Mrs. Davis: The Holy Grail Commercial Explained

Broadcast television indeed has a structure and a form. But streaming television? Not so much. By virtue of its status on Peacock’s servers, Mrs. Davis is able to play around with the limits of episodic storytelling as it pleases. After all, it’s not like Mrs. Davis has to concern itself with advertiser-mandated commercial breaks!

As it turns out, Mrs. Davis absolutely does have to consider advertisements. We’re not just talking about the fact that each episode is interrupted by one commercial interlude on Peacock’s lesser “Premium” subscription tier (annoyingly, it’s “Premium Plus” that comes without commercials.” No, we’re referring to the fact that, unbeknownst to all, Mrs. Davis‘s very first scene has now been confirmed to be an in-universe television ad…and an intended Super Bowl ad at that.

If you don’t quite recall the details of Mrs. Davis‘s first scene at the start of episode 1, we recommend going back to rewatch it with fresh eyes now that you’ve presumably watched the revealing episode 5. Just as a brief refresher though: the cold open of the series purports to take place in the past – in Paris on Friday the 13th of October in the year 1307 to be precise.

There we see the last remaining members of the Knights Templar get burned at the stake for their crimes against the faith by the order of the king. The following morning, a young woman retrieves one of the knight’s charred boots from the ashes. When she returns to her convent of like-minded women, soldiers of the king arrive shortly thereafter and storm the place, looking for the Holy Grail.

What follows can only be described as an orgy of bloody violence. Mens heads are lopped off like piñatas. One woman is stabbed through the gut and uses the pointy end of the sword sticking out from her belly to pierce another guy through the face. After the violence dies down, only our presumed protagonist is left standing and she takes off with Holy Grail and recovered boot.

As introductions go, this was a fairly appropriate one for Mrs. Davis. The cartoonish nature of the violence fits so well into the show’s mish-mash of comedic and dramatic tones that one would never have considered that it was all artificial. That is until the ending of episode 4 casts it all into doubt. Pope Leo XI (Roberto Mateos) shares with our hero Simone (Betty Gilpin) a grainy VHS depiction of the opening scene viewers saw three episodes ago.

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