Mrs. Davis is one of the smartest, weirdest new shows around

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff

Among his famous “Three Laws,” iconic science-fiction author and thinker Arthur C.Clarke included the aphorism, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That bit of wisdom sprang front-and-center into my mind within the first half of Episode 1 in the Peacock streaming series Mrs. Davis, which arrays religion, magic and artificial intelligence in conflict — that is, three forms of narrative power vying for belief, beguilement or both, but mostly control — in a show that’s so bizarre, surreal, funny, bloody and plain smart that I was immediately hooked.

Whew. Summarizing this show is the definition of a fool’s errand.

For instance, in the first five minutes or so, a bunch of Knights Templar are burned at the stake in 14th-century Paris, followed by a gore-spattered sword battle between a group of nuns and some other French knights, during which it’s revealed that the nuns have been guarding the Holy Grail. The last-standing nun is then to take it “across the sea” to keep it safe.

Smash cut to a deserted tropical island in the present day, where a bearded castaway named Arthur Schroedinger and his cat (nudge, nudge) are preparing to launch a DIY rocket flare, and have apparently been using the Grail as a mortar to grind up cat turds and tree bark to make gunpowder. The flare works, calling in a passing freighter that picks him up.

Aboard the ship, Schroedinger learns that he’s been gone for 10 years and, in that time, a global artificial intelligence algorithm has conquered humanity, ending all conflict, solving environmental crises and generally giving everyone everything they could ever want.

The ship’s captain asks Schroedinger if

Peacock streaming series contemplates religion, magic and artificial intelligence

there’s anything he wants, and hands over the red earbud she’s been wearing to communicate with the A.I.

Another smash cut catapults us to a lonely highway in the desert outside Reno, Nev., where a prostitute and her John are racing through the night en route to their rendezvous. Things take a horrifying turn — literally — when a cow pops up in the middle of the road, causing a collision with a billboard that results in the prostitute’s head being lopped off in an outrageous geyser of blood.

As the client freaks out, and the cops show up seemingly from out of nowhere, a nun in full blue habit rides out from the darkness on a white horse and reveals in short order that the whole thing is a con — the prostitute is alive in the trunk (the headless body was a dummy) and the cops are her accomplices. Are they crooks? Not exactly. As the nun, named Simone, says with obvious disgust, they’re magicians

I’m not kidding, all of this occurs in the first handful of scenes — before we learn that Simone lives in a nunnery in the Nevada wasteland and is the last person on Earth who has rejected the A.I., which everyone refers to as “she” or “her,” but which Simone is emphatic is an “it.”

To call this a brilliant setup doesn’t do Mrs. Davis justice, as it teases, satirizes and explores some of the most fundamental questions we have regarding what to believe, whether to believe it and just how much free will we really have.

Even more enticing is the philosophical argument unpinning much of the conflict in the show, which considers to what extent religion, magic and A.I. are all simply algorithms of varying complexity.

Religion, after all, is an information system based on the creation of “truth” via textual transmission — itself a technology, albeit ancient — and the consumption of which results in forming the basis for indi- viduals’ beliefs and actions. Likewise, magic is an information system based on visual transmission, tricking (or forcing) individuals’ preconceptions into believing “truth” that isn’t “true.” Finally, A.I. combines a vast range of information types into systems that create and replicate whole edifices of “truth” independent of individuals’ control. Regardless, as any of these information systems become sufficiently advanced, they start to look a lot like magic.

It’s a mind-bender but one that we most desperately need to contemplate — all the better that we may do so in Mrs. Davis at the elbow of a swashbuckling nun.

By Marcia Pilgeram Reader Columnist

Once spring had finally sprung, I walked around the yard to see how my perennials fared through the crazy winter (and aborted attempts at spring). I belong to a North Idaho gardens Facebook group (why I don’t know — the only bit of green thumb I possess is when some residual avocado is caught under my nail).

Sadly, the young clematis I bought to replace the more than 20-year-old one that passed a couple years ago did not make it. And oddly, my years-old, hardy parsley does not appear to have survived winter either The pride of my yard, a pair of giant rhododendrons offering gorgeous hot pink flowers on either side of my front porch, is also nothing to brag about this season.

However, I took much comfort when I rounded the corner to the shady side of my yard, and there — as always — my mother’s rhubarb plant was thriving. I look forward to spotting those tiny bright buds bursting through the earth every year. Little brings me greater joy than this connection to memories of my longpassed mother, Fern.

I’ve dug it up and hauled it westward more than once, replanting it throughout the many seasons of my life. Over the years, I’ve also dug up young buds to ship to family and friends, and Fern’s mother plant seems to thrive wherever it resides. I have a couple other rhubarb plants that I purchased, but they must not feel the same connection to me, producing more leaves than stalks, and they pale compared to the vibrant pink stalks of Mom’s plant.

Whenever I pull a young stalk