Pluribus Star Rhea Seehorn Didn’t Know About That Better Call Saul Cameo Until Cameras Were Rolling
Rhea Seehorn, Pluribus
Apple TV
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Episode 5 of Pluribus, “Got Milk,” which premiered early for Thanksgiving.]
Pluribus didn’t kill all the lawyers. The fifth episode of Vince Gilligan’s new sci-fi series features a surprise voice cameo appearance from Better Call Saul‘s Patrick Fabian — and even Pluribus star and fellow Saul alum Rhea Seehorn was caught off guard when she heard her former co-star in the scene.
“They surprised me,” Seehorn told TV Guide. “I did not know about this.”
In the episode, titled “Got Milk,” Seehorn’s Carol is abandoned by the hive mind-bound Others, who clear out of Albuquerque en masse after she drugs and almost accidentally kills one of them, Zosia (Karolina Wydra), in an attempt to figure out how to reverse their Joining. Most of what follows is essentially a one-woman show, as Carol copes with her isolation and grief by doubling down on her investigation. Her only companion is a voicemail greeting left for her by the Others, who insist that they’re still committed to making her happy — from a distance.
Seehorn didn’t know until the cameras were rolling that the outgoing message would be performed by Patrick Fabian, who played lawyer Howard Hamlin, the former boss of Seehorn’s Kim Wexler, on Better Call Saul. “They were hoping to get some kind of blooper take from me, but I was so terrified to mess up a take,” she said. “Not terrified, but I just didn’t want to — because I knew it was a long take, too, the first time she hears it.”
Despite her surprise, Seehorn didn’t break. “I don’t know which take they actually use, but I think if you got one of those psychologists or psychiatrists that study micro facial muscle changes, I’m pretty sure you could see me go, What? Patrick? But then I tried to cover and play the scene,” she said. “They called cut, and I started laughing and ran out and said, ‘That’s Patrick! You got Patrick!’ And they said they’d been sitting on it for a long time, just to screw with me.”
Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian, Better Call Saul
Ursula Coyote/Sony Pictures Television/AMC
Plenty of the crew had worked with both Seehorn and Fabian before. Like Better Call Saul and its predecessor, Breaking Bad, Pluribus mainly shoots in Albuquerque, and its creative team is full of Vince Gilligan’s longtime collaborators from his earlier series (including “Got Milk” writer Ariel Levine and director Gordon Smith). This isn’t the sci-fi show’s first wink at the Breaking Bad universe; for one, Carol has already flown on a Wayfarer plane. But other than Seehorn herself, Fabian is the first series regular from either Bad or Saul to play a role in Pluribus.
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“Let’s face it, even if it wasn’t an Easter egg from Better Call Saul, Patrick Fabian does have one of the all-time great voices that I would imagine that the Others would have voted as one of the most soothing voices to be on the outgoing message,” said Seehorn, “so I understand the decision.”
Still, for fans who know the fraught history between their Better Call Saul characters, hearing the Others’ message delivered in Fabian’s voice gives it a funny passive-aggressive undercurrent. Once again, the Others might have sent a message they didn’t intend.
New episodes of Pluribus stream Fridays on Apple TV.
