S01.E02: Episode 2

[ohjoy]

Quote

Lily enlists ex-boyfriend Jamie’s help to investigate Sergei’s disappearance. She begins to question what she really knew about Sergei.

 

[Mr. R0b0t]

Full disclosure I am a big fan of Garland's previous work even though I don't always love them fully.  He's ambitious and not afraid to slowly ratchet up tension.  On to Devs in particular, I am thinking de-evolution is what devs is about, not development as Sergei guessed. We have more concrete data points in our past but the code can fill in the blanks, thusly opening up all of time for review.  When Sergei looked at the code he said it changed everything and Graves(?) replied it changes nothing.  This would fit my theory because you cannot change the past, but if you could recreate it all virtually you could conceivably solve crimes, revisit historical event, et al. And Offermans character could see his daughter again.  

[wanderingstar]

I like Sonoya Mizuno as Lily, but the writing in this is really...clunky.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

So, is part of what they are building a time viewer ?  That would explain the visual of Christ on the cross, surrounded by others, and Amaya playing ?

How else could you build a visual record if there was no observer/recording of a moment in time ?  If Forest's daughter was alone in a room blowing bubbles, how could that every be reconstructed just by quantum data and programming ?

Did they incinerate the real Sergei after he was dead.  Wouldn't an autopsy pick up on the fact he wasn't alive when he was set on fire ?

Forest's obsession over his dead daughter is super-creepy, especially that statue looming over the campus.

[enchantingmonkey]

Did Forest and Katie foresee that Sergei was going to use his James Bond wristwatch to steal their data, just as Sergei was able to foresee the movements of the nematode?  Were they just playing their part in a predetermined narrative?  It was curious to me that they sat and discussed how things still hurt even though they shouldn't, as if they've begun to accept the idea that their free will is truly an illusion, yet they still feel bewildered by the emotional component of their experience.   

Even if we live in a deterministic universe, I suspect Lily believes she put that sign in her window of her own free will.  

[sjankis630]

Devs – S01E02

The episodes opens with Barbeque Sergei still without covering and there is not one group of employees standing around looking/crying or anywhere near the level of police there would be even in a fairly gruesome suicide.

 

Forest sits and tries to console Lily. He is a little more believable than last time but since we saw him order Sergei killed and watched it happen it is all lies. He tells her about losing his daughter Amaya (now a 50 foot Paul Bunyan statue) and how deeply it affected him.

He understood her – Amaya's - loss but on the other hand he had no real comprehension of her – Amaya’s - death. It was something he couldn’t believe and he holds both states of her always (more superposition). Also this is an awkward time to tell someone who just saw their loved one die about the time when your loved one died.

He promises her that she will be supported and can stay without responsibility at the company as long as it takes. (this is probably the better to watch her) and she asks to go home.

 

We see Forest drive home – early evening (still light out) – slacker? And he is in a green Subaru Forrester… just kidding an Outback! His house is what looks like a typical tract house, one level with carport and maybe 1500 sq ft. I don’t know if this is to have us believe how expensive houses are in California for even super rich or that he has not been able to progress since his daughter died. Her room is still as it was left when she was dead as if it were waiting for her to return.

 

Meanwhile Lily is talking to her Mom who is trying to see how she is doing. She lies and says she is with friends who are supporting her but it is obvious that she had little support outside of burnt Sergei and maybe some coworkers. She tries the Soduku password one more time and fails. It tells her she is down to 1 more try before it is wiped.

/*They should do real sudoku games like this. You cannot even start the game until you figure out the password.

 

That night in San Fran – many night shots of the city – Lily ventures out back to former boyfriend’s place – Jamie – and does actual rock climbing/parkour up to his fire escape. ( Good thing Pete never got thru his 1st 5 crossfit classes.)

Jamie lets her in reluctantly. She apologizes for kicking him to the curb. (This is some seriously bad acting by the way) She tells him about the suicide. She needs the Soduku password.

Jamie uses some linux i3 windows to check out the app without hacking it first.  He sees the code is actually a messaging app sending data back to Russia. (Sergei was a Russian mole?) Lily tells him to go for it and he cracks the password the span of about 2 seconds….. OK

Lily is all like , thanks dude but now I have to leave (Jamie reset the password and gives the phone back to her ) and she gives him the weakest hug this side of an eight year old who is made to come out and say hi to a grandma he doesn’t like and splits.

 

Forest at home -  gets a visit from Kenton – our security killer. He greets Kenton outside – and Kenton says that they should be OK about the “suicide” but Lily will be a problem. He tells Forest that maybe he should move on from his daughter’s death. Forest assures him that he is letting go of the past and he will be alright. This conversation makes it seem that Kenton is not just some security tough but was maybe a peer back in the day.

 

Lily catches up

Lily reads the message from Sergei to Putin and they are typical spy stuff. She consoles herself that she was probably being played the whole time. Then she has an idea and sends a message to the handler that she wants to meet him. Putin sees right thru this and calls her out on it. He sets a meeting time the next day at 9:00am and bricks the phone. (should have gone Pixel Sergei -TWRP could have probably brought that back)

The next morning because there has been a person possibly – as far as she knows – killed over this phone she shows up – alone - near the Golden Gate bridge on the foggiest day this side of …. well San Francisco.

