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Legion: Chapter 19

Review by An Honest Fangirl

"Whatever happened to 'God loves the sinners best?'"

Well, I guess Legion actually went there. After a season of teasing, they actually followed through.

I honestly didn't think that they would. I had bought into the delusion that David was "the hero," dismissing signs of his growing ego and instability as red herrings. A lot of my predictions were wrong. It's not necessarily a fun feeling, but now we regroup and we try to figure out what happened.

Honestly, I was on board with David basically until the very end. He's been clear about his goal for awhile now, and everyone seemed to be in agreement. Farouk was bad and needed to be stopped. But then, moments away from actually achieving that goal, Syd, the one person who he trusts more than anything, tries to kill him. And all because of things that Farouk told her. I can see why he would feel hurt, betrayed, and utterly blindsided.

And it wasn't just Syd. At the end of the episode, everyone except for Lenny has turned on him. They put him in a bubble and demanded that he receives treatment, something that he has a very negative history with, or they will kill him. All because of something that he hasn't even done yet. All while Farouk sits with them, a seemingly free man.

Like I said, I was on Team David. That is, up until the moment that Syd directly and flatly stated that he drugged her and then had sex with her. That was a very sobering moment for me. In that moment, I realized that David wasn't necessarily in the process of turning into a villain, but that he had already finished his transformation. He took his delusion, "I'm a good person and deserve to be loved," and turned it from an affirming message of self-worth into a very possessive statement about what the world owes him.

It's some very heavy stuff, especially since David and Syd's relationship has always been one of my favorite parts of the series. Still, I'm hesitantly excited for what next season will bring. I've been loving the dynamic between David and Lenny, so I'm curious to see how that will change and grow, especially considering the fact that Amy still seems to be conscious and kicking.

There are a lot of plot threads that were left dangling that I thought would have been addressed. We still have no idea what's actually happening with Ptonomy. Cary and Kerry's power issues weren't really addressed or even mentioned at all over the course of the season. Division Three has apparently forgiven Farouk for everything that he's done because David is a bigger threat? We have no idea who those box monks were? The Minotaur really ended up being a nonentity that was just killed offscreen?

Some of this is, I think, a product of a fairly uneven season that spent a lot of time spinning its wheels as opposed to having any kind of forward progress. Legion had an increased episode order compared to last season, and I honestly think that it hurt it. While there were some amazing highs, we also had three episodes in a row in the middle of the season that were all character analysis that didn't actually affect the plot or progress it in any way. Don't get me wrong, this were great, well crafted episodes, but there has to be a balance.

Regardless, I'm excited to see how Legion tackles next season. I'm sure that it'll be incredibly trippy and confusing, but I wouldn't expect anything less.

Random Thoughts

We had one scene with Oliver and Melanie, together at last in their ice cube. I guess their bodies are somewhere. Although we also had a title card saying that that was three years in the future, so who knows what's going on in the present moment.

We really needed Rational, British David to show up and knock some sense into him.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the fact that David's descent into villainhood is tied to his mental illness, and the implication that it is his illness that is making him do all of these bad things. That feels kinda icky to me.

The opening fight between Farouk and David was absolutely stunning. Like... damn.

Clark didn't really have much to do this season, did he?

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An Honest Fangirl loves superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and really bad horror movies.

2 comments:

  1. My memory might be failing me, but there wasnt really much weird stuff going on last season that wasnt explained, was there? Sure, there were sudden dance sequences or silent movie scenes, but it was all little stuff that could mostly be explained away by davids head being weird. This season though, we've had an admiral with a basket on his head, henchrobots with moustaches, creepy ink birds, men with boxes on their heads, whatever the hell was going on with that valley in general, and im probably forgetting other stuff. And all of that in the real world. I just wish this show would stop all the weirdness for weirdness' sake and just tell a compelling story.

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  2. Yeah, this season was definitely a bit more out there than the previous one. Okay, a lot more. And for the most part, I liked the weirdness. Like the Creep Ink Bird of Delusion was a lot of fun and I thought a fairly clever metaphor. But then David defeated it with a flick of his hand and suddenly it wasn't important. It definitely could have been better integrated into the actual show, I think.

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