Streaming the Future: Agency in Westworld & Devs

2045 is the year Ray Kurzweil anticipated in The Singularity is Near as the turning point
of humanity, when the Singularity occurs, and technological progress is said to irreversibly
change our lives. At our current point in time we are far from this projection, but the anxiety of
what is to come is ever-present. The timeline proposed by Kurzweil was born from his own
accelerationist sentiment, but the fascination for the future and its aesthetics was a vital
component of human culture long before the Singularity was envisioned. From the moment
fiction began exploring coming scenarios, rather than what has already passed, the projections
became endless.

In March 2020, the third season of Westworld and Alex Garland’s miniseries Devs
debuted on their respective platforms, each facing certain expectations: this season of Westworld
came after HBO’s latest productions had an excellent performance streak (Watchmen,
Chernobyl, Euphoria or His Dark Materials are proof enough) and had to prove that it will not
turn into a Game of Thrones-level disappointment, while Devs is Garland’s first venture into the
TV format, making fans curious whether he will be able to adapt to the different medium well
enough. The two had different target audiences, with one closer to arthouse while the other
trying hard to be enjoyable for everyone, yet they share neighboring spots on HBOGO’s Sci-Fi
series list (Devs was originally released on Hulu, but became available in Europe through HBO),
accessible for everyone’s desires at any time they want. Besides airing in the same time frame
and both wearing the Sci-Fi badge, the two TV shows managed to bring into the discussion one
central subject that guides their opposite plots: is free will possible?

(Warning: the rest of this article contains mild spoilers)

After staging AI mayhem two years ago, Season 3 of Westworld brought the action out of
the park and into the human world, specifically in Los Angeles, 2058. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa
Joy construct a polished and beautiful image of the future with the intention of diverging from
the vaporwave aesthetics of old school science fiction cinema (see Akira, Blade Runner) and
propose instead the Singaporean skylines, La Fabrica’s concrete brutalism and paper-thin
metallic structures as the upper-class future haven, all mixed into a sleek outlook of the next
decades, fitting for the optimistic expectations we once had. The already-wonderful cast is joined
by Aaron Paul and Vincent Cassel, bringing together all the right elements for a good season of
television that would have made Westworld depart from its “remake of an obscure 70’s film”
premise. Instead, viewers were treated with the best example of bad storytelling and eyeroll-
inducing lines that no excellent delivery would save. The pacing is slow at first, and then
accelerates until the engines crash, the characters’ motives are never explained by the logic of the
show and Aaron Paul talks as if he’d been smoking heavily for the last fifty years. Where the
show fails is not in plot itself, but in its exposition: in an attempt to appear complicated and
shock their viewers with plot twists and easter eggs, Nolan and Joy have forgotten how to tell a
coherent story or build a believable character.

Still, as a collection of would-have-beens, Westworld’s last season has some positive

highlights, such as Ramin Djawadi’s beautiful piano tracks and the excellent choice of blasting
Death Grips in multiple scenes, or the use of mechatronics outside the context of a Michael Bay
film. The discussions proposed by the narrative are also relevant to how we, as a species,
approach the technological other and also to how media redefines cinematic clichés: the robot
that tries to annihilate humanity, the all-powerful supercomputer that controls our lives, the
simple man who is supposed to free the masses from their chains and help them achieve true
freedom. While in the previous seasons only androids had their agency contested, this time it was
humans who were shown that they too belonged to a loop, a prewritten story of their life. Yet,
these threads are left hanging in favor of the exaggerated spectacle that the show became.

Alex Garland’s return on screen, Devs, is an inquisitive look into Silicon Valley culture
and the extents some people go to heal their traumas. Centered around a tech company and its
secretive development department, the show stars Sonoya Mizuno and Nick Offerman in the
leading roles, supported by Alison Pill, Cailee Spaeny, Karl Glusman and Stephen McKinley
Henderson. Sonoya seems to be a favorite of Garland, appearing in his last two feature films as
supporting character, yet her acting in Devs does not convince her audience; soon after the
camera moves on her, you can’t tell whether she’s portraying millennial detachment or is just
unfit for this role, almost second guessing the tone of each line she delivers. Yet, where the show
loses the gamble with Sonoya’s performance, it also wins with Offerman’s delivery of a guilt-
ridden widow who tries to reconnect (and effectively revive) with his dead daughter, and show-
stealer Alison Pill, whose performance as tech genius and apparent sociopath Katie brought
warmth back into the narrative. Although having a lackluster season finale, Devs tied all its
frayed knots back together, and losing itself for only just a bit into Garland’s wonderful visual
storytelling.

Devs ponders upon the belief in determinism: how much of our choices are made by us,
how much is just part of causality and if we will ever be able to escape this loop. Besides this, it
proposes the idea that the world might function after the multiverse system – infinite versions of
us, changed by only a strand of hair or, why not, completely different. There is a lingering
exceptionalism around the revelations that occur inside the tech company, Amaya, followed by
the figure of the enlightened tech guru, all these leading to one final question: if one can, does it
mean one should?

The major technological element in Devs is the supercomputer at the heart of Amaya that
processes the information from the developers and coders and transposes it into projections,
allowing for their discoveries to take place. It is silent in its labour, uncredited yet still looming
over those that understand its protocols. Westworld raises the bar in this department, portraying
multiple forms of the technological other – the android (hosts, in their taxonomy), the
supercomputer, the device-like robot – without trying to offer their dignity a human face. The
leading hosts have a human-like appearance, but that comes second to their silicone-based
nature.

As it seems, the loop is inescapable in both this show and Westworld, the difference
being in how the two approach the issue – in the one season that is supposed to be human-
centric, what Westworld lacks is exactly humanity and its dreadful reality. Aaron Paul’s
character, Caleb, starts as the everyman of the show, guided by Dolores through the smoke
screen, only to turn by the end into a third-rate Tyler Durden without the Gen X angst.
Conversely, Devs’ Stephen McKinley Henderson submits to cause and effect and embraces its
implications, admitting, after committing a heinous crime, that he shouldn’t be blamed – it was,
after all, predetermined. For the characters in Devs, the realization that their lives are
predetermined is not linked to an overpowering consumerist system, but by the laws of the
universe – one can be swayed, the other not.

Jessica Brenda