“We were wrong. We had it all wrong.”
That seems to be the overlying theme of this entire episode. Division 3 thought they could contain David. Syd thought she would be incapable of human contact or intimacy for the rest of her life. Everyone at Summerland thought that David was simply just a powerful mutant. And David, well, he thought he knew who his biological parents were.
They were, all of them, wrong.
The Episode
Everything we’ve been told so far has been challenged. For example, last episode, we learned that David’s childhood dog, King, who has been somewhat of a constant in the show so far…was never actually real. Now, we know that David’s friend, Lenny, to others was his friend Benny. David is an unreliable narrator to say the least, we have figured this out by now.
However, the David we see in this episode is quite different than the David we’ve seen so far, for a number of reasons. For one, this is the first time we see him using his powers in a controlled environment. Instead of asking ‘what’s going on,’ or ‘how am I doing this,’ he’s using his abilities to work for him — which is a very important stage in the life of anyone who has any sort of superhuman ability. Especially for someone as powerful and potentially dangerous as David. But instead, he uses his newfound control to create a space in his mind for him and Syd, a place where they can touch, a place where they can explore the intimacy they cannot have in real life.
But there’s a downside to this, too. Because he feels more in control, David is less patient with Dr. Bird, concerning his sister. To me, their relationship is tense at best. We know perfectly well that David has met Melanie’s husband in the astral plane. And they seem to be treading carefully around each other, because they each want something. David wants his sister. Melanie wants her husband, but she needs David to get him back. That puts her at somewhat of a disadvantage — because he knows this very well.
David does manage to rescue his sister, Amy, although not without a scarily high body count. In fact, only The Eye survives the attack on Division 3. Bodies are ripped apart, and from the security cameras, we can see how easily David was able to tear these people to shreds. They clearly underestimated his power — a fatal mistake. They’d thought they were ready for him, but clearly they were not.
And aside from that, one interesting tidbit learned was that…well, David is adopted. His sister had known all that time, and had never once told him — until now.
The most important thing, though…is the realisation of what David is. What he really is, not merely what they guessed he was. A powerful psychic, yes, of course — he is that, but he is not just that. He isn’t just David. He’s also Lenny. Benny. King. Every person he’s imagined is a part of him, with their own abilities and their own power. And they’re all inside of him. Even that monster, that parasite, that’s infecting him. That’s one part that’s still unclear, at least to me — but we have three episodes left to learn. I’m guessing we won’t even completely understand it by the end.
The Mythos
Okay, so. I’m not exactly a big comic-reader, right?
But when I was doing research on Professor Charles Xavier for a project of mine, I came across the character of David Haller, who is, for all intents and purposes, the biological son of the Professor. So that fits in with the whole adoption thing — although, admittedly, the story is somewhat different. It’s a curious thing — so if his adopted father’s surname was Haller, and not his mother’s as it was in comic canon, who is David’s biological mother? Food for thought.
The second thing is, well, what about David’s powers? Well, it’s shaping up to be very similar to comic canon. Something he can do is absorb the entities of others — well, we’ve seen him do that, haven’t we? Especially with Lenny. Or at least, his perception of who Lenny is. He will only gain more, and with it, he will gain more abilities from those other personalities he takes. Makes sense why he’s called Legion, right?
“My name is Legion, for we are many!”
These are my questions and comments, but let us know yours!
Legion airs at 10PM ET/PT on FX.