show, we’ve always found our best way to proceed is to be in our bunker creating this thing and not pay too much attention to reactions of any sort, positive or negative,” he shared.
“We’re kind of the first fans of this show, the first viewers of the show, and we kinda try to make ourselves happy,” he added. “The way to tell a story is to keep doing it the way you did it back before you had an audience… That has always worked best for us.”
Following the series being released in 2025, numerous fans have put forward their own theories about the storyline – pondering the origin of the virus, the possibility of reversing the invasion, and the underlying question of why not every human was affected.
Rhea Seehorn as Carol in ‘Pluribus’. CREDIT: Apple TV
One theory that made its way to Gilligan suspected that there was intentionally some common ground between the series and the Grand Theft Auto videogame. In response, the screenwriter shared: “ I don’t think there really are any misconceptions. The thing I care most about is people watch it and enjoy it and it makes them think.”
Gilligan first got his break writing and producing on The X-Files and its spin-off The Lone Gunmen. His series, Better Call Saul, ran for six seasons from 2015 to 2022 and was a prequel to Breaking Bad – which ran on AMC from 2008 to 2013 and is still regarded as one of the best television series of all time.
Speaking to NME last year, Gilligan dismissed rumours that the new show was connected to the Breaking Bad world, despite all three are being set in Albuquerque, and Seehorn returns in a leading role in Pluribus, after starring as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul.
“Pluribus is not Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul,” he said. “Even though – and I know it’s confusing – it’s shot in Albuquerque. Even though it stars a very important actor from the Breaking Bad universe, Rhea Seehorn. It is not in any way, shape or form either of those shows.”
“And that’ll turn some people off,” he added. “There will be plenty of people who tune into Pluribus out of curiosity […] and say, ‘Ah, nobody’s getting killed. Nobody’s getting their throat cut with a box-cutter. This is not for me. I hate this!’ So be it. That’ll make me sad but it just means the show wasn’t for them.”
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