It can be said without fear of contradiction that this is the least zany episode of Mrs. Davis yet. Except for the part when David Arquette goes undercover as a nun. Or the scene where Jesus permits Simone to fuck her ex-boyfriend. Or the deal when a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged unlocks a secret chamber with a Star Wars trash compactor–style security mechanism. Or the reveal that there’s a fully accurate replica of the office with the secret chamber and trash compactor on a soundstage in Altadena. Or the lengthy animatic depicting how Simone’s dad rigged a corpse to be dissolved in acid and ooze a wave of viscera all over the set of a local morning show in Reno. Or the way good sex warps you to Jesus’ restaurant right in the middle of it — no matter how half- or fully naked you are at the time.
But yeah, other than that? Pretty straightforward stuff!
Alright, when you lay it all out facetiously like that, it seems quite ridiculous — as is the Mrs. Davis standard. And we haven’t even gotten into the rationale for all of this business: Simone and Wiley need to recover the so-called Lazarus Shroud, a sort of old-fashioned deep-sea diving suit worn by her father, Monty, for his final, allegedly fatal trick from her mother’s supervillain lair in order to protect Simone from the stomach acid of the sperm whale she needs to track down and infiltrate so she can retrieve the Holy Grail from his guts and destroy it by drinking from it while in possession of a Grail-proof liver, thus ending the reign of the world’s most powerful AI.
Again, when you put it that way, it sounds kooky.
Mrs. Davis knows this, and I think that’s to its detriment. Like, I don’t need to hear Simone’s mom, Celeste, describe the Grail-whale quest as “moronic†— it reads like the writers are self-conscious about their own ideas and need to draw attention to the outlandishness of it all so that they can demonstrate they’re in on the joke. Six episodes in and I fail to see how this approach is good for the show in any way.
But for real, this genuinely is the calmest, least bombastic, least shotgun-blast-of-ideas-to-the-face episode of the show to date. That’s because it’s centered so squarely on Simone’s most important relationships: with her mother, father, ex-boyfriend (Wiley), and husband (Jesus). Mrs. Davis takes all of those relationships seriously, which is the source of this episode’s strength.
Take the Jesus situation, for example. After emphasizing how seriously he takes Simone’s vows of loyalty to him and how seriously she takes them herself, suddenly the show reveals that Jesus is perfectly fine with his brides (or at least Simone) taking other lovers, since he himself is in relationships with (literally) God knows how many people. Having Simone warp back to Jesus while Wiley’s going down on her is a surprisingly effective metaphor for how infidelity doesn’t mean that the person you’re cheating on isn’t on your mind. Moreover, Simone — following the instructions of a naked guy in the restaurant — can only be seen by Jesus in this state if she says his name, which she does. Again, this is a powerful little way to depict coming clean about unfaithfulness and forgiving it.
Simone’s material with Wiley, meanwhile, is … surprisingly hot. In a pair of abortive sex scenes, Simone drags Wiley into a supply closet at her father’s funeral, while in full nun’s habit, no less, and practically jabs her hand through his pants to get at his dick. He breaks things off, which he warns her he won’t do again when, having found out that her father faked his death, she strips down to her underwear and curls up vulnerably in front of Wiley, initiating another hookup. Sadly, her visit to Jesus kills the mood, but Betty Gilpin is asked to do a lot of the heavy lifting in these intimate scenes even if they get cut short, and she’s as vibrant and believable as ever.
Her complex relationships with her crazy mom and dad are handled with relative restraint and respect. You have to get past the fact that her mom is now a Blackwater analog and her dad is a try-hard stage magician, of course, but Simone’s anger at them — at her mother for never supporting her, at her father for faking his death — feels real, even relatable. Parents do disappoint, after all.
Even Mrs. Davis gets a little character development. We learn via a proxy that the almighty algorithm sometimes provides people with enemies by lying about them, since it’s often easier to hate someone than take ownership of your own faults. That’s what the AI did to Celeste, falsely informing her that Simone was her father’s accomplice. And that’s what it did to Simone, telling her it was responsible for her father’s death, even though he’s still alive. The hatred mother and daughter feel for each other helps Celeste avoid her guilt over shooting Simone with a crossbow all those years ago and drives Simone deeper into her quest.
Which in the end she, too, lies about to move things forward. She falsely admits to helping her dad escape, then promises to reveal his location only if Celeste coughs up the Lazarus Shroud. This Celeste agrees to do on the condition that she accompanies Simone and Wiley (and the shroud) on their whale hunt.
Meanwhile, the whole operation is tracked via a transmitter in Wiley’s shoes, given to him by the sinister Father Ziegler, who tells the Holy Grail’s banker-lady guardians that their Holy Grail is bogus and the real one is being sought by Simone as they speak.
But the cliffhanger that intrigues me most is … whatever it was that Mrs. Davis said to Simone about her father’s current whereabouts. The woman proxying for Mrs. Davis refuses to repeat what the algorithm tells her about this, claiming, “It’s too fucked up,†but when Simone hears it, she cries a tear of apparent awe, joy, or relief — the corners of her mouth spasming now and then into the shape of a smile. What did she hear? Why was this apparently awful secret something she seemed happy to learn? For perhaps the first time, Mrs. Davis ends on a mystery that I’m excited to see the show solve.