‘Devs’ Episode 6 Review: Lily takes backseat while Jamie and Katie’s characters step up to the forefront
Spoilers for ‘Devs’ Episode 6
Almost halfway through the story, ‘Devs’ offered nothing but severely twisted plots with tech and scientific jargon, making it appear more intense than it is supposed to be.
Even when the last episode (No. 5) explored the history of each character, the narrative couldn’t do justice. And it was time to bring it down a few notches and simplify the storytelling, only so one could grasp the events that keep happening one after the other.
Episode 6 was a good breather from the previous experience of grim plotlines and convoluted theories. Not that we are saying that the latest episode was all bright and positive, it can never be, coming from a creator like Alex Garland.
But, if you see closely, each character has now started to take a more solid form, quite like the visuals rendered by the Devs system; initially, there was a lot of sketchiness, and as it develops further, we start to see much clearer images. The best examples of such evolution in today’s episode were Katie and Jamie.
Let’s start with Jamie (Jin Ha). Until Kenton confronted and tortured him, the man remained as a “last resort” for Lily, so she could find the truth about her boyfriend’s killer. But after Lily was taken away by the police, Jamie’s characteristics started coming to light. He took initiatives to safeguard his family, reached out to his contacts to dig up information about Amaya and Forest, and most importantly, helped Lily escape the psychiatric hospital.
There’s no doubt that Jamie still has feelings for Lily, despite all that would have gone down between them earlier. But none of these sentiments came to light (from Jamie’s side) until today.
Next in our discussion is Katie (Alison Pill). A science nerd, a proud researcher, and a staunch believer of determinism, Katie was one of the biggest enigmas of the story so far. It was only in the last episode that we learned that Katie found a platform to continue her research and fulfill her passion, only because of Forest.
But what surprised us today was the discovery that she also is Forest’s girlfriend, or whatever their relationship status might be. If you ask, this angle to her character was not essential. However, since it was out already, it added another shade to her character. Just like she did when she started talking to Lily, almost like any other normal human being. We say “normal” because Katie has been known to be a recluse and a woman of fewer words. But with Lily face-to-face, we saw a completely different person as she admitted and accepted her connection to Sergei’s death, knowing about Devs, and talking about it openly, contrary to what the company has been preaching all along.
Usually, Lily has been the key character of the story of ‘Devs’ but Episode 6 was all about making the secondary characters shine and that made a lot of difference to the narrative we have been fed so far.
Lily might be the one to break it all down and mark an end to the story, but without characters like Katie and Jamie in focus at this stage of the plot, Lily’s journey would not be complete. And this change of storytelling could clearly mean that by the time the series ends, we will have a very evolved storyline and characters to explore.
‘Devs’ is available on Hulu (FX on Hulu) every Thursday.