Mrs. Davis Review: A Fascinating Series About Science, Faith, and Exploding Heads
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The post Mrs. Davis Review: A Fascinating Series About Science, Faith, and Exploding Heads appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: As the headline here suggests, this show is tricky, premise-wise. Let’s start with this — explaining the titular Mrs. Davis, which is a mobile app-based artificial intelligence which, in its 10 years of existence, has totally transformed the world into a place of harmony, as people complete “quests” assigned by the algorithm to earn their “wings.”
While the world has come to embrace Mrs. Davis, she’s not universally adored — with her most dominant enemy being Simone (Betty Gilpin), a nun who spends her free time revealing the secrets of magicians who use their talents to manipulate others. So Simone’s got a quest of her own: to destroy Mrs. Davis.
She’s not alone, as her childhood sweetheart Wiley (Jake McDorman) is also anti-A.I., and has his own little resistance movement to assist her. But at the end of the day, it comes down to Simone diving deep into the difference between fact and fiction, religion and belief, and right and wrong — with her own faith in God at the center of it.
Reach Out and Touch Faith: There’s a lot to unpack about Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof’s supernatural religious romantic dramedy, because as you might expect from that description, it is a lot. Science, faith, Knights Templar, Super Bowl commercials, magic, Hawaiian Shaved Ice and more are all flavors to be found in the stew being served up by the series, and ninety percent of the time, it’s all remarkably coherent, blended together for a singular world view just slightly askew of our own.
All of this wildness is rendered with concise elegance by directors Owen Harris (Black Mirror) and Alethea Jones (Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies), who seem to relish executing a nuanced discussion of what it means to pray as much as they enjoy a frenzied motorcycle chase. There are a number of amusing tangents… Well, actually, they seem like tangents, coming out of nowhere like they do, but by the time the episode (or season) is over, their meaning becomes clear. An idle prayer leads to a field full of pianos, as one example.
While Lindelof has made it explicitly clear that he is not the showrunner of Mrs. Davis, it’s not hard to find his stamp all over this — for example, would you believe that someone steps inside an arcane device at one point? And that there is a complicated diving-style suit also involved? Yet there’s something quite singular about his voice combined with his co-creator, one which leads to a narrative seeped in the complicated bond that exists between mother and daughter — whether that mother be a Mother Superior, or an artificial intelligence, or just the woman who raised you, whose approval you’ll always yearn for.
Mrs. Davis (Peacock)
Shiny Happy People: This is the sort of show that lives or dies based on how well the audience is able to connect with the actors, and thankfully this cast is packed with winners. Betty Gilpin proved her ability to carry a series after three seasons of GLOW, and she’s even more formidable, funny, and heartbreaking as Simone, playing all the layers of her character as one complete human being. (This becomes a much more remarkable achievement when you understand just how many layers I’m talking about here.)
Jake McDorman has been a great actor in search of a show that can really use all his talents for a while now, and he brings great vulnerable gusto to the role of Wiley, a man who so badly wants to be the hero, but doesn’t know if he’s actually capable of heroics. Other standouts from the ensemble include everyone’s favorite, Character Actress Margo Martindale, as a real nun-boss, as well as Chris Diamantopoulos as a Wiley associate even more gun-ho than Wiley, and Elizabeth Marvel as Simone’s rather severe mother.
The Verdict: The biggest issue facing Mrs. Davis may in fact be Mrs. Davis herself. The series begins with an extended (and deliciously wild) prologue set centuries ago, followed by a sequence in which a shipwrecked scientist (Ben Chaplin) gets caught up on the events of the world over the last decade. This is our primary introduction to the premise of Mrs. Davis (the app), and while by the end of the season we have a far better understanding of what exactly Mrs. Davis is, there’s not enough tangibly established early on for the audience to get what it’s meant to be.
In fairness, coming up with ways to physically illustrate a highly-advanced AI app is tough, and there is a lot already in place here. It just might not enough for audiences to immediately grasp. That may, however, be the point, as the series does its best to lure us into its mysteries, but with a swing as big as this, you want to be sure people get your meaning. With just a little bit more showcasing of the world outside its central characters, so that we can understand how Mrs. Davis really has transformed society, the series really could have reached transcendence.
That said, the end result is still wildly entertaining. Mrs. Davis is big, bold, and loud in both its ideas and its execution, with some pretty stunning set-pieces across its eight-episode run. While there’s a fair bit of chaos in the mix, and maybe a sense that the show could have edited out one or two elements for greater cohesion, there’s a lot of joy to be found in the mess. You might even get a little insight into that most modern-day of quests, the one which defines so many paths — the search for meaning in the world, in a higher power, and in each other.
Where to Watch: The first four episodes of Mrs. Davis premiere Thursday, April 20th on Peacock. New episodes will premiere weekly.
Trailer:
Mrs. Davis Review: A Fascinating Series About Science, Faith, and Exploding Heads
Liz Shannon Miller
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