Devs, the first series to hit new “FX on Hulu” rebrand of the FX network*, is a very mixed bag. After watching the first two episodes of the series, I honestly don’t know how to feel about it. If you’re a fan of Alex Garland’s other work (Ex Machina and Annihilation), I suspect you’ll be more likely to enjoy the show’s aesthetic and meandering plot, complete with the horror/sci-fi flourishes one has come to expect from a Garland project. If you’ve never seen any of Garland’s work and are going into the series expecting a traditional sci-fi narrative, well, you’re in for a bit of a shock.
*With the acquisition of Fox by Disney, certain shows that would have aired on FX in the past will now be shipped off to Hulu as part of the FX on Hulu imprint – along with a large catalogue of past FX shows being available there as well. Just the latest installment in our life with our new Disney overlords. Shows that continue to air on FX will appear on Hulu the day after they air on the network.
While it’s hard to find much of anything to compare Devs to, it would be most analogous to Legion, the FX X-Men series that prioritized style over substance while still turning out some incredible moments of television. Devs operates under the same mantle. Plot is secondary to stunning visuals, incredibly haunting music (from Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow, and The Insects), and two interesting, layered, but incredibly still performances from Alison Pill (currently doing sci-fi double duty over on Star Trek: Picard playing a very different scientist) and Nick Offerman (about as far away from Ron Swanson as one can get). Actually, that’s not a fair statement – plot does matter to Devs, it just doesn’t matter in the way one would traditionally expect. The series is far less concerned with laying out its story for the audience than any other series on TV (again, the comparison to Legion is apt), meaning that if you prefer your television with clear plot points, well, this isn’t your show.
It’s similar to Garland’s most recent film, Annihilation, in that way. I was one of the folks who absolutely adored the film (I even went to see it twice in theatres, thanks MoviePass), but I could completely understand complaints that the film was hard to follow or that it was “too artsy.” Devs is cut from the same creative cloth (with Garland writing and directing all eight installments of the limited series), letting the story unspool without much hand holding for the audience. You can decipher just what is being done in the mysterious Devs lab, but the series isn’t going to spell it out if you miss it. And the series is at its best when we’re spending time in that lab, watching scientists play god in a truly terrifying manner. Things are less successful when it shifts into its more high-octane spy thriller side of things.
The central conceit of Devs is actually fairly simple: Sergei (Karl Glusman), a Russian-born and raised coder for Amaya, a big-time tech giant in Silicon Valley, gets a promotion to work in the secret Devs lab. Due to reasons I don’t want to spoil, things don’t quite work out for Sergei in his new role, and his long-time girlfriend Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) gets swept up in a world of spies, technological warfare, and general insanity. Mizuno is the de facto lead of the series, but she isn’t given all that much to do (and she doesn’t do all that much with the brief moments she’s given, making it hard to really care that much about the character). The head of Amaya (named after his deceased young daughter) is Forest (Offerman, giving a really interesting performance while never tipping his hand completely), a brilliant and troubled mind with questionable morals. Pill plays his lead scientist in the Devs unit, a woman with a quiet strength that makes her Forest’s right-hand woman. The series sometimes feels overstuffed and I often found myself wanting to excise the entire spy-subplot and just spend more time at Devs.
I’ve only seen the first two episodes, so I cannot speak to how things unfold beyond that point, but I will say that I remain fascinated with the series thus far (even the spy stuff, I guess, as I hope it will loop back into the Devs side of things), and I fully intend to stick the series out. There’s enough strange but good here to allow me to recommend it as well, but with the previously mentioned caveat: This isn’t a series for those who prefer their narratives simple and easily digestible (which is perfectly fine – there’s more than enough TV out there for everyone these days). This is a series that will likely frustrate folks. But it’s also a gem of a show that’s doing something no other series on TV is currently attempting. It’s a big swing and it might not stick the landing (Legion certainly lost its way along its own winding path, but there were some truly inspiring moments among the missteps), but I’m all in favor of giving new, strange shows a chance.
The first two episodes of Devs are currently streaming on Hulu, and additional episodes will appear weekly.
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