Hear me out here—we finally have a new Lost, for real. Just to clarify, this is not clickbait. Ever since Lost ended in 2010, the ever-expanding search for “The New Lost” has been going on. Many have claimed to be, many have tried to be, and some have Manifest-ed, but nothing really managed to fill the Lost-sized void. Now, as an obsessive fan of the show, I have always known for a fact that it can’t ever be replicated because Lost is one of a kind in terms of uniqueness. Until the arrival of Mrs. Davis, where Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof happens to have the same role; even if you haven’t seen Lost, the name of Lindelof may sound familiar to you, as there are chances of you coming across HBO’s The Leftovers or the miniseries adaptation of Watchmen, both groundbreaking shows made by the man.
Now, Mrs. Davis is a fantastic show that very much stands on its own. I don’t think I have seen anything like this series before. But the reason I am calling it the true Lost successor is because of the feeling it managed to evoke inside me. I will get into the details and extensively talk about it. So here is your don’t read ahead warning, as the best possible way to experience Mrs. Davis is without having any prior knowledge about it.
Spoilers Ahead
A Tiny Little Summary
I know you can’t wait to get into the main part, but for the sake of maintaining the structure of the article, here’s a little summary. Mrs. Davis is not a who, but a what—a zillion times more evolved version of Siri, you could say. The world of this show is rather a happy one, without famine or war, run by Mrs. D, of course. But not everyone is okay with an AI running the world, for better or worse. So, we have sister Simone, who not only stands against Mrs. D but also wants to eradicate it. Simone’s allies are her ex, Wiley, and his eccentric group called Resistance, led by an alpha-male caricature who calls himself JQ.
Why Is It The New ‘Lost’?
This is not even subtle. Mrs. Davis has a clear science versus faith theme going on, similar to the one in Lost. Lindelof has a penchant for this universal theme, which we also saw in The Leftovers, but that show was much more cerebral in nature. The science versus faith tussle in Mrs. Davis is rather direct and closer to the one we saw in Lost. Of course, Lost’s primary characters in the eternal argument—Jack and Locke—are much different than Simone and Mrs. Davis, but a certain kind of stubbornness, as well as compassion, are the common traits of both pairs.
Jacob And Jay
Remember Jacob from Lost? The god-like man, the first leader of The Others. While the character was half-baked at best, like so many other random things Lost threw at us, we couldn’t deny its mysterious appeal.
I feel Lindelof has a tendency to make up for his past artistic mistakes, which was very much visible in how he handled the final season of The Leftovers. In Mrs. Davis, the character of Jay is most likely what Jacob in Lost couldn’t become. Jay is, of course, the literal Jesus freaking Christ—a twist that seemed a little gimmicky initially, but I was amazed to see how brilliantly they pulled it off. Like Jacob, Jay also appears to have a certain calmness, and his kind nature is very evident. In episode 7, which I consider the best, it was finally revealed that Jay in the restaurant is basically the result of a mother not wanting to lose her son—not to mention Jay’s mother, none other than Mary herself. This effectively makes Jay stuck at the restaurant, but he never seems to complain about it. In Lost, Jacob was also in the same situation where he got stuck on the island for years, but he never indulged in the idea of leaving it, unlike his brother, aka The Man in Black.
The Love Triangle
Alright, you might argue that love triangles are a very common thing in movies, shows, and our lives. Just saying. But I couldn’t help but notice an uncanny similarity between the love triangles of Jack-Kate-Sawyer and Simone-Wiley-Jay. In both cases, it was hard for the audience to pick a side. While Kate was very much in love with Jack, she was constantly drawn to the rowdy charm of Sawyer. Similarly, in Mrs. Davis’s case, Simon’s love (and devotion) for Jay was unquestionable. But Wiley also had a “straight outta western” vibe going on throughout the show, and Simone was very much in a spot of bother. In fact, in episode 6, Jay even addresses it and asks Simone to pursue it with her former lover. Just like Sawyer and Kate never happened in Lost, Wiley and Simone were never meant to be. However, given that Mrs. Davis was a show cut from a very different cloth, we did see Simone and Wiley running to whatever came next on her horse but that was never a sign of the two getting back together.
Other Similarities
The obvious one, which was there from the first episode of Mrs. Davis; yes, I am talking about the island here, where Dr. Schrodinger gets stuck for ten years until he finally gets rescued and finds out how the world has completely changed. A man getting stranded on an island in a show that has Damon Lindelof as co-creator is a bona fide Lost reference, I would say. And even though Mrs. Davis didn’t quite explore the island, I would like to believe in its magical power as well.
Speaking of similarities, this one is a bit strenuous, but don’t you think the JQ character was kind of like Jacob’s brother, aka The Man in Black, in terms of indomitable spirit? There is more.
Beyond all the chaotic craziness and exhilarating adventure, Mrs. Davis was a show about parental approval, especially Mommy’s approval. For both the characters of Lizzy/Simone, and Clara, pleasing their mother by achieving something was the purpose of their lives. While Clara outgrew it and rejected Mathilda, Simone couldn’t quite do that, as no matter how far she went away from Celeste, her actions continued to prove how important her mother’s approval was for her. Not to mention, the algorithm subconsciously led Simone to Joy, the coder who is responsible for creating her, so that Simone could know her origin and do the needful. At the end of the show, the parent-child relationship and its impact turned out to be the main deal, more than anything else.
In a very similar manner, despite being known for many of its still unanswered mysteries and unimaginable twists, at the end of the day, Lost was more about its characters than anything else. The show went erratic in its later seasons, but the characters and the relationships between them were still very compelling and held things together till the very end. Whether you loved or hated the controversial finale, you’ve got to admit your eyes welled up when everyone came together at the church. I should also mention that The Leftovers also bears the same DNA in this context.
In Conclusion
This still might feel like a long stretch to you. Maybe it really is the Lost fan in me trying too hard to fill the void. But I am going to stand by whatever I have written here, as to me, it pretty much makes sense. Whether or not you agree with it is completely your choice to make. What we can all agree on is that both Lost and Mrs. Davis are fascinating shows, and we should all be glad about their existence.
