The second episode of “Legion” Season 2 features more of the same stuff we liked from the season premiere: Jon Hamm narrating a parable on nature vs. nurture, time-traveling weirdness, and a showy genre setpiece as a metaphor for telepathic combat. As always, if you haven’t seen the episode yet, this column will be filled with spoilers. We don’t describe the plot in great detail here, but we do pick out 5 key items to discuss in more detail and speculation, so watching the episode first is essential. With all that said, let’s get on the mat and “wrassle” with this one.
1. Hamming It Up, Pt. 2
It doesn’t happen until about 20 minutes into the episode, but the Hamm narration returns to welcome us into “Chapter 4” of Season 2 of “Legion.” You’d be forgiven for being confused about that, considering the episodes are all named with a “Chapter #” convention, and then there are these mini-chapters within Season 2, multiple chapters of which may end up in a single episode. For instance, am I to believe that because we didn’t see the “Chapter 4” subtitle until 1/4 of the way through the episode, that the first few scenes of the episode were still “Chapter 3” spilling over from the last episode? In practice, it really doesn’t matter, but it’s yet another example of “Legion” marching to the beat of its own drum and not worrying if it takes viewers a little bit of time and effort to keep up.
But that’s not really what I wanted to point out in this bulletpoint. No, I’m much more interested in Hamm’s “lesson” on madness and how it may apply to the plot of “Legion.” Last week I had mentioned a scene where we saw a teacher writing “rojo = red” on the blackboard in front of a bunch of inattentive students playing “duck, duck, goose.” Last week, the image of the monk in the club with red paint on his forehead had me linking that scene with the classroom scene. After seeing Hamm’s lesson, it’s now clear that the classroom scene was more a part of the meta-narrative. Hamm explains that human beings are the only creature on earth that can suffer from “madness”, using a child raised from birth to believe that the color we see as red is called “green”, and the color we visually know to be green is called “red.” This leads to some rather gruesome consequences when the grown child is confronted with a traffic light. Now we know that the classroom scene was meant to subtly foreshadow Hamm’s lesson from what would be the very next episode.
If we’re to apply this lesson literally to “Legion’s” plot, it would be safe to assume that one of our principle characters has been similarly raised from a young age to believe something about the world to be the opposite of reality. Early on in the episode, Syd is uncomfortable when confronted with a spinning ballerina toy from her youth, for reasons yet unknown. Could this be foreshadowing into Syd’s potential corruption?
2. Master Of His Domain
Can we talk about what a delight Navid Negahban is as Amahl Farouk? His Farouk is a smooth-talking, grinning bear of a man, somehow both warm and imposing in stature. He both flatters and intimidates David in equal measure (and in at least 4 different languages, to boot). He’s so effective that, in a show where nothing and no one can be trusted, you can immediately see why David would end up going along with Farouk’s plans.
At first, David resists, engaging in a telepathic battle made into a visual metaphor much like the dance battle sequence in last week’s episode. In “Chapter 10”, the battle takes place first as a wrestling match (complete with our combatants wearing a couple of revealing singlets *wolf howl*), then as a samurai versus tank battle. Hawley’s approach to filming the mental battles as different genres or vehicles for combat is not only a varied visual treat for the viewer, but also a clever way for the directors to get around having too many scenes where Dan Stevens and Navid Negahban just stare at one another and, I don’t know, intensely point their fingers at their foreheads or something?
Continued belowNegahban particularly impresses here, as he engages in the wrestling match with an unsettling glee. His beaming smile is never wider across his face than when he’s locked with David in their various wrestling grapples.
3. Future Islands In The Stream, That Is What We Are
Let’s take a moment to highlight some of the confirmed links from our current timeline to the teased future time: First, Cary Loudermilk is examining the orb device that David had been trapped in at the end of Season 1, suggesting that he somehow feels like it’s his handiwork. This is an obvious indication that Cary (ever the tinkerer) is the one who invented the trap, also confirming that he not only survives into the future timeline we see Future Syd come from, but that he’s directly impacted by whatever horrible turn of events is going on there. After all, this chapter also gives us a visual confirmation of what Future Syd’s future actually looks like. It’s not pretty – nothing but the wreckage of crumbled buildings as far as the eye can see. Very few survived, but apparently that includes Cary.
