 what's up guys and welcome to one take tonight we are talking about the new show on FX and Hulu called devs we'll be discussing episode one which we just watched i'm gill and i'm here with my brother alone yo well the first thing i want to say about this show is i can't believe we missed that it was premiering because you and i even if you don't know it are big fans of alex garland he wrote one of your favorite movies of all time you know movie i'm talking about yes x machina uh that's not what i was talking about but that's true dude no that was uh duncan joans i'm talking about 28 days later ah i do love that movie it's an awesome movie he wrote 28 days later and he he was a writer but he made his directorial debut with x machina a few years ago which he also wrote he also wrote and directed annihilation with natalie portman so this guy's awesome you and i are both big fans of sci-fi i'd heard a while ago that he was writing and directing a new limited series and it dropped off my radar i totally forgot about it and then found out that two episodes of devs have aired so you and i are correcting that mistake we watched episode one we're going to talk about that tonight and we're going to catch up for episode and we're going to catch up for episode three which airs in a couple of days by the way before we jump into the episode i want to say that alex garland is not just the showrunner for devs but he's actually written and directed every episode which is unusual for a tv show most shows each episode is written directed by somebody different but it's becoming a trend lately where somebody will write and direct an entire series twin peaks was a great recent example of that david lynch directed all 18 episodes of that so i love this trend i think you get more creative more interesting shows when it's done this way and at least so far that seems to be panning out with devs before we get into the specifics of episode one alone what are your overall thoughts on the show so far having seen the first episode i love the concept and i love the execution so far i think that the mystery elements behind it they're done in a way where the characters are right there with us they we they don't know what we don't know so so far i love the the direction and the way they're handling everything yeah a lot of shows these days use that mystery box approach i'm thinking about watchmen i'm thinking of westworld where there's some central mystery in the show in an excruciatingly slow paced manner dolls out information to you but it feels like they cheat sometimes right sometimes there's a mystery only because the camera wasn't pointing the right direction the characters know what goes on but you don't in this show there's a mystery but i felt like i was right there with surgey with lily and it felt like i i trust alex garland so i trust that he's gonna bring those answers in a way that's satisfying and i trust that there is an answer so in everything you said i love the ideas this show is wrestling with it's smart sci-fi the mystery is interesting i thought pretty much across the board the acting was great the characters are complex they're interesting i love this show and i hope it keeps up the quality after episode one so let's jump into some of the main things that happened in episode one first off surgey is killed in the first episode so were you like me where i thought he was going to be the main character and then the show kind of pulled the rug out from under me yeah i mean this has happened so many times that i'm not taking a back the way i used to be by it but i don't think i was expecting it and it i still like when they do it but i can't say i was like super surprised by it and we can't give examples right because if we give examples of when this has happened we're spoiling that show or that movie but it feels like this sort of thing is happening more and more lately where they introduce somebody you think they're the main character then they get killed and it's shocking and it's crazy but it worked on me here and they didn't really play it up as a big shock anyway it wasn't like it was a huge twist it was just a tough moment in the show and i thought it worked really well and by the way right before it happened when nick offerman's character forest stopped surge did you think he was going to kill him or what did you think was going on there uh i mean i didn't understand exactly why he was there but as soon as he started explaining like this isn't your fault but you did steal some material i'm like okay he's done at that point he was just wait he was just being way too understanding that right away that was gonna end well it took me a little while to get there because when he started to talk about how everything is predetermined we you had no choice in my mind i thought that what he was saying was we knew you were going to do this and this was part of this was part of the plan we brought you on we knew you were going to steal some stuff and then he said you understand what this is this is absolution and in my head i was so dumb i thought he was saying i'm forgiving you i knew this was gonna happen and then i saw how nervous surge was i was like dude calm down you're fine and then i yeah i like how when surge started running the guy that was gonna kill kill him happened to be behind a tree on his exact path right right and i don't think it was an accident right part of the part of what we saw earlier in the episode was the concept of predicting an organism's movements so i don't know if it's a literal connection but i i definitely made that connection that they seem so when when nick often was saying all the stuff how it's predetermined i initially interpreted that as him saying we calculated your exact movements we knew what you were going to do but in retrospect i don't think he meant that i think he was speaking very philosophically that the world is predetermined but i don't think he was necessarily saying we have the ability to see that path because if