Mrs Davis – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

Allison Treasures: A Southern California Story

We turn the calendar by three years as episode 6 of Mrs Davis begins. Simone still has her happy place at the plantation. Deep in prayer with “Jay”, a sister interrupts her. Simone’s mother, Celeste, is asking for her at the plantation. Simone is surprised to find her as Celeste shows her the letter she received.

The realization dawns upon Celeste and she calls out Montgomery, who jumps out from the vicinity. He is sufficiently well hidden under his nun’s get-up. He reveals himself to announce to his girls that he is performing the “Lazarus Shroud.”

Celeste does not believe him. She thinks he lacks the engineering know-how and nuance to pull it off. Monty goes one better by claiming he would be doing it with “Acid” to “save magic with one single trick.” He is fed up with Mrs Davis revealing all magician’s tricks to anyone who asks her.

It turns out that they are still married. Monty offers to give Celeste her wish, if she comes to the show, but she does not accept the offer and walks away.

Simone and Monty have a conversation. He spies on her every once in a while but doesn’t interact as Simone seemed too happy to be disturbed. She begs him not to do it. He does not need to “prove himself to a computer.” Well, what is Simone doing right now? It seems this is where her “beef” with Davis started. In the present, Simone and Wiley have come to Celeste’s firm for help. She is characteristically devilish and makes them wait a long time in the lobby before meeting them.

While waiting, Simone is encouraged by Wiley to “be fed” by Jay. She goes to His place but she is still worried about why Jay chose her. She asks him if it was because of her having part of Clara’s liver. He holds her hand and tries to distract her with Wiley.

He believes she still has feelings for Wiley and encourages her to act on them. If he cannot be monogamous, why should she be? Simone is confused but reiterates she will not sleep with Wiley again.

The meeting happens and Celeste finds their story hard to believe. Simone actually wants the Lazarus Shroud that Celeste has engineered. She will wear it to enter the whale’s stomach and protect herself from its stomach acid. Celeste agrees and takes her to a secret room. Next to the suit is a screen on which Monty’s last performance – Lazarus Shroud – is playing. We do not see the whole video but spot Simone in the crowd. Celeste still believes Monty escaped and is in hiding. She shows Simone an animated tape she made, titled “Monty Exposed.”

There, she shows how Monty placed a dummy into the Shroud and hid underneath the table. It turns out that Celeste does not actually believe Simone’s story of retrieving the Grail from a whale. She thinks it was Simone who helped Monty that fated day – since Azra tables do not open from the inside, someone must have opened it from the outside – and he has sent her to retrieve his “precious Shroud.”

Simone says it is a lie and Celeste denies any help to them. Wiley punches himself to make his nose bleed. It turns out that Simone, Wiley, and JQ had made a plan to steal the Shroud from the room. It is a heist for sure!

The plan goes something like this: Wiley will cut through the block of the wall to give Simone passage into the wall-crushing hallway. Then, she will use “The Constipator” to stop the walls and enter the passcode their supercomputer has generated with an 86% probability of being the right one.

JQ and the team will be in a flat next building and send a grappling hook onto Celeste’s firm’s building and extract Wiley and Simone. But why did Wiley have to “bleed” at all? The Trojan Horse. The team has already rerouted Celeste’s request for a new couch to themselves. They have made a couch with space to house Simone and Wiley, which is how they will get inside.

In a shockingly emotional moment, JQ opens up to Simone about his past. He was a successful poker player until Davis revealed all secrets to anyone with a phone. His life was destroyed and he tilted. Wiley tilted after Simone “did something” at Monty’s funeral. But now they have a purpose and they shall not stop until they destroy Davis.

Wiley and Simone are given sedatives for the trip to LA in the couch. They are transported back to Monty’s funeral – not literally but in their unconscious state.

Wiley shows up with a partner, Sandy, and Simone is overwhelmed with Monty’s passing. They get intimate in a closet together but Wiley stops it from getting any further. We also see Celeste struggling to come to terms with Monty’s passing by accusing strange men on stages of actually being Monty in disguise.

Anyway, the couple regain consciousness and execute their plan. When Wiley mentions rain on the radio to JQ, he is shocked to know there isn’t any. Celeste knew about their attempt and instead brought the couch into a simulated set.

She confronts Simone for wanting to steal from her to go after Monty. Celeste angrily throws photos from ATMs taken there days after Monty’s death clearly showing his face. It seems he is actually alive. Simone is shocked and hurt by the revelation.

Celeste also tells them she is destroying the Shroud in the morning. Simone vents her frustrations with Monty to Wiley. He still sees Simone as his “parakeet.” While doing so, Simone strips down to her underwear and says to Wiley, “I am grieving.” It is her indication to him to renew their spark, and Wiley picks up on it.

Simone is transported to the restaurant. She scampers for cover and sees a naked man drinking a martini. Jay cannot see or listen to Simone as the man explains that when someone is having “really good sex,” they are transported to this place.  Wiley stops when he sees Simone in that place. JQ is there anyway and takes them in his vehicle.

She asks JQ to stop at a diner and goes off on her own. She talks to Mrs Davis through a proxy and asks Her about the ATM photos. MD confirms Celeste came to Het to ask if Simone was involved in Monty faking his death. Shockingly, MD lied to Celeste that Simone was indeed involved, because “Her users are not responsive to the truth,” Celeste believed it because she thought since she hurt Simone; the nun was out to get revenge on her.

Celeste does not realize that she is guilty but feels it. It is easier for Celeste to view Simone as an adversary who wants to destroy her than as a daughter she destroyed. Simone asks MD to tell her Monty’s location in exchange for the Grail quest. The proxy takes out the earpiece and gives it to Simone as she feels it is too “messed up.”

She wears it, talks to MD, and a strange calm settles over her face. She goes to Celeste’s firm and into the secret room. Celeste confronts her for entering her sacred space and Simone uses MD’s tactic, lying to Celeste about being Monty’s accomplice.

She asks for the Shroud but Celeste says she will go with Simone since she doesn’t want her to run off with it. Simone agrees. She also asks Celeste how she learned about the heist. Celeste says Wiley had a tracker in his shoes and their scanners picked it up. But Wiley did not put it there; then who did?

The answer is Hans Ziegler, who walks to the Sisters of the Coins meeting and shows Mathilde the current location of the Grail – inside the whale.

The Episode Review

Mrs Davis continues its stellar cinematic appeal with yet another episode of intriguing and original content, along with complicated emotions. Despite manifesting the exposition part so well, Hernandez and Lindelof have also curated the narrative to its tipping point. The plot has progressed beautifully and the final two episodes are set to reveal most of the answers we want.

Episode 6 was rather conventional by the absurdist standard the show has set. Routine family dysfunction was hidden cleverly underneath absurdity. Celeste has made an alternate reality to cope with Monty’s passing, and her charade is not to expose him but to prevent herself from realizing he is actually gone. And that her daughter might never forgive her.

It is fear that drives Celeste to distance herself from her emotions. Such is the prowess of the writing, that a single line can level you. Mrs Davis uses its narrative shenanigans to hide the wonderful nuanced handling of complex human behaviour. While the packaging might be bonkers, inside, the contents are very much absorbing and human.