Anton – Sergei’s contact - looks nothing like someone from Russian Intelligence and more like your friendly neighborhood Russian studies professor.

He starts gaslighting her about working for him and …. Putin? He knows that Sergei was killed and tells her so. Sergie was sent to infiltrate Devs and was killed for this. Anton says that they can continue contact by her giving him a signal with her chair full of dirty clothes. Kenton of course is hiding out and sees the whole thing. (he continues to smoke and this makes me think that somehow that will be his undoing in the future)

 

Devs Gold Room

Black dude coder has an argument with a young snotnose coder about who knows what. (again this is some very very bad writing) Black dude is called Stewart. (he is the actor Stephen Mckinley Henderson and has been in practically everything ) They are staring at a wall sized screen that looks like you didn’t hook the cable tv up right – just snow. But ….. on the screen it eventually shows a hazy Jesus on the cross and Katie smiles a little for the first time in the show….

Stewart wants to celebrate – they have seen thousands of years in the past -  but Forest, Katie and snotnose coder pour water on his celebration. Stewart doubts they can get anything as accurate as what Forest wants because the numbers are too great. (1 qubit = 1 particle in the universe?) I am not going to debate how the type of people who would work on something like this would be about as interested in Jesus as they would be an old Robin’s egg ..

Forest asks for some time alone and then uses the machine to look at a hazy Amaya blowing bubbles. Yeah dude you are letting go alright.  /) (did I not call this last episode? And I never figure out stuff like this)

 

Jamie is waiting outside Lily’s apartment and has a conversation with Pete who smokes a joint and walks away. She is about as excited to see him as he was to see her last night. Inside her place has about 50%  of the light that should be required but people in Silicon Valley apparently cannot afford to turn on lights at night.

He hopes she didn’t use the app to contact mother Russia…. Too late. She lies and tells him that she would never do anything like that and he leaves. Pete is playing with his cigarette butt collection and they have a moment.

 

/* There is a nice shot of San Francisco Harbor at night. It is the shot a lot of digital camera reviewers use to use. It is also very similar to a wide screen photo my late Dad took back in the late 1960s when he was working with Bechtel on Bart in San Francisco … surreal moment …. Maybe I need a session on the wayback machine?……. I digress */

 

Anton drives alone into his garage with Kenton right behind. (Kenton piggybacks which everyone in security knows is a no-no.) Kenton approaches Anton and tells him to not bother using her as he will kill Lily if that is what it takes. Anton calls him on his capitalist bullshit. (this is a no bs zone?)

They fight – in slow motion – and it looks like Kenton is losing but he starts to gain the old fingerlock…. we are not 100% sure how it comes out. Fade to black.

 

 

 

 

 

[sjankis630]

Quote

So, is part of what they are building a time viewer ?  That would explain the visual of Christ on the cross, surrounded by others, and Amaya playing ?

 

So they are a "Quantum company" and maybe somehow by using quantum computing - which in real life is largely theoretical - they have harnessed enough power to see back into the past. I have no idea but we will see where it goes.

[enchantingmonkey]

22 hours ago, sjankis630 said:

They fight – in slow motion – and it looks like Kenton is losing but he starts to gain the old fingerlock…. we are not 100% sure how it comes out. Fade to black.

Kenton broke Anton's neck.  If you listen closely you can hear the pop.  

 

22 hours ago, sjankis630 said:

Black dude coder has an argument with a young snotnose coder about who knows what. (again this is some very very bad writing)

It was an argument about which generation is more ignorant than the other.  I thought it was funny that two people working with such an advanced technology still find time for name-calling.  Perhaps these two things will always exist together at the same time.   

[Ms Blue Jay]

That generational arguing, with the older man using the word "Woke" makes it seem like this is actually set in the present, not the future, which was surprising.

That character seems like he's supposed to be a typical 60s obsessed Boomer, with the Marilyn Monroe stuff.  I don't think Millennials or Gen X would reach for that as the first thing to watch.  So it seems like they're really trying to place it as present day.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Ms Blue Jay

[Chalby]

I have a feeling I am going to take forever to get through this series. I have begun to watch episode 2, and both times Hubby and I have fallen asleep 35 minutes in. Of course, that's after many DVR pauses while we discuss the science (and/or impracticability) involved. We had both gone off track and started our own storyline of being able to view any event along the timeline, and decide if it's worth throwing in an event, to change the outcome? Of course, that idea had us realizing all the work involved in "unlearning" historical data because if we got rid of, say two serial killers, who is to say their victims don't go on to become killers themselves, thus changing yet another thread in the time fabric. THERE! This is why we cannot get through this damn series, because we go off on our own tangents. (And who the heck would wear the huge James Bond watch in real life? Would any tech agency allow something like that through the door?). There I go again.