Devs (2020)

Rewatched 4/18/24 (Hulu)

Devs even on rewatch remains one of those pieces of content where everyone involved is so much smarter than me, so much more well-read, science-forward, imaginative. And yet, it somehow doesn’t frustrate, because although the verbiage may be dense, the visual language is so strong, beautifully-twisted and well-directed that you can remain entertained even without understanding the elaborate explorations of the multiverse, determinism, etc.

This show does have the gaping weakness of Sonoya Mizuno doing an American accent and a confused, blank-slate, dead-eyed stare for 400 minutes, but with much of the rest of the actors being as remarkably captivating and believable as they are, it’s a small price to pay to go on this journey of discovery, loss, mystery, and fate. Offerman is the real standout, playing against type as the hippie San Fran tech genius carrying a broken glare and quiet menace, with Alison Pill and Stephen McKinley Henderson giving equally cerebral, if slightly less time-intensive performances. And a special shoutout to Zach Grenier, who somehow manages to be intimidating in perhaps the most gauche, avuncular, and unsuspecting a body that the dual-role of head of security/assassin has ever seen.

Garland’s foggy, puzzling, expansive Bay Area tech epic sees Sonoya Mizuno’s Lily investigating the premier episode’s particularly grisly murder of her boyfriend, Sergei. The murder is of course being covered up by their employer, Devs, run by Nick Offerman’s Forrest, who never once fits into an obvious villain box. Even as his co-conspirators, the aforementioned Pill and Grenier, spin their wheels to varying degrees of evil and sympathy, Forrest remains oddly the most interesting character as this middle-grounder. Maybe it’s partly because of Offerman’s past life as a crewcut Republican with outspoken one-liners, but seeing him transform into this extremely internal, predominantly sad hippie was a decidedly entrancing watch. The way Garland captures faces has always been notable, but with Offerman here there’s something particularly special and memorable about it.

Despite the endpoint not being quite as interesting as some of the smaller journeys taken along the way, the setting, including a giant gold computer box that has to be seen to be believed, and a god-sized statue of a disturbed little girl that is pure nightmare fuel, combined with the frequently engaging, unapologetically nerdy, hard sci-fi philosophizing done around the clock is a pretty immersive piece of content to lose a few hours in service of. One of those that I very much recommend despite its very obvious shortcomings. There are a few things mentioned in the review here that I just haven’t really seen in other TV shows, for better and worse. Garland brings an incredibly cinematic, highly literate texture to FX here…but I’m glad he pivoted back to movies in the long run here as that’s where the best filmmakers belong.

7.5/10