Legion - 'Chapter 3'

The best part of waking up...

Things take a turn for the weird(er) in 'Chapter 3' of Legion.

With his sister in Division 3 custody, David is eager to move forward with his training, but we open with a slow montage of life in the retreat, over which an automated coffee machine tells the story of an old woodcutter and his wife who unknowingly adopt a crane as their daughter. we will later learn that the voice is that of Melanie's husband, who was killed in a disagreement with one of their early partners, a mutant who now works for Division 3. David and Syd see this former partner when they project to Amy's interrogation during another attempt to scan David's brain activity.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a
different result. Well... insanity or chaso theory.

Potonomy tries to work through the gaps in David's memory, but although they manage to see more, David realise that they are not seeing the same things that he is seeing; they are not seeing the yellow-eyed devil. Also, he periodically teleports them to a different room during the memory-work session, which is a thing.

It's noteworthy at this point that after they find themselves in the wrong room on waking, Potonomy asks David 'What are you?' suggesting that he is something more, or other, than a mutant.

With the pressure on to move forward with Amy's rescue, Syd accompanies the next memory session, with David sedated to reduce his resistance to the process. He is initially reluctant, fearing that she will feel differently about him if she sees him as he was when he was a junkie (including his sexual relationship with Lenny.) Sedated David appears in the memory world as a child, which is clearly confusing for Syd, since this is the one place she can touch him. She sees the devil, and the world shake and crack around them, which the others do not; although Melanie does get her hand bitten by the memory of the book The World's Angriest Boy in the World.  Syd and child-David are pursued through ducts by the boy from the book and the yellow-eyed devil, and David falls comatose.

Imaginary Lenny is trying on a new look.

As I suspected might happen, the show this week confronted Melanie's reductive approach to mental illness and superpowers. Imaginary Lenny showed up looking oddly sleek and casting doubts on whether he actually has powers at all. After that, David confides his fear to Syd that maybe just because he has superpowers doesn't mean he is definitely sane. This added nuance and the increasing sense of danger within the memory work, plus the threat to Amy, picks up some of the slack that 'Chapter 2' fell into. It's clear that far more action is going to take place within David's mind in this series than in the outer world, and I think I can live with that.