Devs

Alex Garland, the filmmaker behind Ex Machina and Annihilation, made his television debut with this eight-part miniseries for FX on Hulu. Devs follows Lily Chan, a software engineer at a mysterious quantum computing company called Amaya, whose boyfriend Sergei dies under suspicious circumstances shortly after being promoted to a top-secret division known as Devs. What starts as a personal investigation spirals into a philosophical thriller about determinism, free will, and the nature of reality itself.

Shot in and around San Francisco and Seattle, the series uses brutalist architecture and cold, sterile interiors to mirror the emotional distance of its characters. Nick Offerman plays Forest, the company's enigmatic CEO, in a performance far removed from his comedic roles. Sonoya Mizuno carries the show as Lily, a woman whose grief and determination drive her into increasingly dangerous territory. The supporting cast includes Cailee Spaeny as Amaya's unsettling security chief, Jena Malone as a Devs insider, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as a veteran engineer.

The score, composed by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury (who also scored Ex Machina), layers electronic textures and choral samples to create an atmosphere of dread and wonder. The visual effects, particularly the depictions of the Devs machine's simulations, were widely praised for their originality. Garland has said the project was born from his long-standing interest in quantum mechanics and the philosophical problem of free will.[edit]

Lily Chan works as a software engineer at Amaya, a quantum computing company nestled in the hills of Silicon Valley. Her boyfriend Sergei, also an employee, gets promoted to the company's secretive Devs division. The night of his promotion, he dies by suicide in a forest near the campus. Lily does not believe the official story. She begins digging into Sergei's last days, discovering he had become increasingly anxious and paranoid after glimpsing something inside Devs.

Lily's investigation brings her into conflict with Kenton, Amaya's cold and menacing head of security. She also connects with Katie, a senior Devs researcher who seems sympathetic but may have her own agenda. Anton, a former colleague of Sergei's, warns Lily that Devs is not what it appears to be. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal Forest's backstory: his young daughter Amy died from a rare illness, and his wife later took her own life. This tragedy drives Forest's obsession with the Devs project.

As Lily gets closer to the truth, she discovers that Devs is not simply a quantum computer for prediction. It can simulate the entire universe with perfect accuracy, replaying any moment from the past or future. This means every human action is predetermined, a fact that Sergei could not accept. Lily realizes that her own actions, including her investigation, may have been foreseen by the machine. The series builds to a confrontation at the Devs facility, where Lily must decide whether to fight against fate or embrace it.[edit]