‘Mrs. Davis’ evaluation: Hog-riding nun battles evil AI in wild darkish comedy

I’m nonetheless not utterly certain what to make of “Mrs. Davis” — apart from it’s entertaining, with an offbeat, oft-absurdist humorousness and a storyline (and solid) which doesn’t take something too significantly.

It’s billed as a drama, however I’d quibble with that designation (OK, perhaps … however simply barely).

The eight-episode Peacock collection from Tara Hernandez (“The Huge Bang Concept”) and Damon Lindelof (“Misplaced,” “Watchmen”) is definitely related — positing a present-day world during which a nun, Simone (Betty Gilpin), is tasked with destroying an AI being alternately known as “The Algorithm,” “IT,” “HER” and, sure, “Mrs. Davis” that’s controlling the world’s inhabitants.

The plotline is in every single place however there are twists and turns round each bend and also you’d be well-advised to only go alongside for the pleasurable trip.

The collection opens in Paris in 1307 with that ever-elusive seek for the Holy Grail (“probably the most overrated MacGuffin ever,” a personality wryly observes later) earlier than fast-forwarding to the current (“Throughout the ocean, present-day. Not Paris, clearly,” onscreen textual content tells us).

Earlier than too lengthy we meet Simone, who, alongside along with her fellow nuns, jars strawberry preserves at Our Woman of the Immaculate Valley, their convent exterior of Reno, Nevada — oh, and he or she moonlights as a motorcycle-riding prankster who confides within the mysterious Jay (Andy McQueen) about some unusual pressure.

There follows a number of Keystone Kops-type chases with the acquainted wink-wink chase-scene tropes (i.e. all the pieces getting in the best way) as we meet the remainder of the solid (together with Margo Martindale and Jake McDorman) and attempt to suss out simply what-the-heck is happening right here — together with that gang of Germans with Nazi pasts who’re intent on making an attempt to pressure Simone to make them the Holy Grail. Or one thing.

Finally, we be taught that Simone’s actual identify is Lizzy, and that her father (David Arquette) was a magician at a Reno on line casino in 2001, helped by his nightly viewers plant (Lizzy); her mom, Celeste (Elizabeth Marvel), was a part of the act and far smarter than her manipulative husband.

Again within the current, Simone get reacquainted along with her childhood good friend and ex-boyfriend Wiley (McDorman), who’s main The Resistance, a gaggle of like-minded individuals (together with the requisite shirtless, rugged Aussie dude) who’re battling “The Algorithm”/”IT”/”HER”/”Mrs. Davis.”

I’d advocate not placing an excessive amount of thought into the labyrinthian (no less than to me) plotline however to take a seat again and benefit from the performances from a stable solid led by Gilpin (“Glow”), who can fireplace off a snarky response or one-liner with one of the best of them and appears to be having the time of her life.

I actually just like the present’s sense of enjoyable and its cartoonish violence — a mix of “Monty Python’s The Lifetime of Brian” and “The Boys,” full with plenty of blood, many severed limbs, decapitations and squishy sound results.

That is one bike-riding nun who doesn’t fiddle.

“Mrs. Davis” premieres April 20 on Peacock.