Grenade (Pluribus)

Seven years prior, Carol and Helen visit an ice hotel in Norway. Helen is fascinated, while Carol is upset about their room's design and the freezing conditions, joking that she could have frozen her eggs there, and is more concerned with where her latest novel is placed in the bestselling charts. Nevertheless, she joins Helen in witnessing the aurora borealis.

In the present day, Carol and Zosia fly back to Albuquerque. Carol telephones one of the immune, Manousos Oviedo, in Asunción, Paraguay, but he curses at her. Carol calls him back and angrily curses as well before hanging up. Dropping her off at home, Zosia gives her a gift Helen ordered for her before the Joining. Carol demands that the hive forget all the memories they have of Helen. The following day, Carol gets a specific breakfast that she believes indicates that the hive is disobeying her order to forget Helen, though they deny this. She instead drives to Sprouts Farmers Market, but is shocked to find it empty. Contacting Zosia, she is told that the hive mind moved key resources like groceries for allocation, but she demands they bring everything back. Just a few moments later, a group of Others arrives to restock the market.

That night, the power goes off in most of the city in an attempt by the Others to preserve energy. Carol is annoyed by this turn of events while calling Zosia and she vents her frustration, remarking that she would be better off with a hand grenade. Later, Zosia actually arrives with the requested grenade, and Carol invites Zosia to drink with her. As Carol questions the plans they have for her, Zosia brings up her trip to Norway with Helen. Angered by what she perceives as the hive mind invoking Helen's memories against her wishes, Carol primes the grenade, but is shocked when she finds it is real. Zosia timidly snatches the grenade, throws it out the window, and tackles Carol to protect her. Zosia is injured by the explosion, and the Others immediately send an ambulance.

While waiting for Zosia to recover at the hospital, Carol speaks to a representative of the hive mind in a DHL uniform, asking why they gave her a grenade. She asks if they would give her anything, even a nuclear weapon; despite some reluctance and deliberation, the man states that they ultimately would. Carol asks the Others to leave her alone as she contemplates this.

The episode was written and directed by executive producer Gordon Smith. This marked Smith's first writing and directing credit.^[1] As the first episode of the series not to be written nor directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, Smith said that the episode was "a tough one to write", explaining "How was [Carol] gonna relate to all of these joined people? Was she gonna start hanging out with them, and asking them questions about who they are, or were? Or is she going to have to spend some time digesting this?"^[2]

For the scene where Carol visits a Sprouts Farmers Market, only to find it empty, a real Sprouts store in Albuquerque was used. The art department emptied the store for three days and nights, and required a mix of practical and visual effects to properly depict the empty space. While Smith admitted that a completely new set could have been used instead, he said "we wanted to make sure that you felt like you were coming in and out of a real store, so we'd still have some of those problems, and I don't think you'd have the same scope."^[2]