Devs - Alex Garland's next weird jaunt

Yeah, same here. Really made no sense unless they were prepared to wait all day until someone wandered by.

Well, we jumped right off the rails, didn’t we? I’m not a fan of turning reality on its head to drive a story.

There’s no way that Amaya could be in so deep with every police precinct that they’d be alerted when she called. And then security guy kills Lammy like before they’re even out of the building, with the door open?

That ending bugged me as well. I can kind of buy that the cops were in bed with the company, based on the previous scene with the senator, but if that was the end of Jamie’s character, it would be one of the worst character arcs ever.

I’ll stick with this one, but it’s getting a little silly, imo.

So, was Kenton the Security Guy/“fixer” going to kill Lily immediately after the car ride? And after the crash, when he pulls his shirt up, was he looking for a gun that he had in his waistband?

I was surprised to find out that the “teenaged boy” character at Devs turned out to be played by a young woman, just as in operatic roles. It was a bit like watching a very young Kristen Stewart playing Jodie Foster’s child of ambiguous sex in Panic Room.

What is the weird/creepy closing credits song?

I don’t think the idea is that Amaya has a whole city worth of cops on their payroll. I think the person on their payroll is the psychiatrist. If Kenton reported his version of what happened - namely, that he was going to have Lily involuntarily committed (and I do believe that was the plan, there’s no reason for him to go as far as killing her, especially when he’s been specifically told not to) and she fought him for control of the car and caused an accident - and the psychiatrist backed him up, then the cops don’t have to be complicit to a) go ahead with the involuntary commitment and b) either alert him directly (I don’t think that would be allowed normally but under the circumstances maybe? I dunno all the legal aspects of commitment.) or the psychiatrist could have alerted him.

And I was surprised to realize that character that I was pretty sure (correctly, as it turned out) was played by a young woman was supposed to be male. Maybe he’s meant to be a trans man? Not that it probably matters.

The character’s name is apparently Lyndon, so I gather he’s supposed to be male. The actress is 22, but I honestly thought the character was a 13 year old boy or something.

I don’t remember the character’s name coming up before this episode, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone got named something that’s more usually associated with the other gender.

Had no idea that was supposed to be a boy. Haven’t seen the latest episode though.

Interesting-- to me, since I first saw the character, Lyndon’s whole affect was that of a somewhat sullen teenaged boy, but I guess other viewer’s experiences were different.

I assumed that they were a legally emancipated genius minor or something.

BTW I think that we can safely assume that the ex-boyfriend is dead. That Kenton dude isn’t shy about “permanently silencing” people. And was he in fact looking for a gun in his waistband in the post-crash scene or just looking at a reopened wound (received during his fight with the Russian agent)?

So Jaime is not only alive, but not backing down. I’m glad his character has more of an arc than ‘ex boyfriend doormat that gets killed’.

Over all this was an OK episode that fleshed out some of the characters, but I’m struggling to think of any new information(that didn’t have to do with Jaime/Lily) we learned here that wasn’t already established in previous episodes.

I’m not sure I like the idea of a magic box that makes any and all plot contrivances possible. I mean at this point it’s just there to advance the narrative.

EDIT: but I agree that it’s nice to see that Jaime isn’t just not dead, but also an active participant. That was a bit of a surprise to me.

EDIT 2: Re: learning new things: I think there’s going to be a reason why we kept seeing Lily and her dad. I think the scene with her playing Go and thinking three moves ahead is going to become meaningful, otherwise, why show it at all?

OK then, it seems that the machinery in the Devs inner sanctum is essentially one that allows omniscience or at least unencumbered surveillance of any given person at any given time? How would any plan by Lily and Jamie succeed in such a case?

Yeah that’s what I meant by a “magic box.” I assume the resolution will end up being something like they think they’re seeing a thing that isn’t really happening. Tying that in to the vision of Lily with her father playing Go, perhaps she knows more about Devs than they think, and the image of her “dying” isn’t really that at all.

PS - all these spoiler tags are annoying. Is anyone reading this thread who would object to just making this a spoiler thread?

Yeah I’m just trying to be extra cautious, but do speak up if you’re worried about spoilers.

A few points re Devs: Firstly, as far as we have been shown to this point, they can only view things at a speed equal to real time, only view one thing at a time, and have to know when to look. So they almost certainly haven’t seen everything Lily does, nor will they be able to catch up. Secondly, although Lily seems to be important for some reason, she is not the focus of the project. (Her importance might just be that she poses a security risk, but it feels like there’s more to it.) So they’re not going to be surveilling her or her associates full time. Thirdly, only Forrest and Allison, among the Devs team itself, know fully what’s going on. (Although Wallace does seem to have some idea that Forrest is capable of murder.) And so the regular team members will expect to have access to the machine as well, further reducing its capacity for surveilling Lily & co. So yes, it’s a problem, more so because she doesn’t currently know it exists, but it’s not a win button.

Obviously that’s just my read on the situation based on what we’ve been shown to date. It’s possible some or all of that is incorrect based on info they haven’t revealed yet.

We finished episode 3 tonight. It seems like a lot of the mystery surrounding the characters and the company is gone and we’re just supposed to be fearing for Lily’s life and wanting justice for Sergei. The devs machine doesn’t seem mysterious at all now, either; is there more to explore conceptually? I love the sound and that statue, and will keep watching, but feel weirdly let down right now.

Bit of a twist here in episode 6. Turns out there’s a bigger mystery than we had been led to believe. The good news is that there are only two episodes left, so they can’t dilly dally.

I think the big event is going to end up not being the end of the world, though. I think Lily just figures out a way to prove that the future isn’t pre-ordained and it breaks it. Or maybe Forest shuts it down/blows it up or something.

One big nitpick about the Devs tech:

In ep 6 Katie explains how their tech works on a small level - if you know everything about a pen and its local environment, you can tell how far it’ll roll when you push it, rewind time, look forward, etc.

So far so good. I mean it’s hand-wavey, but the scale is small.

But when she sits in that room and looks at the future for anyone, anywhere in the world, it means they somehow have to know, in real time, everything about every object and spot in the world, if not universe. It goes way beyond just a fun idea and into silly.

I’m happy to let it ride for two more episodes, but I’ll just reiterate what I posted above - the Devs tech is just a magic box that lets Garland do whatever he wants with the story, and I don’t love that.

I hope these 2 comments aren’t mean but,

  • I don’t think the lead actress is all that great.
  • Couldn’t they afford to get some pants that fit the lead security guy?

The lead actress is probably the biggest problem with the show. Garland has worked with her on his last couple projects so he must see something in her I don’t.

Not mean at all. I agree she’s not a very good actor. She’s definitely trying too hard.