Tag: devs

My Favorite Television From The Pandemic Year 2020

We all had a lot more time than usual to watch television over the course of this past year. Still, this being a new golden age of the medium, I didn’t get a chance to watch all of the shows I intended to give a go. Shows like: The Good Lord Bird, The Queen’s Gambit, and season two of The Boys are still on my to-do list. The rest of this list is comprised of shows I watched and enjoyed for various reasons. They also either premiered, or primarily aired new content in this pandemic year of 2020.

First, my honorable mentions. These are the shows I really enjoyed but because of some arbitrary ruling on my part, they didn’t quite crack my top ten. In fact, list making is kind of crazy, is it not? I’ve been making lists my entire life as my anxiety riddled brain has required this action in order to function. I have lists of books to read, games to play, and movies/tv to watch. I have lists of everything media related I’ve ever consumed, ranked in some way or another. My brain depends on this level of order and websites like Letterboxd and Goodreads have been godsends to me. Anyway, here goes.

The HMs: THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR – I adore Mike Flanagan’s work. He’s a horror aficionado with an enormous heart. This is why he’s been the most successful adapter of Stephen King’s work. Here, he oversaw a heart wrenching ghost love story that worked on every level. TALES FROM THE LOOP – Amazon got in on some awesome sci-fi storytelling this past year. Tales is a show more admired than loved but it’s themes revolving around loss of innocence and grief dug deep. LOCKE & KEY – An adaptation of Joe Hill’s brilliant comic series hit me in just the right spot. Perfectly cast. HIGH FIDELITY – Zoe Kravitz is incredible in this show and it’s an absolute fucking travesty that Hulu canceled it after its debut season. DEVS – Alex Garland is a genius and this short series smoked the new season of Westworld in every conceivable way while covering many of the same ideas.

And now, onward.

10. PRIMAL – Genndy Tartakovsky is a masterful storyteller. Samurai Jack is an all-timer and Primal looks likely to join it’s older sibling in many hearts and minds. This show debuted it’s first five episodes over a year ago but finished it’s season one run recently. It’s about a caveman who lost his family in violent fashion and a dinosaur who lost her family in violent fashion. They team up to survive in a harsh landscape that never relents. Impressionistic to the max.

9. RAMY SEASON 2 – Hulu’s Ramy is a brilliant show. It’s eye opening and thought provoking while still being hilarious. I love every single character in this show and especially love how the show can give entire episodes to side characters without missing a beat. Truly special.

8. LOVECRAFT COUNTRY – Jonathan Majors is a fucking movie star in the making. This show is batshit crazy and tonally all over the god damn map. And I loved every second of it.

7. THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 2 – Improves on season one in every conceivable way. Great villains and even better cameos. Favreau and Filoni are rounding out an entire universe here and it’s something to behold. The Boba Fett reveal was amazing but the appearance of Ahsoka (maybe my favorite Star Wars character) had me near tears. I’m not even broaching the finale for those who’ve yet to see it.

6. LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE – Kerry Washington gave the performance of the past decade in this gem from Hulu. This should be required viewing for white people in order for us to see the ignorant mistakes we continue to make with anyone and everyone who doesn’t look like us.

5. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS SEASON 2 – The funniest show on television. Everything about Jackie Daytona was incredible. Colin’s power trip was insane. The ghost episode left me on the floor. The Superb Owl episode had me howling. In the end, however, Guillermo stole the show all season and finished with one hell of a shift in the power dynamic. Bravo.

4. TED LASSO – The show we all needed during quarantine. Hilarious and heartwarming in equal measure. The show is cast perfectly and written just as well. I cannot overstate the positive energy that flows from each episode of this show.

3. WOKE – The most recent show I’ve watched. Lamorne Morris is one of my favorite people to watch and listen to on camera. The dude has impeccable timing. He was easily the best on New Girl and stole the show in Game Night. (The glass tables bit still kills me to this day) Here, he’s playing a heightened version of a real person and the results are phenomenal. The show is equal in it’s delivery of jokes and it’s need to amplify racial injustice. Brilliant, BRILLIANT show.

2. HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON – I’m a New Yorker who moved to Texas this year. I miss home more than I ever thought I would. John Wilson perfectly captures New York City and the maniacs who call it home. My wife and I binged the entire season in one afternoon and we’re dying for more as soon as possible, please and thank you.

1. DESUS & MERO – Again, these guys are on my books list and now this list for the same reason: they make me feel like home isn’t as far away as it feels. Watching these two bullshitters (like so many people I grew up with) late at night, while a little stoned and laughing my ass completely off, has been the most fun I’ve had all year. New season in a few weeks!

Annnnnnnnd dismount! We’re done. Go fight with each other on twitter. Just kidding. Stop fighting with each other.

Next week, games. Until then, love each other.

DEVS – Alex Garland’s Brilliant Look Into Past Trauma And Our Impending Future

I am a huge fan of Alex Garland. I have always found his writing to be thought provoking and invigorating. 28 Days Later is one of my favorite horror films of all time and his novel, Coma, is one I re-read on a regular basis. He has broken into directing in the last decade and it comes as no surprise to me that he’s quickly established himself as a clear and unique voice in Hollywood. Dredd rocked and Ex Machina blew the world away. With Annihilation, he deftly adapted the first book of Jeff VanderMeer’s astonishing Area X trilogy into one of the best films of 2018.

Now that we have that out of the way we can get down to the meat of this post. Devs.

Devs is a tv show Alex Garland wrote and directed in its entirety. It aired earlier this year on FX and is easily a landmark achievement in not only science fiction but any genre of storytelling.

What’s so great about it? Everything. I’m not going to dive into many details about the plot because anyone willing to take this journey should do so as blind as possible. It is set at some point in our future where automation has taken over our lives. Tech has evolved to the point that it has caused unemployment to spike up to sixty percent. We live in an age where we are beginning to see the future Garland is showing us as a possible real thing. This is scary. This is also merely window dressing in this rich and rewarding story.

The real story is about a young woman who works for a giant tech company and investigates the disappearance and questionable suicide of her boyfriend, who happens to work at the same company. There is a secret project called Devs and what exactly they are up to is the central mystery of this series. Do we get answers? Yes we do and they are so much more profound than we could possibly imagine. This series rocked me to my core. It plays like a conspiracy thriller when it is actually using that to mask a story about trauma and grief. Devs is a slow burn that peels back layer after layer until we lose all sense of direction. It is a work of astounding confidence and brilliant ideas. We’ve seen works in the past that could execute one of these things but not all of them quite like this. It not only sticks the landing, it changes everything.

The young woman is played by Sonoya Mizuno, an actress about to hopefully become a household name. Garland loves her — he’s cast her in Ex Machina and Annihilation already and here he totally lets her loose. She is amazing — with a face that could tell a thousand stories.

Side note: She was also incredible in Netflix’s Maniac.

We also have Nick Offerman playing the co-lead as the head of this tech company. He is manipulative and borderline evil but is also suffering great loss while maintaining some type of humanity. It’s strange to find his presence and voice so comforting no matter what is happening on screen. The bottom line is that he is a man determined to play out the only hand he believes he has. There is a sort of twisted nobility in this.

All of the characters in the series are fully realized with motivations of their own. This is vital for a story like this — we have to care no matter what. I’m going to have to cut this relatively short because the more I write, the more I run the risk of spilling the beans. I don’t want to do that to anyone.

I will say this: the finale turns everything upside down and around again. Just when you think you have this figured out, Garland ups the intelligence ante and takes you where you secretly wanted to go — without you realizing you wanted it all along. I will die on the hill proclaiming this one of the greatest finales in television history and one of the most profound and deeply moving endings to a story, ever.

Hit print.

Next week, either Tom Hardy or Tales from the Loop — we’ll see. Until then, love each other.