Vince Gilligan and the Art of Slow Cooking in a Microwave World
My wife and I have a new Friday ritual. We sit down to watch Pluribus. Phones off. Lights dimmed. No second screen.
In 2025, this is an act of rebellion.
The Problem
Modern television is terrified of you. It assumes you have the attention span of a caffeinated goldfish. Netflix front-loads every plot point in the first five minutes. Cliffhangers hit every seven minutes. The editing is so frenetic the show itself seems to be having a panic attack.
This is the “Fast Burn.” Designed for passive consumption. You can have it on while cooking, while scrolling Instagram, while existing in that half-aware zombie state we now call “watching.”
The result? Viewers who cannot tolerate silence. Who need the camera to zoom in on the clue because trusting them to notice it is too risky.
The Antidote
Vince Gilligan does the opposite.
In a recent Esquire interview, he described his method as “showmanship”: showing something the audience doesn’t understand, then letting the meaning dawn slowly. He frames this explicitly against TikTok pacing. “It’s fast food versus home cooking,” he said.
This is not slowness for its own sake. When Pluribus spends two minutes watching Carol dig a grave in lava rock, Gilligan is asking: how would you do this? The mundane becomes fascinating because he trusts you to be fascinated.
The difference between “slow” and “boring” is trust. Bad shows are slow because they have nothing to say. Gilligan is slow because he is building something. If there is a fly on the wall in Breaking Bad or an unexplained detail in Pluribus, it will matter. He never cheats the audience.
The Payoff
My wife and I spend the hour after each episode debating theories. The show invites conversation because it doesn’t hand you answers.
Compare this to the average Netflix series, where a character will literally turn to camera and explain the theme. Nothing to discuss. Consume and discard.
Pluribus is home cooking. You remember the meal.
Of course, this approach is risky. If the payoff fails, the slowness becomes pretension. Gilligan earns the right to demand patience because he always delivers. Breaking Bad almost got cancelled early. Word-of-mouth saved it.
The Point
In an era optimised for distraction, demanding attention is a statement.
Some stories require patience. Some rewards require investment. And some of us are still willing to give it.
Friday. Phones off. Present.