they could see the path why would he bring him on to the devs team just so he could steal his stuff and then have to kill him that would make sense his own path is set and even if he's aware of it maybe he can't change it maybe i mean i'm sure we're going to get into that territory that that's sort of mind bending confusing territory explain some explain something to me real quick if you don't mind sure how what i didn't really notice him stealing data with his watch i saw him playing with it at one point did did he do something i made it obvious what he was doing no i don't think so i thought that was i don't think they showed it to us that he was stealing data that was a surprise to me when nick offerman stopped him and i think it was meant to be a surprise for us you do see him at one point look at his watch and kind of flick it but i didn't know what he was doing there yeah i thought maybe maybe in that building there was something weird happening with time that he was noticing or i mean i guess i was completely off base with that thought but seemed pretty cool in the moment that's exactly what i thought too i mean this show has me constantly looking for something weird happening and so soon as i saw his watch i was like time travel is a time travel is that what they're doing in there yeah i thought maybe times like stayed completely still while he's in the building or something but right guess not nope he was just on his first day stealing stuff stealing information after basically warrant true it was predetermined so i'm gonna start using that excuse anything i do something bad just just a launch into nick offerman's speech the world is predetermined like what events cause are caused by previous things i don't know in that case you're not under arrest you're free to go so like we said i loved i mean when when we're following surge as he's walking into the building i was so on the edge of my seat nick offerman's asking him to guess what do we do in the devs section and then as a viewer i start to guess and i was just on the edge of my seat waiting to see what's in the devs building you know i used the term earlier the mystery box show this show there's literally a big box and it's a mystery what's in there and i love that we actually saw what's in there but it's so complicated it's such advanced technology that we still don't know what the hell it is the best we can do is at least see that it's something insane and something shocking by surge's reaction to what he saw on the screen and by the way so alone i know we have very little to go on but any theories right we saw a bunch of code surge looks at the code and he basically asks is this real or is this theoretical have you actually run experiments we're told everything is here everything here is real and then he seems very disturbed by that he vomits he feels like he needs to steal that information i'm assuming that's what triggered it so any theories as to what he discovered in devs yeah i mean i don't have a set theory but a few thoughts went through my head maybe the world's a simulation and they're aware of it and they're learning how to control things within it maybe it's not a simulation but they have computers so they have technology so advanced that they'll be able to predict the future of advanced organisms such as humans um i'm i'm not sure i think it must have something to do with those considering they were exploring that in the show but well i think it's it was pretty telling that you and i had the exact same theory because that was my first thought is that somehow they were able to prove that we live in a simulation and that's what was so shocking to surge none of this is real we're basically in the matrix i don't think it's the latter i don't think they're able to predict behavior for advanced creatures and the reason i say that is because surge earlier in the episode was barely able to predict for 30 seconds what the simplest organism they could find was able to do and i guess it's possible that they have more advanced technology in devs and maybe once someone like surge is able to crack the code and predict behavior for a simple organism that's kind of the test where they say okay you predicted the behavior for a simple organism that means you're ready to see what we've already done which is we're on the brink of predicting behavior for humans and perhaps even more advanced creatures so that's a possibility but and actually as i'm describing it i've sort of talked myself into saying you know what that actually sounds like a pretty legit possibility so so i don't really know i think it has something to do with the nature of reality though whatever whatever it ends up being any other thoughts on surge because this is it's basically what we're talking about here is shortly before he is suffocated yeah um i think the nature of his you know his fake death is really interesting i'm wondering what who set himself on fire there you know what what was he a clone was it not him at all i feel like there's some sort of technology based scientific explanation for it like maybe it really was him but i don't know there's something weird with it with that the his fake death there right what's funny is that you and i both were thinking the same thing which is how did they get this footage i was thinking that they reanimate his corpse somehow he was walking in a way that seemed like he was totally unconscious right he was walking very deliberately that's kind of how lily described it so i thought maybe they were able to control his body like a puppet on a string he wasn't really alive at that point but if they have technology that advanced couldn't they just fake the footage and then throw a burned body over there yeah i mean that's that's my other thought but what i'm wondering is i don't from what i've seen so far there's no reason for me to think that they have connections in the government or the police department that can like be in on this i mean they called the cops and earlier in