The ninth episode of Pluribus commences with a package transferred from a plane, weaving its way through the trails and arriving in a quaint village. The villagers greet the arrival with a cacophony of chants and songs, as a metal tin is presented to Kusimayu, the village girl. She inhales the fumes, and in an instant, her body convulses, collapsing to the ground. The experiment is a resounding success, and Kusimayu becomes one of the Joined.
Fast-forward to 60 days and 16 hours post-Joining, Zosia and Carol observe as Manousos approaches Carol's residence. The Joined believe he may have seen her initial video, which served as a call to arms.
Carol intends to simply listen to Manousos's narrative and send him on his way, but Zosia harbors concerns. She and the other Joined perceive him as potentially dangerous. This immediately triggers Carol's heightened awareness, and she demands he leave his machete behind. The pair bicker over the location for their conversation, eventually compromising on the back garden.
Their conversation is fraught with disagreement regarding the Joined. While Carol has softened her stance towards them, she remains determined to find a solution. Manousos, on the other hand, views them as outright evil and is willing to destroy them completely if necessary. He challenges Carol, bringing up her 40-day isolation. Intriguingly, she refrains from revealing the reason for their return.
Manousos's mistrust is palpable; he does not trust anyone or anything, especially within Carol's home. Believing the place to be bugged, he conducts a thorough search. And it is then that he discovers a sensor, a remnant of Helen's efforts to keep tabs on Carol's alcoholism.
What ensues is a tense confrontation between Carol and the duo of Manousos and Zosia, as Carol, enraged by Zosia's revelation that they love Manousos as much as she does, rushes to their location. As Carol's body suddenly begins to seize, she realizes it's Manousos' doing; he's conducting an experiment on another Joined individual, an experiment that affects the entire Hive Mind. In a desperate attempt to save the Joined and bring them back one by one, Manousos grabs his radio and tunes it to the strange signal.
Despite the near-success of his endeavor, Carol intervenes, brandishing a shotgun and forcing him to halt his efforts. The Joined, realizing the danger Manousos poses to them, decide to leave once again. But Manousos is undaunted, believing he has stumbled upon the solution to save the Joined. Meanwhile, Carol refuses to join him and eventually drives off, joining Zosia at a ski resort.
At the ski resort, Carol and Zosia spend a delightful time together, discussing the unjoined Zosia (the real Zosia, I might add) and how she had someone a long time ago but is no longer in this body. However, Carol's happiness is short-lived as she learns that the Joined now have a way of obtaining her stem cells that doesn't require an invasive procedure to make her one of them. Zosia and the other Joined are working tirelessly on the eggs she froze with Helen, and she has a month until they can make her one of them.
As Manousos continues to work on finding a solution, believing the radio signal holds the clue, a helicopter flies overhead, dropping a steel container down. Zosia is there too, having dropped Carol off earlier and finally deciding to join Manousos and save the world. As the episode closes out, we discover that the metal container holds an atom bomb inside.
