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Legion: Chapter 10

Review by An Honest Fangirl

"Tra la la. La la la la la. Tra la la. La la la la la."

This was a fairly dense episode, which I know is a shocker. I'm encouraged, though. I think I can see where all the pieces are fitting together.

First off: I was right! Lenny is her own distinct entity! I had no idea that she had actually ben a real person, though. When we learned last season that she was The Shadow King, I thought that any pretense of Lenny had been an illusion. But no. She was a real person that David met back in Clockworks. That sounds like it contradicts last season, now that I think about it. The Lenny from last season didn't seem like someone merely playing a part.

But this does open up fascinating possibilities. Lenny and Oliver are still their own separate people who are under the control of Farouk. They still have their own hopes, dreams, and desires. Is it possible for them to rebel? Break free? If Farouk was about to kill Melanie, would Oliver actually be able to do something to stop it?

The real Farouk is being set up as a very interesting character. I actually wasn't very scared of him. Intimidated, yes, but not scared. Even when he was dismissing Lenny's request for a new body, that felt more like he was leveraging the power dynamics between him, an ancient, educated, functionally immortal mutant, and her, a dead, strung-out junkie. It almost felt like a parent disciplining an unruly and ignorant child.

Farouk may dismiss Lenny, but he seems to view David as an equal. In his "We are Gods" speech, he did include David in that goddom. Deityness? The point is: he respects David's power, and I think that was enough to plant a seed considering the fact that Farouk's words echoed in David's head while he was talking to Melanie. Melanie told David to take Syd and run, but what if he decides to act as a god instead?

It's fairly obvious that they're setting David up to be the cause of whatever it is that's happening in the future, which is making me suspect that this is all a red herring. I still think that Future Syd is a delusion. There's just so much that doesn't add up. She never mentioned everyone being wiped out by a plague, but that's what David tells Present Syd what happened. And how would Future Syd know that David kills Farouk "about a week from now?" He never told her when he was from, and that's a very specific timeline. Plus there was the fact that Future Syd looked like she was lying when she explained why David couldn't read her mind.

I still think that this has to be a delusion, as explained to us last episode by the lovely Jon Hamm. (And who returns again to narrate in this episode as well.) Right before David went to talk to Farouk, we saw a streak of oil on the floor that looked identical to the one that the Creepy Ink Bird of Delusion© left.

Regardless of whether or not it's actually real, the scene between David and Future Syd was definitely my favorite of the episode. David just turns into a giant puppy around his favorite human, no matter when she's from. It was also incredibly sweet when he asked her whether or not she actually wanted to see him again. Their relationship might be my favorite one currently on TV, which is why I'm really glad that David told her the truth. I was fully prepared to watch his secret double agent life get dragged out all season, and was fully prepared to be irritated about it despite the great scenes that it creates between David and Clark. But David and Syd are now working together as a team, like they should be, to track down the monk of Mi-Go.

Except they really don't have to look very far. We saw the monk last episode, and now he's hiding out among the infected. I'm intrigued by the idea of Miser Sunday, who, as far as I can tell, is an original creation. There is no comic lore to draw on here, so I'm curious to see exactly who are what they are. Because there's no way that they're just going to drop a name like "Miser Sunday" and not do something with it, right? The Shi'ar are, however, a real comic book thing, and I'm equally excited about the fact that they were mentioned.

What else? Kerry and Cary and the sequence leading up to their reversal. Watching Lenny and Oliver prance around Division Three was genuinely terrifying, especially once Lenny got Cary alone. Her lurking in the shadows with glowing eyes was something ripped directly out of every child's nightmares, as was Cary's reaction to it. He tried to cover the eyes with his spoon, as if not being able to see the monster would be enough to make it go away. It wasn't, of course, and now we have a new dynamic in play.

My heart really went out to Kerry this episode. The painful sensory overload that she seemed to be experiencing hit fairly close to home. She never asked for this. She was perfectly content to simply exist inside of Cary, only coming out when things got interesting. This was the arrangement that both she and Cary were happy with.

Except... were they both happy? I got the impression that Cary was a little resentful that he was the one who had to be out all of the time now that he got to experience what it was like on the other side. He looked very content to be sitting there with a younger Kerry watching cartoons. Still, Kerry's new Rogue-like white streak in her hair will probably be enough to prompt him to work on a solution.

Random Thoughts

We've gotten basically no Ptonomy so far.

No body knows how many Vermillion there are, which means that I'm really hoping for a giant army at some point in the future.

I really liked how Farouk cycled through a lot of different languages. Shows that he's been around for a long time and is extremely intelligent.

What was Farouk implying when he asked Lenny what she would do after she died? That there was an afterlife - specifically Hell - that she was going to? Or that there wasn't an afterlife and she would just end?

Quotes:

Kerry: You want something?
David: I need more help finding Farouk.
David One: Liar.
David Two: Shut up, shut up.

Future Syd: You're how you were. In the past, before. Sweet.

David: Yeah, except that never happened. I didn't meet you until the hospital.
Lenny: But you remember it, right? Fake, real, you remember it! So it happened.

Narrator: A wise man once said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."


This episode felt a lot more straight forward than last weeks, or most Legion episodes for that matter. That's an encouraging sign for me.
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An Honest Fangirl loves superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and really bad horror movies. 

1 comment:

  1. "You're how you were. In the past, before. Sweet." This is the line that makes me think that future Syd is real, and that her possible fakeness is being used as a red herring to what the true growing delusion is. It's because I remember seeing some interviews with the show creators saying that David may or may not fall to the dark side, and Syd's comment seems to imply she's from a timeline when David became a monster. I believe the real delusion was planted by Farouk on this episode, the idea of godhood, of "making your own reality".

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