‘Devs’ Episode 8 Ending Explained: Lily shows how a fine balance of fate and free will guides the universe
It all finally came to an end. The predictions of the Devs system, Lily’s (Sonoya Mizuno) fate, Forest’s (Nick Offerman) wishes, and Katie’s (Alison Pill) calculations; it all pieced together to form the most complex puzzle that one would ever expect in a sci-fi thriller.
The series ended with a bright and happy scene where Forest’s wife and daughter are alive, Sergei (Karl Glusman) and Jamie (Jin Ha) are alive and there’s no Devs building. Shocking and unexpected, you would think.
Before we get to understand what exactly happened at the end, here’s a quick recap of the finale episode.
As per the system’s predictions, Lily reaches Devs and confronts Forest, who runs her through the next few minutes and how Lily will shoot Forest and accidentally kill herself. She tells him how she feels that she has no “choice” anymore, including the words she is speaking or the movements she is making. At this point, Forest also reveals something that has been kept a secret all through the story. The word ‘Devs’ does not actually use the English alphabet ‘v’ but the Roman alphabet ‘v’ which is also pronounced ‘u’ (since v and u are same in Latin).
Thus it forms the word ‘DEUS’ which means God in Latin, which to say, is quite apt, considering how it predicts and controls behavior.
Eventually, the inevitable happens, though not in the way the system predicted. Lily holds Forest at gunpoint taking her to the vacuum-sealed capsule but just as they enter, she makes a “choice”; she throws away the gun and shocks Forest and Katie, proving that she has free will. But right then, Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson), standing outside, changes the security setting on the capsule and makes it fall through the vacuum, shattering the glass and killing both Lily and Forest.
So, if Lily exerted her free will, shouldn’t the end result have changed? How did she get killed, despite changing the course of her actions?
Let’s fast forward to the final scene, where Forest is trying to explain to Lily what exactly had happened. In reality, Lily and Forest are dead. Since Devs can store memories up to the point of death, Katie used the same to “resurrect” (for lack of better words) them in a simulated universe. Now, as Lyndon (Cailee Spaeny) had tried to explain before, there are multiple such “universes” within the Devs system, otherwise, mathematically known as “probabilities”.
As Forest explained, Lily and he could have been thrown into any of their million other universes after they were resurrected. They could have been in a somewhat hell-like place, without their loved ones, or some other place, all by themselves. But it is nothing but fate or luck as you may call it, that they were thrown into the universe where the people they love (Forest’s wife and daughter, Jamie, and Sergei) are alive. Now, it is up to Lily to choose how she wants to live in this universe. And she did.
As the scene ends with Lily hugging Jamie, it becomes clear that her fate might have brought her so far, but she has the power to choose between staying with Sergei or going back to Jamie, which is now left to our interpretation.
The way ‘Devs’ ended, it made it clear that the universe remains deterministic in the way it operates, but within the quantum level, it offers every particle a choice and possibility.
Thus, despite being subject to an overarching fate, we all have the luxury of free will and act in a certain way which will eventually determine the next steps.
'Devs' Episodes 1 to 8 are now available on Hulu (FX on Hulu).
