this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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The show is a criticism of American chauvinism if anything. At least so far. The main character is a typical privileged upper class white American lib. She’s a cynic, and has all the bad American beliefs.
Like the Stalin line someone else mentioned read more like her ignorance and inability to imagine anything outside the propaganda she grew up with, than the show trying to be anti-communist.
I mean spoilers, but that Stalin line was delivered moments before we find she was responsible for like 10 million people dying… I think the show did that on purpose. Like Americans always saying everybody else is the evilest then going around committing the worst atrocities ever….
I’d say it’s a good watch, but I mean I don’t have expectation an American show is NOT gonna be lib shit. So let’s see.
If you think thats the thesis of the show you're gonna be in for a rude awakening. The other survivors are either in denial or exploiting the situation (except for the radio guy).
You are not supposed to be convinced by Laxmi's rant. Laxmi is wrong in a way that we have been shown repeatedly, she is as unpleasant as Carol is at her worst, and she is obviously a hypocrite who won't consider Carol's perspective because she is in total denial about the situation. If Carol is right her son is functionally dead, so Carol is wrong.
Carol also "killed 10 million people" by being upset and telling one instance of the hivemind to fuck off, which caused them to get into accidents due to being unable to cope with the stress of that. That is extremely obviously not her fault, something the hivemind also highlights.
I don’t think that invalidates that the show is about American chauvinism and cynicism. And yes Laxmi is obviously delusional, I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
Like just because no one left outside the collective isn’t dealing with it well or being a ML about it doesn’t mean it’s not criticizing how Americans see themselves and the world (and their place in it).
I think if we take Vince Gillian at his word, he doesn’t really write with themes or thesis like this. So it’s all an exercise in literary interpretation after all.
And yeah the collective says that Carrol shouldn’t worry about killing millions, but that happens right after she comments about Stalin. I don’t feel that’s accidental.
But again, we’ll see. Specially after this last episode, who tf knows where this is going.
You got it a bit mixed up. She wakes up after the meeting with the survivors where she learns this piece of information, then goes to the Mauritanian guy and says the line. So she is conscious that she was the one that killed millions of people.
Didn’t she find out the exact number after the comment? Cause I remember finding out the number and being “damn you’re worse than even what your shitty propaganda says Stalin was”.
Maybe it gets brought up again later, but when Zosia doesn't tell her the actual number she learns it later from Laxmi, 11 million, she internalizes it and freaks out, and wakes up the next day comparing herself to Stalin.