DEVS has been one of the best things that I’ve watched in recent memory and the final entry has a lot to unpack from it.
Throughout this, we’re gonna be going over the ins and outs of the season as a whole and giving our thoughts on it.
There will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.
With that, out the way thank you for clicking think now let’s get into our breakdown of Devs.
Devs Season Recap
Ok Devs centers around a tech company called Amaya. The company is named after the daughter of the CEO who tragically died years prior and this has shaped the business into developing certain things.
That is a machine that can predict the future and render images of the past with near accuracy due to it possessing data on a wealth of things. It uses these and it’s complex algorithms to pretty much show the tramlines that the universe is on and because of its abilities it has been kept a closely guarded secret by the company.
I’ve actually made a full video breaking down all of the aspects of the machine, how it works and what it’s inner mechanisms are so if you want to know more about it then pause this video and go check it out.
In simple terms, it basically uses a highly accurate prediction algorithm to tell the future. Since the universe is based upon cause and effect if one knows the effects of an action they can trace back the cause, thus telling the past. Similarly if one knows the cause then it can trace the fact, therefore the future and it is able to do this because it understands the laws of nature perfectly.
The CEO of Amaya Forest and his company have made leaps and bounds in terms of software and programming but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Due to their progress, they have caught the attention of several agencies and governments, namely Russia who sent in a spy named Sergei to run reconnaissance on the mysterious Devs department that exists within it.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Sergei is brought in and sees first hand what goes on there and he tries to smuggle out the info but is captured and killed. Amaya covers up his death and Sergei’s girlfriend Lily tries to uncover exactly what is going on which leads her down the rabbit hole towards a fate that we have seen teased throughout the entire season.
Lily turned to her ex Jamie for help and as she started to uncover things she quickly drew the eyes of Amaya’s security guard Kenton.
Lily is the kind of person to face her problems head-on and she went to Forest directly and found him with his chief of staff Katie.
Katie explained calmly to Lily how the machine worked and she told her that she was destined to attempt to destroy it which would be an event that the machine could not see beyond. Lily decided that she would prove the machine wrong and she made a promise to not go to Amaya the following day to confront it.
However, Kenton saw this meeting and flew off the handle because he felt betrayed.
Lily and Jamie decided to stay at the former’s apartment until the event was over but Kenton arrived and killed the former.
He was just about to kill Lily too but luckily she was saved by another Russian agent that had been posing as a homeless man around her property.
Lily was given two choices, to either go to the machine or flee and prove that it was incorrect, however, she went to Amaya which is where episode 7 ended.
DEVS Episode 8 Breakdown
Episode 8 starts with one of the trippiest beginnings so far. In it, we see Jamie, Forest, Amaya and Lily. It has a lot of symbolism to it as we see Lily seemingly split into two and this becomes important in the finale’s overall meaning.
Here Lily comes face to face with Forest who explains to her that he has taken nothing from her as she never really had anything and the sense that she was participating in life. It speaks to really how he views the death of his daughter and wife.
Forest was clearly an important element that was paramount in the cause of their death because he refused to hang up whilst his wife was driving.
I think that this conversation shows he really refuses to accept any of the blame and bears no guilt for it because in his mind it was always meant to happen that way and he was just a participant.
Still he has used the machine to resurrect her in some ways due to the machine perfectly recreating her consciouness and being but Lily argues that she is a simulation that is going through fixed motions. Forest argues that we all are and thus in some ways we are all simulations.
Deus Ex Machina
He has basically created god in a machine, an omnipresent being that sees and knows all. This is reflected in the name Devs which we learn is actually Deus, the Latin word for God.
Forest views himself as a messiah because he can work the machine and the series has been laced with imagery that has painted him out as a christ-like figure.
The entire scene is extremely trippy and Forest predicts her actions as she fulfills them. They watch them play out on the screen in which Lily takes her gun, boards the lift with kills Forest as they leave the complex.
The lift which travels across the vaccum seal with her in is dropped and this is how she eventually ended up crawling across the ground in the predictions that we saw.
Now it is important to understand that this is only a possible future. Earlier in the season Lyndon discovered that the machine was full of variables that this is why it portrayed a scattered image. However, in removing these, one was able to gain a crystal clear image which was a possible past.
Though Forest states that the machine knows everything, it doesn’t and thus it created scattered images. Though the machine is said to know everything it does not and even though the multiverse idea was shot down repeatedly, Devs subscribes to the theory in the end.
As we can also see a crystal clear image on the screen during their prediction moment we know that it is only one possible future in which one variable was taken as a definite and therefore this is one possible pathway.
Free Will
I believe that Devs presents the idea that there are several options and pathways that we can all take but we perhaps have the choice to take them. This is exemplified by Lily who instead of taking the gun with her on the elevator tosses it to the side thus breaking the algorithm and showing that she does have a choice.
Now what I believe that this shows is that we do indeed have a choice and it is possible to be in control of our own destiny. Forest was so set on the idea of fate, that he refused to see beyond it because in doing so he would have to accept that he was responsible for the death of his daughter and thus he put his faith in a get out of jail free card that stripped him of guilt because, hey, that was the way it was always meant to happen.
