Legion - Chapter 7

Tim Burton's Revenge!

Okay, so I watched this after the musical crossover episode of The Flash and Supergirl, and this is where my evening got weird.

We begin by flashing back to Cary being pulled out of the 'hospital' by Oliver. They make a plan to rescue the others and we go forward to Cary contacting Syd and then Melanie, making sure to keep hidden from the parasite, which they identify as Farouk, the Shadow King. With the help of pairs of reality filtering glasses, Syd finds the catatonic telekinetic and Kerry, while Cary, Melanie and Oliver try to alter the real world so that Syd and David aren't immediately shot when they break out. Melanie also finds the mortally wounded telekinetic, revealing that the shooter is in fact the Eye.

'Lenny' questions Amy about the man who brought David to the family and we catch a glimpse of a familiar wheelchair.

David's fightin' chalk drawings are boss.

Elsewhere in his brain, David receives the assistance of his rational, British(1) mind, which talks him through his situation. He realises through the medium of imaginary moving chalk drawings that his real father must be a telepath who confronted the parasite and defeated it, but it survived and attached itself to him in revenge, seeking to grow strong on his power and, dare he say it, rule the world as a kind of telepathic god. His connection with Syd, however, broke the creature's spell and allowed him to perceive it.

In a bravura sequence, Oliver begins conducting an elaborate psychic construct around an electronic remix of Ravel's Bolero, while Kerry and Syd navigate a black and white asylum and David breaks out of his coffin into a labyrinth of endlessly recursive doors. The Eye attacks Kerry and Syd attacks the Eye, only for the Shadow King to appear, fold the Eye up like a ventriloquist's dummy (in both astral and physical forms,) threaten Kerry and Syd, nip off to blast Oliver and then come back. David unleashes his power to tear the Shadow King's labyrinth apart and Cary drops the device which imprisons the Shadow King onto David's head. Throughout this sequence, everyone speaks in silent movie title cards, and at the end of it, David catches some bullets while the Eye keeps on folding.

"Are you British?"
"I said, I'm your rational mind."

They take the telekinetic back to Summerland, where Oliver is awake. All seems well, but Kerry is angry that Cary left her when she needed him, the Shadow King starts breaking free, and Division 3 show up to take David back and kill everyone else. Not sure how that's going to work out for them, if I'm honest.

I suspect that the fact that Legion is able to spend a good chunk of the penultimate episode of its freshman year in a silent movie sequence mashing together disparate cinematographic styles and get away with it is a solid indication of how strong an opening it has made. Witty, daring and more than a little disturbing, it may not be definitively the best superhero show on television (although it's definitely up there,) but it is utterly unique, and not just within its genre. The look and feel of the show, from the film grain to the costume to the music, are like nothing else I've ever seen, and after a wobbly start it has fully embraced the oft ignored possibility that one could – in a world where superpowers and psychic possession are real – be a superhuman, and possessed, and mentally ill.

(1) Bonus meta points for having David assay a British accent for his father, only to have his attempt scorned by his rational mind in Dan Stevens actual British accent.