'Pluribus' episode 6 brings in a wild cameo to explain everything about the Others

If you had "John Cena calmly explains cannibalism" on your 2025 bingo card, congratulations! Pluribus has made all your hyper-specific dreams come true. (Side note: Are you okay?)

That's because Cena makes a cameo in Pluribus' sixth episode, titled "HDP." He plays himself... kind of. This version of Cena isn't really a wrestler or an actor. Instead, he's a member of the global hive mind that's taken over the world. He's lost all individuality, but on the bright side, this means everyone in the hive mind has Cena's memories of filming Peacemaker's opening dance intro, and that's fun, right?

Cena appears in a video message to Carol (Rhea Seehorn) from the Others, bursting into Pluribus in such a surprising manner I wondered if I'd stumbled on an unexpected John Cena meme compilation from 2015. Seriously, I half expected to hear the trumpets from his entrance theme blaring once he started talking.

But there's no time for memes here. Pluribus' Cena has something serious to tell Carol about: cannibalism.

In Cena's video message, he explains why the Others have turned to cannibalism and are mashing human body parts into their little milk cartons. The answer? They need to in order to survive.

See, the Others are unable to harm or kill any form of life, including plants. That means their food sources on Earth are limited. They can use the millions of tons of food that were processed before their arrival, but even that's not enough to curb the caloric deficit facing the billions of members of the hive mind.

The solution? Adding human corpses to their diet. For the Others, anyone who dies of natural causes becomes part of their food source. Why bury a body and waste all that meat?

Because of this, eight to 12 percent of the liquid in the Others' milk cartons is made up of Human-Derived Protein (HDP). Do the Others really want to eat this? No way, Hive Mind Cena tells Carol. They'll also never force Carol to partake in HDP under any circumstances. Reassuring!

The Others present the cannibalism as efficient and logical, with the video message featuring helpful charts, stock footage, and many, many wipe transitions. (Which member of the hive mind was Cena's video editor? Was it Cena himself, tapping into other members' memories of using iMovie?) But their affable spokesman can't deny the truth: This is monstrous, just like their invasion. The Others may try to treat it like it's just an unfortunate part of life, but the fact remains that they haven't just desecrated human minds by taking them over. Now, they're desecrating bodies, too. All because they can't, as Carol points out, "pick a fucking apple."

As harrowing as the HDP twist is, it's undeniably fun to watch Cena channel the cheery helpfulness of the Others. The line "We're John Cena" alone had me cackling, both because it's funny, and because I was so weirded out that cackling seemed like the best reaction.

With this appearance, Cena joins a crowded landscape of celebrities playing themselves on TV in 2025. Apple TV's own The Studio is crammed with actors and directors poking fun at themselves, while new comedies like Overcompensating, Adults, and I Love LA roped in the likes of Charli XCX, Julia Fox, Quenlin Blackwell, and Elijah Wood to play heightened versions of themselves.

But when it comes to sheer strangeness, you really can't top alien virus hive mind John Cena explaining why drinking processed human body parts from a milk carton isn't just okay, it's necessary. The bar's been set pretty high, so if your next celebrity cameo doesn't feature at least one Soylent Green reference, take it back to the drawing board!

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