Devs

Ponderous. Strange. Tense. Artistic. It's a brilliant piece of filmmaking that won't appeal to everyone. But if you like thoughtful scifi with strong drama and plot twists, this is for you. A bit of Kubrick meets Nolan. I loved the first two episodes and can't wait for more!

First, let me start off by saying the story itself is fresh, creative and interesting. Definitely worth giving a shot if you're into the psychological thriller genre. For the most part, casting is on point. Nick Offerman as Forest, the enigmatic CEO of Amaya and Zach Grenier as Kenton, the Ex-CIA officer turned to head of Amaya security are both phenomenal in their roles. Offerman plays the role of his career, while Greniers character is this shows Mike Ehrmantraut. On the opposite end, the main protagonist and heroine, Lily, played by Sonoya Mizuno, is a gigantic casting error. She is by far the only quarrel that I have with the show itself and it's to the point where it becomes annoying because she lacks the qualities that a protagonist should have. Shes extremely monotone and has the same facial expressions regardless of her emotions. All in all, worth a watch. Recommended if you can bare with Mizunos acting.

The show has some good ideas but the implementation and acting ruins it. The acting comes across as trying too hard to be understated and the result is just lifeless.

The main actress is particularly bad but even the other actors are terrible. Everyone in this show speaks their lines without any emotion. Even when people die right in front of them they just continue to half-whisper with toneless voices. It makes it impossible to become immersed in a show when the way people talk is so unnatural.

Overall great show that is worth watching. I only have two complaints. The lead character annoyed me and I found myself not caring about what happened to her. I'm not sure if she was purposely written this way, but I found myself just tolerating her for the story, which was mostly great. This leads me to my second complaint, the ending. It wasn't bad. It was just a "yeah that's fine I guess" type of thing, which is not what I had hoped for after such a great story up until than. These two complaints are still well worth putting up with to watch the show. Also, Nick Offerman nailed his role in this.

Alex Garland's "Devs" is one of the most complex shows that I've ever seen. There have been plenty of techno-thrillers, but not like this one. Like "The Good Place", it focuses on what it means to be human. If you only know Nick Offerman from comedic roles, you'll be impressed with his performance here.