What a magnificent episode of Legion that was. More than anything, “Chapter 4” demonstrates why television is a terrific medium for experimentation with the superhero “genre” – the opening monologue is something that cape movies would not have the time, nor the patience to attempt (see below for more on that scene). We may always have to settle for television shows being cheaper than movies, but we should never settle for them being overly formulaic or treating their properties like second class citizens. That said, let’s get to the high points:
1. Oliver Bird is one fun mutha ucker
That’s a Flight of the Conchords joke. Forgive me, but Oliver Bird, played by Jemaine Clement, practically invites the comparison from the very opening monologue of the episode wherein he describes a fairy tale that sounds an awful lot like “Albi the Racist Dragon.” This was our first time seeing Jemaine Clement in person as “Oliver Bird”, after having heard his voice during the opening of “Chapter 3.” While it actually seems to take place in the near present times, much of Legion’s visual aesthetic can be roughly placed in the late-’60s/early-’70s (clothes, hairstyles, decor). While thus far this has been an unexplained phenomenon or stylistic choice, Oliver Bird has been quite literally “frozen” in that time period, asking David if women still go bra-less in the present and whether “free love” is still a thing. Oliver, my dude, the closest thing we’ve got to that is Tinder.
“Chapter 4” is a magnificent episode – possibly the show’s best thus far – but emotionally it would be a complicated downer of an episode were it not for the funky injection of Clement’s playful acting turn. He grabs your attention from the opening moments of the episode and then literally air guitars his way through the closing montage. He’s a lot of fun, and definitely electrifies the show whenever he’s on screen. Hopefully we get more of him. He’s not all fun and games though, as he gives David some harrowing advice about the “monster” chasing him and a little more insight into what it means to mess around with the mind of a mutant.
2. I Cary/Kerry Your Heart With Me
We finally get the full story on Cary & Kerry’s mutant nature, which is that Kerry (the younger Native American one of the two) lives within Cary and manifested herself at a young age. For the rest of Cary’s life, Kerry is carried (ha!) inside of him and only ages when she is outside of his body – hence the major age discrepancy. But they also shared the most harrowing and emotional moments of the episode: a gleeful martial arts fight between Kerry and some of “The Eye” agents in the woods turned bad, as Cary triumphantly pantomiming along back at Summerland turned to a shocking series of invisible punches to his own gut. Kerry and Cary being metaphysically linked to the point of Cary feeling the blows that Kerry takes in the fight is an interesting turn of events, but we’ve yet to see how literally that’s meant to be taken. Kerry is shot at the end of the episode, and while Cary definitely feels it, does that means he fully suffers the same wound? We’ll see.
3. Yakety Sax
We also see another pairing of similarly named characters in a surprise reveal: Aubrey Plaza’s “Lenny” is actually some slovenly junkie named “Benny”, who is not nearly as magnetic and hilarious. This reveal is very brief, and will certainly be explored in future episodes. It’s also worth pointing out that Lenny herself still continues to show up, and at the very end of the episode reaches a disgusting yellowed hand around David’s shoulder. Was I right last week when I surmised a tight connection between Lenny and the Devil with the Yellow Eyes?
4. Touch Me (I’m Going to Scream)
This is the second time we’ve seen Syd use her power of touch-to-body swap, and the first time that it was done purposefully. That tells us that she can control this ability, and can even control herself once she’s in the body of the other person. We could have inferred this on our own, as there was a throwaway line or two about how the explosive results of transferring bodies with David was due to his massive, unbridled mutant abilities. This throws a wrench into the closing minutes of “Chapter 4”, with David mistaking The Eye for Syd (and vice versa). Body-swapping is a plot convention that has carried entire television shows before, but I think it was used particularly cleverly here on Legion.
5. “King” of Disparate Thinking
For weeks Legion viewers on social media have been speculating that the Devil with Yellow Eyes is the “Shadow King” from Marvel Comics. I think there’s been plenty of evidence that this is the case, but none more overt than the mystery of David Haller’s adorable childhood beagle, named “King.” Only one problem: King didn’t actually exist. There are no photographs of the dog, and the narration in the episode flat out tells us that the dog was not real. The true nature of David’s childhood is still one major aspect of his character that we haven’t spent much time with (maybe a couple minutes here and there in the entire first 4 episodes), so we’re left to ponder the significance of having an imaginary dog? Well, the dog isn’t named “King” by coincidence, and considering David’s the only one that can see the Shadow King too, my prediction is that the dog was the earliest manifestation of the Devil with Yellow Eyes in David’s mind.
