Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has passed the test of recapturing success with his latest project, Pluribus, a quirky, dystopian sci-fi thriller on Apple TV. The show has been hailed as a masterpiece, living up to the seemingly impossible-to-reach standard set by Breaking Bad. Gilligan has proven that he can create a new world and mythology from scratch, with a gripping hook, compelling characters, and a story you've never seen before. Pluribus has been a huge hit with critics and audiences, and Gilligan is now well underway on season 2, which was already greenlit before season 1 had even aired.
When a visionary creator like David Chase or David Simon comes along with a game-changing masterpiece like The Sopranos or The Wire, it's pretty much impossible to recapture that success.
The bar is set so high that their next project is being set up to fail. But that's not always the case: Matt Groening's follow-up to The Simpsons, Futurama, lived up to its predecessor; Larry David's follow-up to Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, was every bit as revolutionary and zeitgeist-defining. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has passed this test twice now.
At first, he co-created a spinoff from Breaking Bad that was every bit the masterpiece its predecessor was; and then, he broke away from the franchise entirely, created another original show, built his own world from scratch, and once again, it was hailed as a masterpiece, and lived up to the seemingly impossible-to-reach standard set by Breaking Bad. Pluribus Is Just As Great As Breaking Bad When Breaking Bad first aired, it was hailed as the cornerstone of Peak TV, and perhaps the single greatest television series ever produced.
Gilligan revolutionized the form by introducing the element of change. Rather than setting up a repeatable status quo, as is the tradition when you're trying to give a new TV show some longevity, Gilligan used this long-form medium to chronicle a seemingly good man's gradual descent into evil (or, in his words, turn Mr. Chips into Scarface).
Over the course of five seasons, we saw Walter White go from a mild-mannered chemistry teacher to a ruthless, murderous drug lord with a body count to rival John Rambo. Gilligan and his team of writers charted every step of the character's evolution with expert precision, and Bryan Cranston sold every dark twist and turn that took Walt deeper down the rabbit hole of immorality.
Breaking Bad was a TV masterpiece if there's ever been one, and a shining example of what this medium can do at its absolute best. So, when Gilligan was setting out to make his next project, expectations were sky-high, and he managed to live up to them - first, with Better Call Saul, one of the only TV spinoffs to maybe even surpass the original, and again with Pluribus, his quirky, dystopian sci-fi thriller on Apple TV.
Saul had to overcome its own hurdles and face its own challenges, but it came with the built-in fan base of Breaking Bad. The worldbuilding had already been done, half the actors had already been cast, and there was a wealth of existing story material to draw from.
Pluribus was Gilligan's first post-Breaking Bad project that didn't take place in the Breaking Bad universe (he'd also directed a Jesse Pinkman movie that turned out surprisingly great), so he had to create a whole new world and mythology and cast of characters from scratch, and it had everything that made Breaking Bad great: a gripping hook, compelling characters, and a story you've never seen before. Pluribus' Success All But Confirms The Breaking Bad Universe Is Done Pluribus was a huge gamble, but it was hardly surprising when Pluribus turned out to be just as great as Breaking Bad, and in completely its own way.
Gilligan is one of the best writers, storytellers, and showrunners in the business, and Apple had given him carte blanche to tell whatever story he wanted to tell, so it was pretty much guaranteed to be a home run. The gamble paid off. Pluribus was a huge hit with critics and audiences, and Gilligan is now well underway on season 2, which was already greenlit before season 1 had even aired.
Pluribus is such a vast, epic story, and each season is projected to take years to come out, so it won't end any time soon. That means the chances of Gilligan working on another project in the Breaking Bad universe are even slimmer than they already were. Gilligan has already talked about wanting to do other things beyond Breaking Bad, and Pluribus proves that he's more than capable of doing so.
It's just as incredible as Breaking Bad, but it's just as unique, too. Whereas a lot of showrunners just keep repackaging the same show (looking at you, Ryan Murphy), Pluribus couldn't feel less like Breaking Bad - besides the New Mexico setting, of course
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