Hulu’s Devs: Nick Offerman’s Forest Backstory & Real Plan Explained

Only two episodes in, FX on Hulu’s Devs has already hinted at the backstory for eccentric CEO Forest (Nick Offerman). The show is the newest project from science-fiction filmmaker Alex Garland, whose previous credits include the sci-fi thriller Ex Machina and the body horror/bio-thriller Annihilation. Devs is currently slated as an eight episode miniseries, with Garland writing and directing each installment.

The general premise of Devs follows a young computer engineer named Lilly as she begins to uncover a conspiracy revolving around a secret project being developed at her job, a quantum computing company known as Amaya. She’s turned onto the mystery after her boyfriend Sergei commits suicide, merely a day after he was promoted to the secretive research development team working on the project. As she keeps digging, Lilly discovers that Amaya is working with forces that threaten to transform their very understanding of free will and the universe.

Behind the terrifying Sillicon Valley stand-in corporation is Forest, an intense and enigmatic CEO. He eats raw arugula, speaks mostly in metaphysical theories, and is played with convincing presence by Nick Offerman, a role that’s a far cry from his typical Ron Swanson-type. However, Devs also sets up Forest as a nuanced figure, tortured by some trauma from his past that the show vaguely hints at. While Devs hasn’t expressly revealed his backstory just yet, there’s more than enough hints and teases in the first two episodes to paint a picture for viewers. Spoilers for the first two episodes of Devs to follow.

Forest’s Backstory Explained

Amaya is a massively intricate quantum computing organization, akin to the most successful corporations such as IBM or Intel. However, behind all these companies are eccentric CEO’s with cult-of-personality levels of dedication, and Amaya is no different. Forest’s employees look at him as an almost messianic genius, with an almost faith-like dedication to the program that they’re working on. However, in a literal sense, the only thing more massive than their dedication to him is the child-like statue of a young girl towering over the facility. It’s a very ominous image, one that hints heavily at the trauma Forest carries.

There’s also a scene in the second episode, in which Forest uses the projection screen that the Devs team has been working on to conjour up an image himself. The binary coding coalesces into a visual image, one of a young girl blowing bubbles while sitting on a bed. There’s a lot to suggest that Forest at one point had a young daughter that died, or was taken from him somehow, and explains the distant and lofty shell of a man left behind in Devs.

Forest’s True Plan Revealed

It’s heavily implied that the Devs team is hiding a quantum computer, one powerful enough to craft a string of code that can display the past and predict the future based on the theory of determinism (a theoretical concept that suggests the universe is defined by cause and effect). This is how Forest is able to look at the projection of what might be his daughter, as the computer can display the past. However, there are subsections of determinist theory that make room for a multiversal theory: that there are multiple universes, each one with its own string of cause and effect.

This is something Devs has already referenced in the first episode, in a conversation between Sergei, an artificial intelligence programmer, and Forest. While Forest says that he doesn’t believe in the multiversal theory, this could always be a cover on his part, and the Devs team’s quantum computing could all be leading to a breakthrough in multiversal theory, one that would allow Forest to be reunited with his daughter. While this is all speculation at the moment, Devs certainly seems to be implying something dark in their CEO’s past.

About The Author