n Paragraphs: Devs

2020, Hulu - download

I could probably do a whole series on the rewatches I have blown through during the numerous Lockdowns or Stay At Home Orders we have had here in Ontario over the past year plus. But, as I have done so in the past numerous times, I created an imaginary line between that which I watch for the blog and that which I watch for my own no-agenda viewing pleasure. Or distraction. I find it odd that my brain does this, the separating of two groups, given that this blog is not a requirement for anyone or for any reason. But its my brain, and I have to deal with it. 

But one thing that stood out in my Lockdown viewing, and I have mentioned this already, is Ease of Viewing. I choose easy things, like my ongoing rewatch of Castle or Enterprise or Person of Interest. There are many shows I could be watching, and by could I mean shows I know I want to watch but for one excuse or another, I don't. My looked back at Devs and Westworld S03 and decided to actively choose them, to break my "easy" streak and wake up my brain. I am so glad I did with this series by Alex Garland (Ex Machina).

On the surface, Devs is about our fear of technology, more precisely the fear of big technology companies. Facebook is stealing our private data. Google is listening to us. Microsoft is putting trackers in our vaccines. These massive tech companies have access to mass amounts of money and technologies and we can only imagine what they do with those resources, in order to expand the mass amounts of money even further. Devs deals with one such company, Amaya, whose area of expertise seems to be smartphones and search engines, i.e. Google, but really it all seems to be funding their quantum computing research.

Most of these type of shows suffer from an economy of plot progression, but this shows dives right into the plot, as Serguei accepts a job in the inner circle of Amaya, the DEVS program, where in he discovers the Faraday Caged workspace, air gapped and in a maglev floating programming chamber all excruciatingly beautifully designed and mysterious. Serguei is not told what the project is, but almost immediately he sees something in the raw code that leaves him in awe. But Serguei is not who he pretends to be, and steals said code with his James Bond watch. The security head of Amaya, Kenton (Zach Grenier, Law & Order), and the head head of Amaya, Forest (Nick Offerman, Parks & Recreation) murder him for the act. His GF Lily (Sonoya Mizuno, Maniac) is shown evidence he committed suicide, but she doesn't accept it and begins her own investigation. This is just the first and second episodes.

In Garland's typical slow and deliberate manner (and no, this doesn't contradict what I said above, he doesn't rush, but he also doesn't supplement the space between plot points with filler content), we are exposed to what is actually going on inside DEVS and why it was so important, a software company would murder to protect it. They have used the ultimate in "big data" to create a predictive model of our world. And by "ultimate big data" I mean, the relational information that each and every single particle in our universe has with the next particle. It means they understand the entire universe down to its smallest component. The revolutionary quantum computer they created had an application that surpassed even their wildest dreams.

The simplest way to see what they have done, is that they can see the past, they can see the future, and they can see the present, in that they can also see any physical location. They can see everything. But it assumes that the universe is ENTIRELY deterministic, in that it is entirely based on the relationships between particles and everything we think of as free will or random is an illusion. In theory, what they see is the "simulation" of the time & place based on the relationships between the particles from now/here to there. This revelation/technology revolution utterly terrifies the members of DEVS but also excites them. Forest feels the need to control what they have unleashed, setting guidelines and rules. But of course, team members break the rules. But even then, in his mind, he accepts that it had to happen, as there was no choice.

Lilly represents the world of free will. Forest, and his assistant Katie (Alison Pill, Star Trek: Picard), represents a die-hard belief in determinism. Lilly is throwing all caution to the wind to find out what happened to Serguei, even when it presents more danger to her and those she loves. Those in Amaya "let" it happen because they know it will happen, and Forrest even seems at peace with it. But he has to be, as deep in his heart, if the world was not deterministic than a seemingly small variable took his wife and daughter from him, a variable he instigated.

I loved everything about this show, right down to what had to be a very controversial ending. This is Big Brain pondering about the capabilities of technology, but also about the philosophy of how our universe might be. Besides the ideas presented, the acting and pacing are just top notch. Sonoya Mizuno is just incredible, but then again, she is a stand out in everything I see her in. An amusing side-bit was that two of Sonoya's sisters, and her niece were also involved in the making of the mini-series. Of course, Nick Offerman is spectacular, and boy has Alison Pill come a long way from Sex Bob-Omb (sorry, rewatched Scott Pilgrim not so long ago). 

The post in Kent's universe is here where he also covers Westworld S3, which I will be covering soon, as well.