Mrs. Davis Ep 106 Alison Treasures: A Southern California Story
It's Heist Time! (and is Simone's dad truly dead?)
After learning the location of the Grail, Simone, Wiley, and the Resistance partner up to steal a very special suit they will need to recover it. The only problem: Simone’s mom has it so… it’s heist time!
Family Reunion
This show is about many things: the role of faith and belief in the world of A.I., about storytelling, about gender dynamics, about love, and, as in this episode, about the fraught and complex relationship between children and their parents. You can write, make movies or TV shows about any of those topics and it would be interesting. This show is trying to do all of it, and I mean ALL of it in 8 episodes. It is quite the ride, so let’s get into the episode…
The episode begins with a flashback (3 years ago). Simone is happy in the convent: idyllic music, making strawberry jam, and a lot of “praying” (which as we all know, in this show is code for something else) until she receives a visit by her mother, Celeste. Simone and her mother do not have a great relationship since Celeste almost killed her as a kid with an arrow when she was a child. Celeste still blames Simone for what happened (she disobeyed her, and actions have consequences), and Simone cannot fathom a parent so cruel that would do something like that (or at the very least did not feel sorry for what happened).
They both quickly find out that the visit has been orchestrated by Simone’s father, Monty, who wants to tell them that, in a few days, he is going to perform the Lazarus Shroud, a very dangerous trick that involves escaping from a tank of acid. At this point in the story, Celeste and Monty, are not together anymore. Celeste has gone on to found a software company responsible for the creation of Mrs. Davis, and Monty has continued to perform magic. For Monty, performing the Lazarus Shroud trick is a way to defy a technological future where an algorithm has all the answers, but also a future where there is not a place for magic, or even religion. Monty feels that this might be also a way to try to get Celeste’s back, to finally get her respect.
What’s going on with those tacos?
In the present day, Simone and Wiley go to visit Celeste at the offices of the security company she founded and where she created Mrs. Davis. They are both there to ask Celeste for the Lazarus Shroud suit her father used for the magic trick. While waiting for their meeting with her and to calm her down, Wiley suggests that Simone goes see Jay/Jesus. She visits him and Jay has prepared for her three tacos instead of the usual falafel. When Simone tells him about how Clara died and if he knew she had Clara’s liver, Jay says to her that he only knows what happens inside his metaphysical restaurant (and whatever people tell him in there). They also talk about Wiley, and Jay gives Simone a “hall pass” to sleep with him (technically God does). I am starting to think that there is a weird connection between Jay and Wiley. Wiley represents human love and Jesus divine love but, and I am just thinking here, they are both two sides of the same coin. The scene in the recap at the beginning of the episode where both, Wiley and Jesus kiss Simone the same way (touching her ear), seems to be a clue as to how those characters are connected. The tacos can also be seen as a food that Wiley would eat and not Simone. And Wiley seems so in love with Simone, so devoted, to the point that all he has done in his life is to impress her, to gain her love back after they broke up.
Mommy Issues
Once finally Celeste receives them, Simone asks for the Lazarus Shroud, which she says would allow her to get into the belly of the whale that ate it and retrieve it without being harmed by the acids in the whale’s stomach. Celeste thinks that this is moronic, but agrees to give her the shroud on one condition, that she tells her where her father is. After going into a secret room (and after a serious Star Wars trash compactor vibes scene), we discover that Simone’s dad apparently died in the most gruesome of ways while trying to perform the Lazarus Shroud trick with Simone’s present. Celeste thinks that the trick is not that he failed and died, but that he used it to disappear, that the trick had an audience of once: Celeste. She will give Simone the shroud for what she thinks is a delusional quest if she tells her where her father is, but Simone believes he is dead so, if she wants the suit there is only one way to get it… a heist!
