Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Pluribus’ latest episode via Apple TV subscription, so be warned!
For the bulk of Pluribus’ first season so far, we’ve stuck with Rhea Seehorn’s character as the sole human focus, surrounded as she may often be by the hive-minded Others. But Episode 6, “HDP,” took audiences to Las Vegas to spend some quality time with another final vestige of humanity, Samba Schutte’s advantageous Koumba Diabaté, whose glass-always-full perspective stands in contrast to Carol’s more disagreeable and curmudgeonly ways. Of all the episode’s highlights, perhaps the most unexpected was…[checks notes]…oh yeah, John Cena!
Though it was a cameo from the genuine Doctor of Thugonomics himself, it technically wasn’t “John Cena” that Koumba and Carol watched deliver one of the most hilarious slices of exposition I’ve ever seen. Few things are quite as surreal as watching the WWE legend matter-of-factly explain the necessity of using human corpses for sustenance. That just doesn’t happen on shows like Law & Order or Sesame Street.
Samba Schutte talked to CinemaBlend about his standout episode — hopefully the first of many — and I had to ask how he found out about John Cena’s involvement. Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn’t a last-minute celebrity grab, and was right there on the page. As he put it:
So I only read in the script that it was going to be John Cena, and I screamed. Because I love him, and also, who better than to have John Cena tell people ‘We’re cannibals, we’re cannibals! But hey, you know what? We have to be.’
I don’t think Carol was swayed by the surreal majesty of having John Cena share one of the most disturbing updates anyone could ever share. But for viewers like me, it was quite the effective treat.
Though Cena’s appearance was already locked when Samba Schutte read the episode’s script, he hadn’t yet filmed it. But don’t go thinking he and Rhea Seehorn were performing to an empty screen. As he revealed, there was another very special stand-in “actor” who handled the cannibal explanation.
But while we were shooting that scene, it was Vince Gilligan himself who filmed himself holding a carton of milk explaining to us why they’re drinking human remains. So for me and Rhea, to see that video for the first time while we were filming the scene was hilarious, because we’re like, that’s Vince telling us ‘Hey, we eat people, but you know what? Otherwise we’re gonna starve to death.’ So that was just Vince the whole time, which was just… I’m a huge fan, so for me, it was as giddy as having John Cena do it.
That’s right, Breaking Bad and Pluribus creator (and Better Call Saul co-creator) Vince Gilligan was the first to deliver all of the gnarly details to Carol and Koumba. But was it the real Gilligan, or just the Other version of the TV mastermind? How wild would it be if Gilligan wrote himself into this series as one fo the surviving humans?
If I had to make a Top 10 list of people who could tell me that all of dead people around the planet are being turned into amber-colored life-sustaining fluids, I don’t know that I’d argue against Cena dn Gilligan being on the list. I’d also take Al Pacino, the cast of Futurama in-character, and maybe Penn & Teller, but only Teller. And now I’d even add Samba Schutte to that list. The dude just exudes warmth.
It’s been a big year for ol’ John Cena. Not only did he get usurped by aliens for Pluribus, but he helped fuck over a racist parallel universe in Peacemaker, helped save the country with Idris Elba in Prime Video’s Head of State, and is in the midst of his WWE retirement tour. I kinda hope the Others continue using him to deliver other icky updates in the future.
Sadly, Pluribus’ first season will be wrapping up before too much longer, with only three episodes left to drop across the next three Fridays. Thankfully, we already know Season 2 is on the way, though whether or not it’ll be part of the 2026 TV schedule is something only the Others know for now. Maybe some other WWE vets have inklings…