“Let's Go Shore”, “Better Call Saul”, and now he has shot a new masterpiece – “Of Many”. And so, as expected, “Of Many” is the best series of November 2025 by a huge margin. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first three episodes received a rating of 100% from critics and 80% from viewers.
The series is about a “happiness virus” that suddenly struck the whole world. It would seem, what problems can universal happiness cause? But, as the creators of the show rightly note, in such a situation, human civilization finds itself on the verge of complete self-destruction. So yes, an extremely interesting science fiction series has been released about how the only woman who could not be touched by the virus — and she remained unhappy — must save the whole world.
And yes, we have all watched, read and even played in stories about the apocalypse. Entire franchises were built around the idea of what will happen to humanity after a global tragedy (be it viruses or zombies) – the most famous are The Last of Us and Resident Evil, as well as “The Walking Dead”. However, in all these works, although they raise important universal human issues, there is no such purity and transparency as in “Of Many”. Because there the apocalypse is a violent action, a universal tragedy.
In Vince Gilligan's series, the tragedy is completely different. And only here one of the characters asks a natural question: “Why save humanity?” After all, it is literally where it dreamed of coming – all conflicts have disappeared, people's minds are united by universal pacifist ideas, all of them are so deeply ethical that they are trying to clear the ruins of former humanity so that a clean and bright future can stand on this Earth, completely free from the past.
The series makes you think about whether your individuality is worth giving up universal understanding and happiness for its sake? Can the free will of one person be more important than peace for many? The main character of the series is haunted by the fear of ceasing to be herself – this is another theme that is often covered in post-apocalyptic stories. But here it becomes even more relevant, since often unhappy people do not engage in self-help and do not try to improve their condition, considering it their natural state.
Thus, Vince Gilligan gets into two topics at the same time. On the one hand, he shows us our present, in which the universal pursuit of happiness has become practically a disease – and this, by the way, is already a topic that is quite discussed among psychologists.
On the other hand, it allows us to look into a possible future in which humanity hands over all difficult questions to AI and lives in a world where we can simply listen to neural networks give us the most personally satisfying answers. But most importantly, while “Of Many” doesn’t take sides, it shows the arguments of each side so that you can make your own choice about what your heart is really into.
I gravitate towards those same “unhappy individualists” and involuntarily recall one of the episodes of Dr. House, where Hugh Laurie's character says: “I need you with your inflated self-esteem, I need your excitement and desire to rise above poverty. But if you're happy just to be, I don't need you.”
Overall, “Of Many” is in many ways in tune with “House” in terms of “what happiness is” and “whether it is really worth striving for.” So I’m looking forward to the fourth season and sincerely hope that Vince Gilligan will continue to cover all these interesting topics. But for me, “Of Many” is already a clear contender for an Emmy.
Джерело: ukr.media
