'Pluribus' episode 3: Can you actually stay at that ice hotel?

Vince Gilligan's Pluribus is a show that raises many ethical dilemmas — but in episode 3, there’s a question that’s far easier to answer.

Can you actually stay at that cool ice hotel?

We've done some digging to find out.

What happens with the ice hotel in Pluribus episode 3?

Credit: Apple TV

Episode 3 of the Apple TV series opens with a flashback to around seven years before the virus spreads across Earth. Celebrating the launch of a new book in The Winds of Wycaro series, author Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) and her partner Helen (Miriam Shor) arrive for their stay at an ice hotel in Norway. Their guide, Bjorn, tells them the hotel was built using 300 tons of ice and over 10,000 tons of snow. He says it melts every summer and is rebuilt every year. Their room, which is a few degrees below zero and features an ice bed, is filled with sculptures and a window that gives the perfect view of the Northern Lights.

Helen loves it, while Carol is clearly a bit less keen — but if you wanted to, could you actually go and stay there yourself?

Can you actually stay at that ice hotel?

The first point to make is that the ice hotel in Pluribus isn't actually named in the episode — because it's not a real hotel.

In the show, we learn the fictional hotel is in Norway and the room was sculpted by a winner of the Harbin Ice Sculpting Competition (which is real, even if the sculptor themself isn't). "Do we absolutely have to go to every wacky place Rick Steves recommends?" asks Carol at one point, referring to the American travel writer — but a quick search doesn't seem to bring up any specific recommendations from Steves.

The hotel in Pluribus was actually designed by production designer Denise Pizzini, who told Apple TV's official Pluribus podcast the set was made out of plastics and styrofoam, carved by sculptors.

"These ice hotels are seasonal, so they have different artists that come in and design these hotels. So we took that role on. It's like, well, if we were asked to design an ice hotel, what would we do?" she said.

"The way it read, [Carol and Helen] had to walk down a hall, so we had to have other hotel rooms. Our room was in the round, and it had to have a big skylight so they could see the Northern Lights. So we did a lot of research, first, with different plastics and stuff that would look like ice, because, again, we didn't want it to look like a set. We ended up getting these plastic cubes from Germany that looked the best.

"Then we hired some sculptors to come in, and our theme for that particular room, I thought having waves and Japanese koi would be kind of interesting, because it was round and the movement of the waves, and these guys, they sculpted it so beautifully."

So while you can't stay where Carol and Helen do in the show, you can definitely go and stay somewhere pretty close to that. Ice hotels in Norway do exist. Of these, the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel — the country's northernmost igloo hotel — seems like a fairly close match, given it's also filled with ice sculptures and also melts away each Spring.

Pluribus is streaming on Apple TV, with a new episode every Friday.