Legion 1.07 Review
So we’re really coming down to it now. An episode away from the finale and it seems that most of my predictions are coming true — although not exactly in the way I expected. Firstly, the show is making a lot more sense, even if there’s still some of that ‘multiple dimensions of the mind’ playing happening. I mean, David’s a mutant with an amazingly powerful psychic ability, so that’s to be expected and the multiple levels of reality are beginning to make a whole lot more sense.
The Episode
Okay, first off, we’ve been inside David’s mind for a whole episode already. He stopped time and sent Syd, as well as himself, into the safe space that he’d created in his mind for them to be together. (Despite the fact that David’s mind is probably the least safest place in the entire world, given the parasite that’s infecting him. But in his defense, he didn’t know that yet.) They’re basically seconds away from being shot and any attempt to move them to a safer space has been futile. It’s insinuated that the only person who can save them is David, and his mind, his consciousness, has been locked away.
That leads me to what I think is the most intriguing thing we’ve seen so far. David spends a good portion of the episode talking to, well, essentially, himself. Or, as he says, the more rational part of him. (Of course, the more rational part of him has a British accent — Dan Stevens’ real accent, by the way.) So David imagines them into a classroom with a chalkboard…and finally, we get to hear the story. His father was a powerful mutant, presumably with psychic abilities, like David himself. The monster — who we now know is the Shadow King — had been an enemy who his father (still unnamed) had vanquished. The Shadow King took over David as revenge against David’s father — not only revenge but he did it so the Shadow King could come back to his own full strength.
(For me, the most amusing thing was that unintentionally, David had drawn Charles Xavier minus the wheelchair, who we know is, in fact, his biological father. Even though he states, “I don’t even know what he looks like.”)
After figuring out what had happened, David seems to be much stronger and much more sure of himself than he’d been before. He breaks through the coffin that had been built around his consciousness and with the help of Oliver Bird (who is as amazing as ever, even if he is a bit mad) and Cary, he finally manages to wake up. Even though the bullets are still there and still as fast as ever, David manages to catch them in his hand — a move that he made seem as easy as if he was Superman, or something.
Honestly, I’d sort of been waiting for the reunion between Oliver and Melanie, since it’s something that’d been built up for a while…and I loved Oliver when he and David spent that episode together in his ice cube in the astral plane. But it was disappointing that he didn’t remember her. I mean, I get it, his mind’s a little messed up, that’s obvious, and he did recognize her. But come on, she’s been waiting for him for ages, all she’s wanted is him back with her, and now she has what she wants…and he has no idea.
Tragic.
Everything seems happy and settled, at least for a few minutes, if not awkward between Oliver and Melanie, as well as Kerry and Cary (that’s weirder than it should be, because aren’t they more or less the same person?). They’ve isolated the parasite inside David’s mind, locked it in his own mental prison, but before they can work on expelling the Shadow King from inside him, Division 3 shows up, guns drawn and pointed at them from all directions.
And then, slowly, we see the cracks in the Shadow King’s coffin. They couldn’t hold him for long.
Final Thoughts
This show has turned out to be everything I wanted it to be. There’s just enough in there for people who don’t know who David Haller is to keep guessing, but there’s enough canonical plot to keep the comic readers interested. Me personally, I know a great deal about David and I’ve loved the character for as long as I’ve known of him. I also know that the David we’re watching is not quite the David from the comics — for one, the multiple personalities thing that seemed to be evident earlier on may not be as prevalent, because those particular personalities are just manipulations of the Shadow King. So that theory of mine was a little off.
But from Amy’s memories of David’s adoption, we did get to see the flash of a very familiar-looking wheelchair. And if David’s explanation about how he was infected with the parasite didn’t convince you of his parentage, then the wheelchair certainly should have. Now, I’m still curious about who David’s biological mother is, because it certainly wasn’t Gabrielle Haller — considering that Haller was the surname of his adopted family. Unless Gabrielle Haller had a brother who happened to have a family, I suppose that could be a thing…but at any rate, I don’t expect us to find out anything about his mother, at least not this season.
(I guess it’d be too much to ask for a cameo from Patrick Stewart, wouldn’t it?)
Anyway, what did you guys think of Legion? Any theories for what will happen in the finale or in season two? Let us know!
The season finale of Legion, “Chapter 8,” airs on March 29th at 10PM PT/ET on FX.