It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that Legion season one has come to an end and did so with what I would argue amounted to its weakest episode. I’ll go over the specifics in my “Five Thoughts”, but given the way “Chapter 8” played out, it’s pretty clear that Legion has had an inverse relationship between invention and convention that continually slid toward convention with every episode. It’s disappointing, because for much of the series, the show was truly something special.
That’s not to say that Legion season one as a body of work is “bad”, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just that even as it seemed destined to become more ordinary as time passed, there was always the hope that it would subvert the common comic book action tropes in the end. It didn’t. As always, there are spoilers ahead, so tread lightly.
1. The Unconventional
While the overall arc of the central conflict of Legion ended up playing out in a very standard fashion, I would like to start out the column with some positivity: there was still some stuff to like. For instance, bringing back the interrogator character Clark (played by a very droll Hamish Linklater) provided a nice twist before the final episode. What was even more surprising was that “Chapter 8” spent a considerable amount of time showing us what he was up to since we last saw him, a long sequence that was equal parts surprisingly affecting and generous with its payoff. Turns out most of his time was spent being miserable with 40% of his body covered in horrifying burns while his husband and adopted son cared for him.
It’s slightly touching, but mostly just gut-wrenching to see affects of comic book violence that most movies and TV shows don’t bother to detail. We’re used to carnage on a global scale, but this was an effective zoom on a very specific instance of a person taking months to get back on their feet. Similarly unconventional was the way that they played the American government vs. mutant angle as a struggle of trust and pragmatism rather than making this into a clear evil vs. good affair. Clark and his crew definitely show up as the “bad guy”, but the way the conflict plays out in a three-way fashion between Division 3, Summerland, and the Shadow King was a model of restraint.
2. The Utterly Conventional
That said, little else about the way “Chapter 8” wrapped up the season was very surprising at all. Most of the conflict between David and the Shadow King played out inside David’s head as they both wrestled over control of the space. We saw The Devil With Yellow Eyes be erased from key memories from David’s past, until the Shadow King made its escape at the last second. Of course Farouk was able to take control of other principal characters, resulting in a physical psionic battle in the real world.
Much of this took place in slow motion, a technique used to great effect in earlier episodes of Legion, but its employment in this episode paled in comparison to last week’s slow-mo layered reality tumbling domino sequence, making it feel like the show was just stretching for time in the end. The editing and direction, too, took a vastly more conventional approach the longer the series went on. I suppose it could be argued that as the story got more grounded, so too did the direction, but that makes the comedown from the dizzying heights of spectacle of the first half of the series no less of a letdown.
And that’s without even mentioning all the little plot contrivances. From Kerry and Cary making up over nothing, to Oliver realizing Melanie is his wife literally at the last minute of his current state of consciousness (in a cheap grab at the heartstrings of the viewer), to Syd literally saving David with a kiss, it felt like “Chapter 8” was going out of its way to pull as many cliches and tie up as many loose ends as possible. Except, of course, for comic book superhero cinema’s contractually necessary, audience demanded loose end in the form of a cliffhanger ending and, oh hell yeah baby, a Marvel-style post credits stinger.
Continued below3. The “Marvel” Post-Credits Stinger
It wasn’t enough to have the Shadow King stow away with Oliver at the last second and ride off into the sunset to fight another day, but there just had to be a post-credits teaser with yet another cliffhanger. It would have been nice to have wrapped up Legion in a fashion that would be easy to walk away from satisfied, in case the greenlit but not yet scheduled second season just never materializes (or, you know, if the world comes to an end sometime in the next year). Instead, we had to see David Haller, not even able to enjoy a full post-conflict conversation with Syd yet, whisked away in some sort of mutant Poké Ball. When it comes to behaviorial health disorders, I know I personally gotta catch ’em all.
I think it’s interesting that these have become known as a “Marvel-style” cinematic flourish, when X-Men: The Last Stand did it 3 years before Iron Man did. The less remembered about The Last Stand the better, I suppose. In reality, it doesn’t matter who or what they’re commonly attributed too, all I know is that I can’t get through a movie’s opening weekend without seeing a Buzzfeed style headline about whether or not said movie has a “Marvel-style” post-credits stinger. I sat through the entire ending credits of Moonlight and there was bupkis.
4. The Most Special of Special Effects
While the camerawork may have become noticeably less exciting as the series went on, I was pleased to see that the special effects budget seemed pretty evenly spread all the way through. The final battle featured psionic effects that looked considerably better than what something like The CW’s Flash does on a weekly basis, for example. Furthermore, this episode was fairly liberal with its set destruction quotient, telekinesis, levitation, and body horror work. These things can easily look cheesy on a cable TV budget, but the stunt and special effects crews pulled out all the stops.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what I think is the centerpiece of the episode: early on, David easily dispatches a threat from Clark’s goons by mentally dragging them around the Summerland compound and forming them up into a large human column. A vertical human centipede, if you will. Not only is the root idea of this a winner, but it was even better in execution. The Division 3 soldiers wriggled unnaturally and banged up against one another in this giant column in a way that was especially unnerving and physically disconcerting. It was really nicely done.
5. What’s Next?
Boy, those Fargo season three promos sure look good, dontchaknow?
Thanks for following the column and hopefully I’ll see you down the road. Sorry this one kind of ended on a down note.
