Legion is insanely lovable
Legion is a horror-soap-opera told by a man who has done a lifetime of drugs. It never goes quite so far as to make sense. Just as you get close to a thought it bleeds into another thought and neither are really clear, and all you really know is that this show is lovably insane.
This post only includes vague spoilers because I don’t really know what’s going on in Legion.
I truly love how they just keep telling David Haller that he’s sane. That he isn’t schizophrenic (a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation). Yet the show is all breakdowns between things that should work together, and mental fragments.
No, they think he’s completely sane, and they just need to prove this to him by prodding him into remembering his most traumatic memories. Obviously. Don’t you feel sane inside your trauma? Also, while they are there proving his sanity, they’d also like to set off his powers. Now some people who’ve set off his powers were killed instantly, but that doesn’t seem to give anyone pause.
Instead, every episode they are back at it. Set off his powers! Go inside his fractured mind! They’re constantly saying things like HE SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO DO THAT! Usually in situations that show that no one is in control. No one. It is complete chaos.They are poking the bear, but this bear has superpowers!
It is wonderful. They are leading an expedition into his creepy, horror brain. They just keep going back in. In more and more dangerous ways! Let’s push him further! Let’s look deeper! It’s such a bad, bad idea, but I just love it. Yes, go! GO LOOK! There are paper mache heads, snicker-snacks, yellow eyes, red lights…They are trying to solve the mystery of his personal horror. So I guess that means it is a Horror-mystery-soap-opera with drugs.
I’m kind of afraid they’ll solve it, but then again, that may lead to more fragmented thought plot. I am definitely not reading the comics, searching google, or watching my comic show that said it would talk about it this week. I don’t want to ruin the creepy surprise!
I think it’s the seen-through-drugs lens that makes it all so fun. It isn’t a realistic horror that is just HORROR. It is so stylized that even reality doesn’t look that real in this show. It’s all just the gleeful part of a bad horror movie where you say, “YES! GO INTO THE BASEMENT ALONE WHEN THE POWER IS OUT!” It is really quite lovely, and you should watch it.
Legion airs on FX on Wednesdays.