the episode when serguei went missing it seemed like they were legitimate cops they weren't working for them so i imagine somebody's investigating his death you know at the burn site so unless they have connections to the police and they control them you know what what's the explanation gonna be there with the you know the the dna test or whatever they do right right well i do think it's his body but to your point if they start to investigate this some footage might not be enough there might be inconsistencies where they don't see the right i don't know footsteps or something so maybe there is an interesting explanation there they did make reference earlier in the episode when serguei was showing them predict the movements of that worm he did mention multiple realities maybe that's part of what they're working on is something to do with the multiverse and maybe they have footage of another serguei in another universe where he burned his body burned himself alive and maybe and uh forest said he didn't care much for the multiverse theory but maybe maybe he really does care for it yeah and this is by the way why i love this show you and i in the last 10 minutes have already discussed time travel we've discussed the multiverse it's so cool like these are my favorite concepts and it's all wrapped in an awesome story it's so rare that we get a sci-fi show that we're actually into and i'm hoping the quality stays to this level it'll suck if you and i go watch episode two tonight and we're like well this show is terrible that'll be very disappointing uh one more thought on serguei when he went to the bathroom to throw up he had his hands all over that toilet oh yeah and then immediately puts his hand to his face and he's drinking water out of his hand and i get it you're you're not in your right mind you're about to vomit but don't put your hand on the toilet especially you know what the virus going around well you know what though that bathroom looked so clean i think that building i think there's some technology there that keeps it germ free he uh his hands are cleaner now that they've touched that toilet i thought it was odd you had to close the lid of the toilet before you could flush it well how do you know he had to close the lid well didn't i think when he closed the lid it looked like the button to flush was behind where the lid was oh i don't know i have to go back and watch that yeah well so they've got advanced toilet technology larry david yeah i was gonna say yeah but there were no planks you know it could go all over the place that's right that's right uh well let's talk about lily uh so lily she was in the episode up until this point but once serge is killed she becomes the main focus of the show and by the way she's played by an actress named senoya mezuno and you've seen her before i'm wondering if you recognized her no remember an ex machina when oscar isaac has that awesome impromptu dance number yeah yeah this is her oh my god and that was maybe the best scene in ex machina it was awesome so i think she is she's an incredible actress i think this character is awesome she's super interesting and she's a smart character and it's so much fun to watch this mystery when it's being attacked by a competent character unlike shows like lost where there's this big mystery but you feel like you're watching a bunch of dopes run around try to figure it out and it's super frustrating so here she's this great character she's smart and i have a feeling that she's going to be pretty formidable when it comes to her facing off against nick offerman's character yeah i feel if we saw the same situation in another show her character would see that video saturday uh burning himself and just be 100 convinced that was him and there's nothing more to it you know right like but she's like there's something odd about it yeah yeah they would they would try to create a plot out of her being feeling betrayed by surge how could he do this and then meanwhile we'd be getting so frustrated watching it being like lily you dope surge would never do that but instead lily's the one saying surge would never do that it's great yeah it reminds me of that scene in the simpsons where mr burns is trying to get bart to believe his family doesn't want him anymore so he hired an actor to play Homer and Homer's like oh and barts is like that's them all right that is exactly what we're talking about here that's that's hilarious i thought that when she i will say though when she saw when she saw surge's body burned the torture and the pain in her face when she's screaming was was super intense and she did a great job of selling that so i was surprised to find out that she was the main character but not at all disappointed i think she's going to be a great character to follow here um when she goes to her ex-boyfriend to ask for help to crack the code on that sudoku app i found it kind of funny that we're dealing with these big sci-fi ideas these big philosophical issues but we still have these petty issues like an ex-boyfriend that felt betrayed by her and doesn't want to help her because he doesn't like the way that things ended but i got invested in i mean i'm invested in her character you know i i could feel the awkwardness of dealing with that guy when she's asking him for help but um i don't know i feel like i'm just kind of stream of consciousness talking about how great her character is but it's tough because the most sort of interesting aspects of this episode when it comes to the overarching plot development happened with the surge character so i don't know alone what else do you have to say about about lily and her part of the plot i thought she was great i'm really looking forward to seeing the way she reversed engineers what's happened thus far and looking forward to her uncovering what's going on in that building because i want to know what's going on in that building yeah how is she gonna crack the code of the sudoku app you're a tech guy alone how do you how do you