Russian Intelligence
Following Sergei’s reveal, a shocked Lilly opens episode 2 of Devs by sitting with Forest and discussing the idea of death. Offering his condolences, Forest tells her that her job and income are secure and lets her head home to grieve. After telling her Mother she’s okay, in private Lilly struggles to keep it together, becoming more and more desperate to crack into Sergei’s phone and figure out what’s going on. This inevitably brings her back to Jamie again, where she reveals what happened to Sergei and manages to convince him to help. It turns out the app on his phone is not Sudoku but actually a messaging app originating from Russia. For now though, the details remain sketchy but Lilly has enough doubts to suspect there may be more to this than first meets the eye. In Devs, Katie berates Stewart for calling the program “baby” but they watch in awe as the projection shows Jesus on a cross. Stewart tells them they need to take this as a victory, given they’ve just managed to launch a projection over 2000 years in the past, but the fuzziness of the image leads Forest into the room where he advises them that this isn’t a miracle but it needs to be. After clearing the room, he sits infront of the screen alone and watches as the projection changes to that of a little girl blowing bubbles. It’s fuzzy of course but is this the same girl as the giant, creepy statue outside the building? Is this Forest’s daughter? And is this the first step toward him potentially building a time machine? Lots of questions but so far, very few answers. Lilly meanwhile manages to find more clues on the phone, as she deciphers the messages on the app and communicates with the person on the other side. Whoever it is, they give her instructions to meet at 9am the following day, which she agrees to do. Once there, she bumps into a mysterious man named Anton, who works for the Russian Intelligence. It turns out Sergei’s task was to infiltrate Devs and feed information back to them but in doing so he was killed for this. He gives her instructions to look into the matter further but unfortunately Kenton happens to be watching from afar, cursing his luck as he realizes this isn’t the end of Lilly’s investigation. Kenton corners Anton and tells him he knows about the corporate espionage and warns him he’ll shut down Lilly if he tries again. Anton sees through his facade and the two start wrestling in the car park, but not before they both call each other by alternative names – Adam and Joe. Anton overpowers Kenton though and chokes him down to the ground. Only, Kenton manages to get the upper-hand and kills him – just as we cut to Lilly who leaves a “fuck you” message up on the window, showing her intention of not using Anton for help. As more of the puzzle pieces come into view, Devs leaves the door wide open for the future episodes. There are a lot of questions hanging over this one and so far the show is drip-feeding its answers across its extended run-time. The exposition is still a little on-the-nose at times and a few of the scenes don’t add an awful lot to the show but beyond that there’s a lot to like about this one. The off-kilter sci-fi elements and bizarre set-up for Devs itself is a good enough hook to really sink your teeth into and the show leaves plenty of promise for the future. Quite what will happen next remains to be seen but if there’s one thing for sure when it comes to Alex Garland – this story is far from over.
