Beware of AIs with descriptive names. Chat with them for a while and they start to look like friends. They become your go-to for answers, professional advice, recipes, jokes, and life choices. In no time, you can’t live without them. One hundred million people turn to Bing every day. We talk to Siri and Alexa regularly. Soon we will have Bard. And the question everyone is asking is: will AI replace humans? The bold sci-fi comedy series Mrs. Davis (2023) asks an even more difficult question: Can you replace God?
Mrs. Davis series creators Damon Lindelof (watchmen, the remains) and tara hernandez (Big Bang Theory) imagine an all-knowing and ostensibly benevolent AI named Ms. Davis who has amassed billions of users, who rely on her “validation, gentle guidance, and unconditional care” and follow her instructions to undertake missions “for a chance to gain wings.” . By communicating with users directly through headphones, Ms. Davis has everyone’s ears and has become the voice in people’s heads, telling them what they want to hear. Who can resist the friendly Mrs. Davis? Well, a certain nun is certainly not a believer. Alarmed by Mrs. Davis’s near-total control over humans, tough biker nun Sister Simone (betty gilpin) joins the resistance, and her rodeo rider ex-boyfriend Wiley (jake mcdorman), in an epic battle against the divine machine.
It’s a madcap battle royale between technology and religion, and it seems to be as over the top as possible. Simone’s war against Mrs. Davis will lead her on a quest to find the Holy Grail, leading her into encounters with sinister Reno wizards, Jesus, Nazis, and resistance fighters, in spectacular scenes more mind-boggling than wildest dreams ( electrical) of ChatGPT.
When and where does Mrs. Davis premiere (and how many episodes are there)?
Mrs. Davis consists of eight one-hour episodes. The first four episodes of season 1 will drop on Peacock on April 20, 2023. New episodes will follow on the following Thursdays, with the finale dropping on May 18. And once it’s available, you’ll be able to watch the series by clicking the button below:
look at it in peacock
Here’s a fun fact about the title of the first episode, “Mother of Mercy: The Call of the Horse”: it was reportedly written by an algorithm the series’ writers created, an AI that started out as Larry Bel- Air.
Watch the trailer for Mrs. Davis
The official trailer for Mrs. Davis was released on March 14, 2023. A woman, receiving instructions from Mrs. Davis through headphones, tells Sister Simone (Gilpin) that Mrs. Davis wants her to find the Holy Grail, to which the incredulous nun can only react with a humor: “Now what?” Simone has another mission in mind: take down Ms. Davis and free humanity from her viral influence.
The trailer offers a glimpse of Lindelof’s enormous world-building talent. There is a field full of pianos. A gigantic Excalibur sword sticking out of a rock. Medieval recreations. Party nuns. A motorcyclist jumping through a giant donut. All ready for Bon Jovi‘s “Livin’ in a sentence”. It’s a gloriously surreal landscape beyond the powers of Dall-E and Midjourney combined. It’s all very unrealistic if it weren’t for the real possibility of an AI takeover. “It’s only a matter of time before every person on earth does what I ask,” Wiley warns Simone, who is thankfully faithful, fearless, and able to wield what appears to be a sci-fi nunchuck.
Before the full trailer, a 50 second sneak peek for Mrs. Davis was released on March 1, 2023, which you can see below:
Who is in the cast of Mrs. Davis?
Sister Simone is played by the sinfully underrated Betty Gilpin, best known for her Emmy-nominated breakout role on the heartwarming wrestling show. GLOW. Gilpin shows the full range of him in Mrs. Davis where she is everything: funny, fierce, daring and vulnerable. Gilpin stars alongside Jack McDorman (silly, The right thing), who plays Simone’s ex-boyfriend Wiley, a rodeo cowboy and leader of the fighting Mrs. Davis faction.
The epic comedy series boasts an equally epic cast that includes andy mcqueen (station eleven) as Jay; Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley) as JQ; margo martindale (The Americans) as Mother Superior of the convent of Simone; elizabeth marvel (Homeland) as Celeste, Simone’s mother; david arquette (Shout) as Monty, Simone’s father and a dubious magician; ben chaplin (the nevers) as Arthur Schrödinger, and Katja Herbers (Western world) as Matilda.
Also in the cast are elly henry (players) as JPV, ashley romans (Y: the last man), Tom Wlaschiha (game of Thrones), matilde ollivier (1899), and kim hawthorne (Green leaf) as the kindergarten teacher who portrays Mrs. Davis in the trailer.
Who are the creators of Mrs. Davis?
Mrs. Davis is the brilliant invention of one of television’s most creative minds, Damon Lindelof, the award-winning creator behind the acclaimed series watchmen (2019), the remainsand LOST, for which he served as co-creator and showrunner. His film credits include star trek, Prometheusand World War Z. In search of the next big thing for him, Lindelof teamed up with Mrs. Davis co-creator and showrunner Tara Hernandez, best known for her writing on Big Bang Theory and young sheldon. It was Hernandez who came up with the name Mrs. Davis, modeled after her beloved elementary school teacher.
The two will write and executive produce the show. Other writers on the series include Alberto Roldán, jonny sun, Noelle Vinas, chikira bennett, jason lew, jason ningand Nadra Widatalla. Additional executive producers include owen harris (black mirror), who directs the pilot of the program, and alethea jones (Devil), who directs several episodes, along with eugene kelly (Western world). Frederick E.O. Toye he has also been credited as director for one episode. The series is produced for Peacock by Warner Bros. Television.
To fully appreciate the madness that is Mrs. Davis, it helps to know their origin story. Lindelof and Hernandez came up with the idea of an all-powerful AI in 2020, long before ChatGPT exploded into the mainstream. Frustrated with misinformation about COVID, Hernandez had said, “I wish there was an app we could click on that would tell us what to do.”
As Lindelof and Hernandez recounted to Vulture, “Within half an hour, it was, ‘That’s what the nuns should be fighting.’ Because if that app existed, it would ultimately replace God.”
What is the plot of Mrs. Davis about?
The official synopsis reads as follows:
Ms. Davis is the most powerful Artificial Intelligence in the world. Simone is the nun dedicated to destroying her. Who do you have?
