I never thought the words “Nuns vs. AI” could be said, but here we are. Peacock original “Mrs. Davis” is original and amusing. The fear of the internet never looked so fun before. Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “Tomorrowland,” “The Leftovers”) uses comedy to give us a “be aware of artificial intelligence” sign, and frankly, it’s pretty great. Before we get into the actual show, our compliments go to Susie Coulthard for the gorgeous Nun “costume” worn by Simone. Now, let’s get into it.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In Episodes 1 And 2?
In 1307 Paris, the watch burns a group of priests at stake for heresy. The city believes they are the Knights Templar, the Catholic military order. But in truth, the Knights Templar—a group of female nuns who are overzealous in protecting the Holy Grail—is accused of having consorted with the Templars by soldiers who can’t imagine women can do the protecting. The accuser gets impaled, and a fight breaks out, with only one of the nuns surviving the disaster. Before her departure, the head nun tells the sole survivor to get across the sea and meet their fellow knights there. They will know exactly what to do.
We jump to the present day, on an island somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A man and his cat, Apollo, are surviving on an island. The man is able to finally launch a skyrocket as a giant flare to grab the attention of anyone in the vicinity. From the looks of it, this man has been cast away for quite some time now and is on the verge of giving up. Now that his rocket plan has worked, he awaits rescue. Mr. Schroedinger is found by a rescue team and brought back to reality. It’s the year 2023, and his ship was wrecked ten years and 56 days earlier. The Korean woman who sits across from Mr. Schroedinger appears to have something in her ear from which she is receiving information about him. She says it’s “the algorithm,” whom he hasn’t spoken to yet because he was lost for the last ten years.
Simone, The Crafty Nun
The star of the show is not Mrs. Davis but Simone, a nun who lives in a wholesome convent in the wild wild west, along with her fellow nuns who make jam together. In her spare time, she travels on horseback and saves the world from rogue magicians(?) who have lost their way. She works under somebody, but we don’t know who sits across the door. Only a man named Jay picks the names off a carousel and shares them with Simone. Who is Jay, exactly? We will find out in due time. While celebrating her birthday, we find out that the Mother at the convent is considerate of Simone’s shenanigans as long as they don’t involve a man. But it looks like something is awry with the Mother. She doesn’t say, but the next day we learn that the convent has been bought out, and everyone has been reassigned. Of course, this is all Simone’s fault because she won’t talk to “Her.” Who is “Her,” you ask? The algorithm.
While Simone seems to be the only person in the world who refers to “Her” as “it,” the algorithm has pretty much taken over the world. Simone’s greatest mission is to destroy her. Jay gives Simone a blank check, meaning she has no mission to find a delinquent illusionist who has lost their path. Simone was raised by magician parents who used her to fool the audience and gave her a doughnut for help every day as a child. Named “Lizzie” back then, Simone only wanted her parents to be together and happy, so she would do anything for them, including going into her mother’s room, which she wasn’t supposed to do. Her mother was creating some new tricks as the mastermind behind some new tricks, but her father was the one who did all the showmanship. He used “force” to make Lizzie believe that she wanted to enter the room so that she could help her “crying” father. The Mother had set up a booby trap, and as Lizzie opened the door, she was hit by an arrow. Maybe this is where her bitterness toward magicians stems from.
The Algorithm—Mrs. Davis
Yes, the algorithm is called Mrs. Davis because she’s like a mother to an ailing child or a kindergarten teacher who can understand all your problems and grant all your wishes. Mrs. Davis has taken over the world, eradicating wars, famines, and anything else that could be problematic for the world, and everything is “cha cha cha.” Simone’s father died about a couple of years ago in front of her own eyes, and she blames it on Mrs. Davis, hence staying out of contact with her. The algorithm puts people on little quests with the ultimate goal of winning “wings.” But what are these wings?
According to a “Star Wars”-style resistance led by Simone’s childhood friend, possibly ex-lover Wiley, along with his buddies, the algorithm is basically just making everyone her puppets through the wings. As one can imagine, like when people go too far playing video games, they are willing to die for the algorithm because they’re desperate for the wings. Now that Simone happens to be one of the very few people in the world who actually doesn’t interact with the algorithm, “it” has hooked on to Simone for a very important task. The quest to retrieve the “Holy Grail” is, yeah, the same one that many nuns died for all those centuries ago in Paris. Through the people all around her as proxies, the algorithm speaks to Simone, who insists on not interacting directly, and promises to grant her one wish if she’s able to get the “Holy Grail” Simone’s greatest wish is, of course, death of the algorithm. They make a deal, and Simone chooses to get the help of Wiley and his team to find the mythical “Holy Grail.”
The Resistance And Wiley
Wiley and his Australian buddy JQ, who is devoted to presentations, believe the algorithm is putting Simone on a mission because she is amongst the “Chosen Ones.” A “Chosen One” is made to feel like they are special, like they are the Luke Skywalker or Katniss Everdeen of their world, making them “choose” to do the quest. In truth, it’s a forced idea; everything around Simone leads her to do exactly what the algorithm wants her to, even if she isn’t interacting with it. Wiley and JQ have an underground network (literally under the desert) where they fight the algorithm and find out exactly what she’s up to (sure, Simone, the internet has no access to what these people are doing). Simultaneously, a bunch of German kids who seem to be Nazi descendants are also in search of the Holy Grail (Indiana Jones would not be impressed), but Wiley proves to Simone that it is all a fake set-up to get Simone to do the algorithm’s bidding.
‘Mrs. Davis’ Episode 2: Ending Explained – Will Simone Do Mrs. Davis’ Quest?
Simone is married to Jay as a nun, and in a strange turn of events, we find out that Jay might be Jesus, and that Simone became a nun to marry him. The falafel joint Jay works at is a cover-up for the anti-magician clique Simone works for, and in truth, the check wasn’t blank; it was Jay who was trying to protect Simone. Now, Jay hands her the real piece of paper, and it is the algorithm that Simone needs to defeat next. Simone accepts the mission and plans on using the quest given to her by the algorithm to save the world from said algorithm. Jay hands Simone a clue to get to the Grail, and it is just a photo of a girl named Clara. Previously, the algorithm had given Simone a phone number hidden behind the Queen of Hearts card as a reminder of her parents. Now Simone gives it a call and pretends to be Clara herself while Wiley and the team figure out where the receiver is. Simone’s next stop is London, and she’s taking Wiley with her because she needs all the help she can get.
What Is Wiley Up To?
After all, they’ve been through a lot, and Wiley has been working for “it” the whole time. Remember that “force” we were talking about? The thing Simone hates the most? It turns out that Wiley and JQ had created an elaborate plan in order to get Simone “in” on the quest, meaning they were possibly working for Mrs. Davis the whole time. Still, there is some humanity left in Wiley’s eyes as a flashback of the two kids, Lizzie and Wiley, lying in hospital beds and becoming friends for the first time shows up. Clearly, no one is safe, not even a praying nun.