It's Heist Time
The next scene is a funny take on all the heist movies we’ve all seen: the planning, the training… you get the picture. Simone and Wiley will infiltrate the office by getting into a “trojan couch” that will be delivered to Celeste’s office (Wiley had bled all over the original one so it would be replaced). While they are in the couch, we learn that at Monty’s funeral, Simone (already a nun) almost had sex with Wiley and this sent Wiley into a “tilt,” a poker term that implies a negative mindset that leads a person to make one bad decision after another. We also learn that her mother stormed into the funeral convinced that it was all a trick created to make Celeste mad. Celeste represents rationality, technology, she was the mind behind the Celeste/Monty duo, but for her magic was just a mechanical trick. With the Lazarus Shroud, Monty is trying to show Celeste that there is magic in the world, a trick that not even Celeste or Mrs. Davis can explain.
Once they get into the office, they break into the secret room only to find out that it’s all a trap set by Celeste. They are not really in her office but in some random warehouse. Celeste lectures Simone about how she has still not learned that “when you ignore boundaries, there will be consequences” (watching Celeste deliver a parenting lecture really made me feel better about my own parent skills). She asks Simone again about her father’s location. For Simone, her dad died tragically that day, for Celeste, it’s all a cruel trick. Celeste even has “evidence” of Monty’s lie when she shows Simone pictures of him at different ATMs after his supposed death. So, which is it? Is he dead or alive?
While Simone and Wiley wait, they almost had sex, and while they were at it, Simone goes to the metaphysical café. There she finds a random person who is also there. Apparently, some people, when they have sex, end up there. I think this is all about sex as a mystical experience and how humane love can also be divine. I also think it is making the connection between Jesus and Wiley more obvious.
Is Monty dead or alive?
Simone needs to find out if her father is dead or alive, so she uses a proxy to talk to Mrs. Davis (a mother with a baby which ties to the whole mother-daughter theme of the episode). Simone asks Mrs. Davis about the pictures and if they are real. Mrs. Davis tells her that Celeste had asked her already if the pictures were real and if Simone had helped her father fake his own death. And here comes an interesting reveal about the nature of Mrs. Davis: the algorithm confirmed Celeste’s suspicions not because they were true, but because “my users are not responsive to the truth, they are much more engaged when I tell them exactly what they want to hear.” So boom! Mrs. Davis is not all-knowing and all-powerful, is just another storyteller that tells people what they want to hear. Mrs. Davis also tells Simone that Celeste wants to believe that Monty is alive because she feels tremendous guilt for what happened to her (she almost killed her with an arrow, after all). According to Mrs. Davis “Celeste has constructed a narrative in which she (Simone) seeks revenge because it’s easier for her to view you as an adversary who wants to destroy her than as a daughter who she destroyed.” And here is where I still think that Simone is either dead or in a coma and that the whole story is created by Celeste/Mrs.Davis as a way to find redemption, a story that will allow Simone to not only find love (human love/divine love), but also find a way to forgive her mother for what happened to her.
The scene ends with Simone asking where her father is, to which the proxy says she cannot repeat what Mrs. Davis just said “it’s too fucked up.” It seems clear that the trick that Monty did was actually real, in the sense that he did kill himself to prove that there is still magic in the world, he did something so unbelievable to Celeste because it is actually real. He sacrificed himself for love and magic, something that a rational mind would never be able to understand.
The episode ends with Celeste going back to her office and finding that Simone has broken into the secret chamber. There, Simone “confesses” to Celeste. She tells her that she was her dad’s accomplice, that her father is still alive, and that she knows where she is. She will tell her only if she gives her the Lazarus Shroud suit and after they’ve completed the Grail mission. It’s probably all a lie, but, as we have learned from the Sisters of the Coin, you have to do “Whatever it Takes” in order to fulfill your mission. And that’s what she does. She lies to her mother in order to get the suit.
Final Thoughts
Under all of its crazy characters, and convoluted and silly plot, there really is a heart to the story. On the surface is a quest of the Holy Grail, but underneath it all, is about love and connection, human love, divine love, friendly love. As I said in other recaps, a serious tv show that does not take itself seriously at all.