Mrs. Davis Just Proved Why Damon Lindelof Should Have Written Star Wars
The Peacock series celebrates Star Wars day with its very own homage to one of the most famous scenes.
May the fourth be with you! May 4 is a day usually filled with reflections, trilogy binges, and lots of memes. But on Mrs. Davis, there’s a different sci-fi element on everyone’s lips — a world-conquering AI. In Episode 6, now streaming on Peacock, Sister Simone’s quest for the holy grail sends her to the one place she dreads — her mother’s new security company.
But while she’s there, she discovers a terrifying and eerily familiar trap that not only adds an awesome pop culture reference to the series, but shows why the series’ co-creator Damon Lindelof shouldn’t have been “asked to leave” a future Star Wars movie.
When Simone and Wiley visit Celeste at her new company, they have one goal: to find the Lazarus Shroud, the acid-proof suit Simone’s father (supposedly) died in. But Celeste is a security maven, so it’s not going to be easy.
Celeste and Simone look into the entry to her vault.
Armed with a hidden camera in her cross, Simone scopes out the scene. There’s a hidden compartment behind a bookcase, triggered when the book Celeste read to Simone as a kid is tilted. (It’s Atlas Shrugged — Celeste is not exactly Mom of the Year.) Behind that is a hallway with walls that slowly close in while Celeste types in her (extremely long) password, which then finally leads to the vault.
When Simone and Wiley take that information back to the Resistance, Wiley immediately describes the compacting hallway as what it is — the trash compactor from Star Wars. “Call it the trash compactor, 'cause your moms ripped them from Star Wars,” he says. “My mom has never seen Star Wars,” Simone replies. When a Resistance member claims that everyone’s seen Star Wars, Simone admits she’s never seen it either.
While Simone uses a tool called “The Constipator” to hold open the hallway, Leia and Han used something similar in A New Hope.
It’s a throwaway piece of dialogue at first glance, but knowing who is behind these scripts reveals an interesting parallel. Mrs. Davis co-creator Damon Lindelof recently was attached to write a script for a future Star Wars movie, but left the project soon after, saying he was “asked to leave.”
He’s a writer who finds a way to shoehorn Star Wars into a completely unrelated series and dedicate a whole scene to Simone being trapped in what is essentially the most beloved trap in all of Star Wars — on May 4th of all days. Why is his work not acceptable for Star Wars’ future?
Lindelof has said that he’s willing to get back in line and try to write for the franchise again. Maybe this episode will be proof enough that he deserves it.
