Legion, Season 2, Episode 1: Chapter 9
I had wanted to wait until the entire season of Legion's second outing is available before watching it, which is why it took some time for me to get this one out. It's not a show for everyone, because of its psychedelic nature and its unconventional 'mind-fuck' style of storytelling, but it's been a personal favourite of mine as to just how different a superhero-sci-fi story can be done. In the last few moments of the first season of Legion, Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King, has escaped with Oliver Bird's body in tow. Oh, and some weird-ass floating Pokeball kidnaps David Haller.
This episode starts off nearly a year after season one ended, and we're sort of thrown into this brand new setting alongside David himself. The way that the episode is framed and told is pretty awesomely done as both David and the audience is thrown into this disorienting mix. The last thing that David (and us, the audience) remembered is that paragraph above, and at the beginning of this episode, he's brought back. There are flashes of disconcerting images -- trees, dancing in a club, et cetera... and to David, it's only been a day, whereas for the rest of the cast it's been nearly a year.
And the first few scenes involves David's confusion as to what's going on. Apparently, in his absence, the mutants of Summerland and the shifty government people have formed an alliance, Division Three, which is shown to us in a neat little surreal infographic. One of their leaders is Admiral Fukuyama, a strange dude who keeps his head in a basket-like monk helmet, and uses three bearded ladies who speak in a singsong voice to talk to people. They're hunting the Shadow King, who, in turn, has been causing mass paralysis among humans, leaving them stationary status that do nothing but chatter their teeth. There are a lot of times where the intercom speaks of 'new symptoms' that are never fully explained beyond the implication that they are part of whatever weird malaise-plague that the Shadow King brings around with him, known as The Catalyst.
(The teeth-chattering thing is such a simple yet horrifying practical effect to add a degree of horror to this whole thing)
As David tries to walk around the base and meet his old friends -- Ptomony, Sid, the Loudermilks, Clark the scar-faced agent -- he keeps telling them that he doesn't remember anything from his missing year other than images. But we, the audience, are treated to at least a flashback to the vision David saw in the sphere, where through a weird bit of glow-stick charades, what appears to be a future version of Syd tells David to help Amahl Farouk find his body... the exact opposite of Division Three's mission statement, which is to prevent Farouk from returning to his body.
We get a bunch of other weird scenes, like "Lenny" and Oliver in a pool, or the disconcertingly long dance sequence near the end of the episode, and some hints that David might not be himself. And honestly? At this point, there is no real way to know if David's just getting some memory loss and is genuinely happy to see everyone again, or if he's in league with the Shadow King or have some sort of ulterior motive, and the happy-go-lucky stuff could've been a facade. Something that is probably meant to be symbolized by the parable of Chinese poet Zhuang Zi dreaming about butterflies (is Zhuang Zi a butterfly that dreams he is Zhuang Zi, or the other way around?) as well as the gloriously weird imagery of eggs, chickens, ideas and psychosis. Again, Legion builds up on tropes of unreliable narrators and psychedelic imagery, twisting them into a weirdly engaging episode.
And while David is filled with tropes of unreliable narrators and amnesia, the other characters are still equally interesting. Syd is a bit more assertive, for no small part due to Melanie's mentoring about how to survive when seemingly 'abandoned' by a heroic man. The Loudermilks, Ptonomy and Agent Clark have all settled in very well into their roles in Division Three. Melanie, meanwhile, is a wreck, remaining mostly in her room and inhaling the weird hallucinogenic smoke-drug that Lenny and David used in the past from a very, very fancy elephant inhaler thing as she hallucinates and rambles about how Oliver leaving her is some passive-aggressive way to control her.
Ultimately, this is a pretty crazy episode as usual, and while Legion is clearly not for everybody due to its... strange and unconventional storytelling methods, it's definitely a blast to watch if you're in the mood for some mindfuckery.
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