Pluribus Delays Finale to Dodge Christmas Chaos and a Stranger Things Showdown
Christmas comes early with a treat no one expected.
Apple just blinked first. The season 1 finale of Pluribus, which the company recently called its most-watched show ever, is dropping a couple days early. Instead of the usual Friday rollout, the last episode lands Wednesday, December 24 — a strategic sidestep before the holiday pile-up.
Why the finale is arriving early
Pluribus has been a Friday show all season, but this team is not shy about moving pieces around when the calendar gets loud. They already shifted an episode in late November to dodge the Thanksgiving/Black Friday traffic. Now they are hopping from December 26 to December 24, which gets the finale out right before Christmas and — let’s be honest — out of the blast radius of Netflix’s Stranger Things season 5, Part 2 arriving December 25.
- Fridays all season, with a late-November date change to avoid Thanksgiving weekend
- Finale now hits Wednesday, December 24 (moved up from Friday, December 26)
- Stranger Things S5 Part 2 drops Thursday, December 25
Given how noisy that week is, it’s a smart bit of traffic control. No reason to let the ending of one of 2025’s standout series disappear while everyone is in Hawkins again.
So what is Pluribus, exactly?
Set in New Mexico, the show follows Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a romance novelist who is mysteriously immune to a virus called the Joining. That pathogen has turned basically everyone else into a compliant collective known as the Others. Carol is assigned a hivemind 'chaperone' named Zosia (Karolina Wydra) and crosses paths with another holdout, Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga). It’s eerie, it’s intimate, and it’s been racking up strong reviews for a reason.
The Gilligan-Seehorn connection
Pluribus comes from Vince Gilligan, the mind behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and he built this one around Seehorn from the jump. He did not exactly hide that:
"I wrote this show for her. I love her so much," Gilligan told GamesRadar+. "I knew she would be good in it; I knew she was someone I could confidently count on and place a bet on in terms of making her the star of a TV show… I thought it was long past time for her to be a star."
He has also called Pluribus "bigger than anything I’ve ever made," which tracks with how ambitious the world-building gets as the season goes on.
Season 2? Already happening
A second season is already in motion, so don’t expect this universe to close up shop with the finale. If you’re caught up through episode 8, there are fresh interviews out there with Seehorn and Wydra about their big moment. And if you’re planning your catch-up, the release schedule and reviews are easy to find, along with the usual best-of-Apple TV lists.
Bottom line: Apple moving the finale to December 24 is a tactical play that gives Pluribus the spotlight before holiday viewing turns into a full-on content traffic jam. Good call.