This scene also reveals to us that Farouk is but a sub-boss in Season 2. A man who has killed a few people, but whose reign of terror pales in comparison to the evil that’s coming. An evil that “kills everyone.”
In a fun turn of events in the classic “future traveler convinces the hero from the current timeline to help” formula, David uses Cary’s machine to travel into the future and talk with Future Syd again. Because David is the one traveling this time, he is depicted out of sync with Syd with a very trippy series of janky camera shots and vocal distortions. David uses all he has learned about the future from Future Syd and his battle with Farouk to convince current Syd that helping find Farouk’s body is the right thing to do. But because “Legion” loves lying to us, could the entire future David is being told about be one big lie? I’m still not sure I trust Syd in a yellow outfit (a distinct color choice that continues throughout this episode).
4. Clark In The Dark
Everybody’s favorite horrifically scarred Division 3 bureaucrat Clark makes a short but memorable appearance in tonight’s episode. Thus far, “Legion” is doing a tremendous job of being weird and elusive while also being surprisingly straightforward as far as giving our characters a goal. Clark is an interesting sidenote to all of this, considering he’s very much on the outside looking in as David goes about trying to find Farouk. A terse back and forth between David and Clark highlights that Clark was once thought of as the bad guy, but we know that’s not exactly the case anymore. Anyway, he’s not the bad guy in the way that Farouk or the oncoming apocalypse is the bad guy.
But he’s also not a “good guy” in the sense that he’s got very different goals from David & co. They want to keep Farouk’s body away from Farouk’s consciousness and David has to play along, convincing Clark he’s doing that, while secretly deciding that he’s going to help Farouk instead. Clark reminds David that “they see all”, so how long can David possibly hide this? The tension between the goals of Division 3 and the goals of the Summerland gang feels like its going to be a sneaky good aspect of the show. Somehow Hawley & co took the same central players from Season 1 and created completely new and logical context for a different kind of adversarial relationship. Nicely done.
5. Lenny’s Letdown
Navid Negahban gave the most delightful performance in this episode, but Aubrey Plaza got a chance to go down yet another emotional side street in what has been the most impressive performance in “Legion” as a whole. In Season 1, Lenny was portrayed as a behaviorally disturbed and hilariously vulgar stoner character turned into twisted evil genius under the full control of the Shadow King. It was a showy, scene-chewing performance that earned absolutely every bit of praise it got. But Plaza is adding layers in Season 2. The character that was once the focal point of Farouk’s mental manipulations has now become a marionette, brought to life to do his bidding when needed, cast side when not. Jamming out a showstopping rendition of “Swinging on a Star” as she helps Farouk-as-Oliver murder Division 3 agents, yet ultimately left out in the cold in the blank space of the mind when it comes to what she wants.
“Chapter 10” confirms that the corporeal form of “Lenny” is dead, and that the Aubrey Plaza character we see dancing along with Oliver Bird is nothing more than a mind-ghost. But she knows that Farouk is basically a god (and god dammit, he’ll tell you himself) that’s capable of pretty much anything. Couldn’t he put her back into her body and make her live again? Or at least give her a new body and send her on her way? She’s done everything he’s asked, after all. Plaza’s acquiescent physicality during this request stands in stark contrast with her belting out showtunes and turning fools into dust. Much like the situation with Clark & Division 3 vs. the Summerland group, a familiar character has been given new context, and while we grew to fear Lenny as an enemy in Season 1, Season 2 is unfolding in a way that just may make her a sympathetic character in some way.
Alas, the Shadow King cannot comply with her request. If he gives her life, what will she do with it? Die again? If he fancies himself a god, then along with that comes a god’s purview. He’s not concerned with the desires of a life already taken.
