Critic Reviews

“Mrs. Davis” is undisciplined, rather beautiful, seedy, surprisingly profound and, above all, fun. I can’t recommend it enough.

The rare show that feels inscrutable at first and eventually seduces you to such an intense degree that you would eagerly die on the nearest available hill defending it.

Bizarre, shaggy, funny, and surprisingly profound, Mrs. Davis isn’t a show so much to be described as experienced.

“Mrs. Davis” earns your attention, and if it occasionally floods the zone with an abundance of imagination, a surfeit sure beats a deficit when it comes to new ideas in today’s TV. Even better, the limited series offers answers and closure.

Mrs. Davis, an exhilaratingly weird new Peacock series from Tara Hernandez (The Big Bang Theory) and Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers), dares you to doubt it. It dances over the line of acceptable foolishness; a few times in the early episodes, it nearly loses you only so it can win you back. What makes it work is its total commitment, which starts with its lead.

There are impressive performances all around, but Gilpin’s is something beyond that; she’s utterly natural and present in every moment of a role that asks much of her. ... “Mrs. Davis” is complicated, but neatly organized. And the emotional arc is always intelligible, and very, very satisfying.

Despite what are, objectively, a lot of weird and wild storytelling decisions, there’s something incredibly compelling—dare I say, miraculous?—about the way that what initially seem like unconnected, disparate pieces ultimately fit together.

A true original that’s completely strange, “Mrs. Davis” is a breath of fresh air in a reboot-happy medium.

Mrs. Davis, refreshingly, isn't operating on the same level as any other show out there. In fact, it's playing in a league all its own. The only potential drawback to that is whether audiences will be able to meet it where it is, because, for better or for worse, it's a series that doesn't readily offer up answers for anything, at least not right away.

Mrs. Davis is big, bold, and loud in both its ideas and its execution, with some pretty stunning set-pieces across its eight-episode run. While there’s a fair bit of chaos in the mix, and maybe a sense that the show could have edited out one or two elements for greater cohesion, there’s a lot of joy to be found in the mess.