figure out a password well you can't brute force it because she's only got two more attempts there and i don't know i need to know this one i have uh i'm kind of surprised she needed help from anyone else it seems like she has a thorough understanding of encryption and security yeah well that's that's part of what makes her character so great is that she's competent but she's not all powerful you know like uh ray from star wars not to dig into that whole thing i think ray's a great character i love her character yeah yeah totally uh forest nick offerman's character uh what an interesting character because i kind of like him at first and then by the end of the episode i think wow he's kind of evil in this one scene in particular that stands out to me when he's talking to katie the the the blonde woman that he works with and forest is clearly very upset about having had to kill uh surge i mean he looks like he was crying almost when he was when he was sitting down and katie approaches him and he talks about how difficult it is and he says it shouldn't be basically he's saying that the world is a cold predeterministic place humans are nothing special why should i feel bad about killing someone and katie says it's hard to unlearn a lifetime of emotion or something along those lines so it's really interesting to watch these two characters try very hard essentially to not be human and it seems like katie's doing a much better job of it than forest and it makes me wonder if at some point this season we're going to see forest betray their cause because it doesn't seem like he's it seems like logically he's all in on this cold deterministic reality but emotionally he still feels maybe more than katie does you know it's kind of odd to say this but for all we know in this world maybe he's not evil and we literally just don't understand what he currently understands it we might learn something that changes our view of him right we yeah that's a good point and i mean i think that alex garland i think is is trying to wrestle with real ideas so i think by the end of the season his hope is that we're going to be questioning our own reality so we'll see if that happens maybe forest did prove that we live in a simulation and maybe someone's going to turn it off so he's trying to save uh all of reality yeah you know you know who i want to see a lot more of that guy that smiled that serje remember oh the no are you talking about the homeless guy who lives on their uh no no no when he was when he was in that building sitting at his desk the guy sitting like oh that's right diagonally across from him just like looked at him and gave him a quick smirk didn't he kind of laugh too like yeah i'm looking forward to learning more about that character yeah yeah me too um alon what's with that giant girl statue i have no clue man i so i was thinking about it and we don't really know anything about this company i think it's called amaya i think is the name of the company all we've seen is research we've seen that they're trying to predict the movements of a biological creature but i'm assuming there's got to be some real world applications of what they do i'm assuming they sell something and somehow bring money in so it made me wonder what is their real world brand and what would the brand be if your logo is a giant girl so my thought is maybe they do something to promote life there was a lot of footage of children so maybe they help i don't know if you're having cloning or if you're having trouble conceiving a child that they can somehow create a being for you or maybe genetic engineering where they make sure your child is born you know disease free uh has the best genetics so that's where my mind went maybe that's their real world application but i'm assuming we'll learn more about that uh you know over time prediction in the real world anyone can create a simulation in this there's a little girl in the real world that created this entire simulation that these and these people are living in so that's just a giant statue of herself that she coated into it so that girl is basically their god yeah but it seems like they don't necessarily realize that all right we'll see i wouldn't put anything past this show at this point anything's up anything's anything's possible at this point the other thing i wanted to mention is the score uh the the music in this show is awesome it's super unique i'm not a music guy so i'm gonna do my best to describe what i hear to me it sounds a little bit jazzy like the kind of jazz you would hear in a noir mixed with this sort of church choir so to me it creates this feeling of uneasiness mixed with almost religion level of importance like we are dealing with big big stuff whatever's in that box has something to do with the nature of reality we're dealing with big big ideas and i think the music sells that and it just underscores this feeling of unease and discomfort throughout the episode so i thought the score was worth shouting out here yeah and i remember i loved the music in ex machina as well so i think alex says alex garland has good taste absolutely well on any other final thoughts on episode one of devs uh no except i haven't been this excited for a show in a while to be honest and i can't wait to see what happens next yeah same here i am totally blown away by this show it's it's i'm almost glad i forgot it was coming out so i didn't have to wait and be hyped for it i just find out about it i see that two episodes have already dropped and it turns out the show is awesome so can't wait to see what happens next can't wait for episode two so until next time thanks for watching this video and if you enjoyed the video make sure to hit the like button subscribe to this channel and hit the bell icon so you get notified the next time we do a video and that'll be very soon because we'll be putting up a reaction for episode two and we'll be keeping up with this show for the rest of the season so thanks for watching and we'll see you on the next one take