He thought that he had a perfect machine thus he brainwashed those around him into believing that it was perfect too when really, all that it presented were possible futures.
The reason that it breaks everything is because, well, the system discovered that it was in fact flawed and because this point in time is wrong it knows that going forward everything could be wrong and thus it does not estimate anything beyond it.
The elevator still drops because one of the variables was the same and Lily seemingly still comes to her end with Forest.
Devs Ending
Katie is trapped within and Stewart reveals that he still destroyed the machine because he finally realised what they’d done which is to create a god. Lily had committed the original sin of disobediance and he saw this and realised what was going to happen. He blames it on being pre-determined that he would always do that showing that he still believes in god. He exits, leaving Katie trapped within and she returns to the visualisation chamber.
As we learned, Messiahs get resurrected and Forest is recreated in the machine by Katie using the data collected on him.
Katie states that it shows the machine works but only on Lyndon’s principle which means that the multiverse does indeed exist and everything that we’ve viewed so far has only been a possible future.
Forest is reunited with his family because there is a multiverse and within the machine exists a possible past in which they did not perish.
We are then taken to Lily who seemingly returns to the past before Sergei died but she still retains her memories.
Quantum Immortality
Now in order to understand this, we have to understand the idea of Quantum Immortality. This states that if you loaded a gun with one bullet in six chambers, there would be six branching pathways from this. You would die in one but as consciouness ceases upon death you would instead return in another universe unaware of what had happened and believing that you were lucky.
If you were to repeat the experiment over and over you would in some ways gain immortality because there would always end up being a version in which you survived.
We saw Lyndon demonstrate this by falling off the dam and though we did not see a version in which the character survived, we do know from the failings of the machine that there would have been one.
There would also be other versions that lived on, perhaps taking different pathways to you which Forest does pay lip service to when they reunite.
Devs sort of takes this on but instead it re-inserts her consciouness into the machine rather than letting her live on in the timeline in which she died.
This is how she still retains the memories of everything and though no one other than Forest and Lily know that they’re within a simulation it doesn’t really matter.
She replays the moment that would have eventually lead to her death from the first episode. Using Sergais spy encryption sudoku puzzle she goes to unlock it but Sergai flips out and she leaves him to go off on the path that will eventually lead to his death because this girl is cursed…I’m telling you the girl is cursed.
Devs Ending Explained
Instead, she returns to the Devs department and actually sees Forest and Amaya playing there with his wife. He explains that this version of their consciouness is now living out their hash-tag best life and that Lily now has the option to follow her own path which we saw demonstrated in her choice with Sergai.
There are other versions perhaps that aren’t doing as well but she should feel blessed.
The episode ends with Katie showcasing the simulation to a senator who wished to know what went in Devs and they explain that the simulation can mimic everything and that ones inside wouldn’t know about it.
The senator asks who else knows about this and she says no one which I took as meaning that we may all not know that we are inside a simulation too.
Katie says that she just needs help keeping it switched on and in the afterlife Lily is reunited with Jamie who is still alive and she gets her happy ending, going off with the man on the path that she should’ve stayed on.
Now we can take the meaning of the title Deus to be a shortening of Deus Ex Machina which means God In The Machine and as Lily is someone that is aware of everything being a simulation and that she can also make choices that she is a god herself.
She too has been depicted as a christlike figure at points and she could either be a new messiah figure or her and Jamie could represent the modern adam and eve. They have left the garden of Eden and can now go off on their own path and create something within the simulation that has never been seen before in the ‘real world.’
There’s a lot to take from it but overall it was the perfect way to end it all.
DEVS Review
So what did I think of Devs as a whole?
Well, I have to say I absolutely loved it from start to finish. It’s a series that initially flew under my radar but I’m so glad that so many of you recommended it because it was an absolutely incredible watch with a brilliant soundtrack.
What’s crazy is that it has a really similar plot device to Westworld right now but both shows took the idea in completely different directions and explored it with their own style and aesthetic.
I have always been fascinated by the idea that there is fate, something that holds the universe together and with this notion in mind it comforts me and makes me think that everything will be ok.
Its’ why I absolutely love Doctor Manhattan and something about Devs just makes the idea feel so warm.
Though the acting isn’t flashy and over the top, though there aren’t massive amount of action, Devs carries itself with it’s storyline, self contained narrative and the ideas that it presents.
It’s near perfect and there’s very little that I can actually ding the story for. Every actor feels like they’ve been perfectly cast and overall it’s an incredible ride from start to finish. I’d love to see more but I also don’t feel like we need it because of the subtext of the journey that we’ve just been on.
It’s rare that I give out tens on the channel but this is a show that really feels like it deserves it.
Devs is perfect and it gets a…you guessed it…
10/10
Your Thoughts
Now obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on the season and what you took from the ending. Comment below and let me know and if you enjoyed this video then please give it a thumbs up and make sure you check out our breakdown of Westworld which will be linked at the end.
We’ve gone through the season episode by episode so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
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