'Davey & Jonesie's Locker' Tackles The Difficulties Of High School Through The Multiverse

By Jen Maravegias | TV | April 15, 2024 |

By Jen Maravegias | TV | April 15, 2024 |

Hulu’s new series, Davey & Jonesie’s Locker, doesn’t need multiple “phases” and a dozen movies to explain The Multiverse. It doesn’t need pim particles or special suits, either. In season one of the 10-episode show, traveling The Multiverse is as easy as stepping into your messy high school locker with your best friend.

There is some wibbly-wobbly “science” to it. But Davey & Jonesie’s Locker is a straightforward YA comedy about two friends (Jaelynn Thora Brooks and Veronika Slowikowska) bumbling through the multiverse, getting into “major danger” while searching for the way home. And they have to avoid the multiversal authorities as they do it. If any of that sounds familiar, it should. The series effectively makes use of every sci-fi/fantasy trope involving time, space, or interdimensional travel that has come before it. There are a lot of effects and sets that look familiar too.

The end credits sequence is absolutely the Tardis tunnel, and you will never convince me otherwise.

The lack of pretense and simplicity of premise is either refreshing or dumb, your mileage may vary. I watched most of the series thinking it was pretty dumb. In episode eight, one of the Mr. Schneider (Dan Beirne) variants tells the pair of travelers, “Only a sad man wouldn’t be totally enamored by the hijinx you’ve been up to.” This made me realize I had been watching the show all wrong because their hijinx are charming! It’s not a show striving for gravitas. It unself-consciously leans into silliness and goofball-ism at every turn. We’ve been conditioned to believe that interdimensional travel should be a serious thing about saving the world. But sometimes it’s just about hanging out with your bestie in a bunch of alternate dimensions.

There’s a world where everything is normal, but no one is allowed to sing or something terrible will happen (spoilers, sweetie.) There’s a world where oranges are sentient. In one world, there are human-sized lobsters in charge. One that’s a lot like Hunger Games, one that is a mashup of Riverdale and Twilight. In one universe, the high school building is the same but everyone lives like they are avatars in The Oregon Trail. The only constant is that the science teacher, Mr. Schneider, exists, in some form or another (puppet, dog, Shakespearean character, etc…) in every ‘verse and they’re all working to get Davey and Jonesie back home.

The Mr. Schneiders are also working to help Davey and Jonesie evade the multiversal authority of The Management Organization of the Multiverse (MOM) which employs Delinquent Acquisition Deputies (DADs) to maintain order across the multiverse. Anyone who runs afoul of MOM may be subject to being GRANDMA’d (Genetically Restructured As a Nautically Diminished Molecular Abnormality) which means being turned into a sea cucumber. There’s also the Detention Dimension where you can be forced to repeat the 10th grade for thousands of years. These ridiculous acronyms cut to the heart of the show though. High School anxieties about making mistakes, lack of acceptance, and the changes that come to friendships as you grow up and grow out of them.

Davey and Jonesie begin the series afraid that the school principal will put them in separate classes as a cure for their perceived co-dependence on each other. They’re also afraid they’ve finally, completely alienated themselves from their classmates after a stupid stunt gone wrong during a school dance. During their inter-dimensional travels, they’re told over and over again “You don’t belong here,” vocalizing every teenager’s greatest fear, and the thing they believe the most about themselves deep down inside. By the last episode their friendship has found new footing and they have a better understanding of their universe and their place within it.

Ultimately, Davey & Jonesie’s Locker doesn’t have much to offer adults besides a few laughs and low-fi special effects. That isn’t nothing. It’s a low-conflict show and sometimes we all need that. The kids and young adults in your house with an affinity for the whimsical and/or a penchant for sketch comedy and improv will enjoy it. The characters are diverse and speak fluent Gen Z/Alpha across all of the universes. The whole thing is ridiculous in a way that seems to speak to The Kids these days.