Damon Lindelof Wants Mrs. Davis To Be 'Bonkers' Escapism For Our Post-Pandemic World
Savvy TV viewers wanting something out of the ordinary would do well to check out Peacock's "Mrs. Davis." It's about as far out in left field as you can get as a nun named Simone (Betty Gilpin) receives a task from an artificial intelligence known as Mrs. Davis. And that task is to acquire the Holy Grail. It's a unique intersection of faith, technology, and comedy in a way that could only come from the mind of Damon Lindelof.
Seeing how much of the plot deals with A.I., it would be easy to assume that the show has a lot to say about modern times and that the purpose is to get people thinking about how they utilize technology in their daily lives. That's certainly one way of viewing the show, but Lindelof also wants people to forget their troubles while watching it. He wants to go all in on absurdity, as he mentioned in an interview with Collider, "I also think that bonkers is a great adjective, but not everybody does. If someone asks, 'How was that party last night?,' and you go, 'Bonkers,' the one thing that is almost guaranteed is that there's gonna be follow up. You'd be like, 'Okay, bonkers how?'"
It's clear Lindelof didn't want to make something people would forget about five minutes after an episode ends. They took the full measure to get people out of their post-pandemic slump.
Damon Lindelof wanted a balance between wacky and universal
It goes without saying that the past few years haven't been easy for everyone. The pandemic sent everyone into lockdown, and despite protections going away, the virus is still out there mutating and getting people sick. There's also been political and economic turmoil, and while "Mrs. Davis" isn't ignorant of real-life issues, it's clear Damon Lindelof wanted something that people could watch to forget about the real world for a little bit. Escapism was definitely the name of the game when it came to crafting the Peacock series, as Lindelof went on to say, "I definitely feel like we were needing some bonkers energy in our lives. We were all trapped in our houses and trying to figure out when [the pandemic] was gonna end, and the show really became an escape mechanism."
He went on to describe the balancing act of juxtaposing weirdness with sincerity for "Mrs. Davis." Plenty of shows are absurd, but too much of that threatens to take away any true meaning. Lindelof wanted both in this series, so he concluded, "The great thing about storytelling is escapism, but at the same time, it's reflecting a fundamental truth about what it means to be alive, at any given time. Hopefully, that's universal and there are emotional things that you can latch onto, otherwise you're just being wacky for wacky's sake, and people aren't gonna watch that. There has to be something to sink your teeth into, as it were."
As seen in the episodes of "Mrs. Davis" released so far, there's plenty of weird stuff going on. However, there are emotional truths as viewers learn more about Simone and her quest for the Grail. "Mrs. Davis" airs new episodes every Thursday on Peacock until the Season 1 finale on May 18.