Spoilers Legion season 2

[Christopher]

I totally missed that evil-billionaire David was David-still-possessed by Farouk.

Not only possessed, but having lost or surrendered the battle, so Farouk was now in control. I think what tipped me off (aside from the brief shot of Rich Creep David looking at Farouk) was when he telepathically attacked Amy and gave her a nosebleed. If any of David were still in there, he'd never have hurt his sister.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I loved this episode very much. I can see why others don't like it, but I was engaged the whole way through. I thought it was a great character study of David and the many possible lives he could have lived and how those possibilities related to his relationship with his sister and Farouk's possession of his mind. Without having read the A.V. Club review yet (I usually look it at their thoughts after I post), I felt like the reason we saw this exploration now was a direct result of David having a psychotic break from learning what happened to his sister. I don't know if these legion of lives were some something he actually experienced or if they were something that was broadly felt.

Also, I loved David's encounter with the Droogs but then A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite films.

 

[Christopher]

I felt like the reason we saw this exploration now was a direct result of David having a psychotic break from learning what happened to his sister.

Can it really be called a psychotic break if his power enables him to mentally travel to actual parallel universes -- or even create them, as Farouk suggested he could? (Though that sounds more like Proteus than Legion.)

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Can it really be called a psychotic break if his power enables him to mentally travel to actual parallel universes -- or even create them, as Farouk suggested he could? (Though that sounds more like Proteus than Legion.)

Well, what I meant was his motivation for doing it, not that having the ability to do it. Sorry I wasn't clear on that point.

 

[Christopher]

Sure, it's an escape from the unbearable reality of what happened to Amy, but if he literally is escaping to parallel quantum realities that objectively, physically exist outside his mind, then it's not psychotic, it's superhuman. Far from losing touch with reality, he was placed in touch with even more realities than everyone else is. So in that sense, his grief didn't drive him insane, it drove him hypersane.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, Alex McLevy's piece at The A.V. Club is really nice.

https://tv.avclub.com/a-heartbreaking-legion-presents-a-david-who-wishes-he-w-1825870789

 

[gblews]

Yeah, really enjoyed the episode. Each reality had a pretty self contained little story that was pretty fantastic. Each image of Amy was just heartbreaking. She was such a saint who loved David fully and unconditionally.

I think my favorite was the one in which he took over running that corporation after basically saving the company millions with his ability. Easy to see how his power would lead him to exactly where he ended up.

In almost every scenario Amy appears as David's rock, so I can see that the realization of her death and the reason for her death might send him off the deep end. Considering his ability to create realities, it sure doesn't seem too far fetched that this is the way a mind like his might deal with a psychotic break.

If we were being told that the reality where David ends up at Clockworks was the one he "chose" to go on with, it would seem to make sense as that one seemed the most reasonable.

 

[Set Harth]

So it's starting to look as if they're going in a Dawn of Justice direction with the plot, where there is a terrible future in which our hero has turned evil and laid waste to everything, and someone from that future sends a message back in time in order to alter the timeline and avert disaster. If in fact David himself is the future threat, it seems that after killing Farouk he ends up going full supervillain for some reason.

I knew it...

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yup, good call there. Not terribly surprising considering I didn't think the show would introduce a whole new villain as some vague future threat after spending so much time building up Farouk as a definite villain and David as a potential threat. I still wonder if perhaps Future Syd isn't really Syd (more literally than David suggested) and that there's some other information that she's withholding.

Strange turn with the black "insanity" creature and I'm not quite sure what the purpose of building it up all season, other than killing Ptonomy's body and transferring his mind to the Mainframe. There must be some kind of implication to that development that I might missing or it's simply another building block.

Unsurprisingly, no one trusts Lenny, but I still feel sorry for her. She finally escaped Farouk (well, rather let go) and the torturous prison she was on, only to find herself in another, more physical prison. Further, she didn't ask to have her mind grafted onto Amy's body. It's possible that she doesn't even realize she's doing some kind of bidding for Farouk.

 

[Christopher]

Strange turn with the black "insanity" creature and I'm not quite sure what the purpose of building it up all season, other than killing Ptonomy's body and transferring his mind to the Mainframe. There must be some kind of implication to that development that I might missing or it's simply another building block.

Yeah. As it stands, this episode seemed like the first real failure of the season, and a really disappointing, random end to the "delusion creature" arc. There'd have to be some real consequence to it in order for it to have any meaning rather than just being a weird sidebar.

But then... I had a thought while watching the episode. What if Future Sid's belief that David will destroy the world is a delusion? What if Farouk planted that delusion in her to benefit himself?

 

[Set Harth]

It's possible that she doesn't even realize she's doing some kind of bidding for Farouk.

Doesn't she say "I'm not not working for him"?

 

[Snaploud]

I just got caught up with the season. The monk was obviously in the pocket of some mysterious group of pigs, cows, and chickens. Who else would go to all that trouble to destroy humanity's teeth?

Well, maybe the dental industry...It would be great for business.

 

[Set Harth]

Too many commercial breaks...

 

[Snaploud]

The Jon Hamm narration scenes have become my favorite part of the show.

 

[auntiehill]

^ mine, too.

Again, another " WTF? was that?! " episode but I'm absolutely riveted.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

um, er, hmmm, uh, yee-ahh

OK, no idea what I just watched there! However, I really do feel like I've lived my life in that damn cave of shadows. I'll get out of here someday...

 

[Christopher]

The Jon Hamm narration scenes have become my favorite part of the show.

I didn't care for this one. It was cut off from the rest of the episode by commercial breaks on both sides, so it didn't even seem like part of the episode, just a random PSA. And it felt really whiny and Luddite -- "Oh, these kids today and their social media have cut themselves off from human contact and doomed us all!" The older generation was saying that back when their kids invented writing. "How will people talk to each other if they spend all day with their noses buried in papyrus?" It's a false premise. The attempt to make a point about the dangers of malignant narcissism is quite timely, but casting it in the form of a rant about social media undermined its message.

EDIT: I mean, yeah, it's true that there are a lot of people on social media who use it abusively because they don't really see their victims as real people, but they're usually white men engaging in misogynist or racist attacks, not teenage girls. The kind of person this montage portrayed as the perpetrator of such behavior is far more likely to be its victim.

Just in general, I think this show is losing its way. It's gotten so deeply mired in showing off how weird it can be that it's barely bothering to tell a story anymore. Oliver and Farouk have been wandering around the desert for weeks trying to find that body. It's starting to get tedious how glacially the story is advancing.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I loved Syd's parachute entrance.

I also enjoy and appreciate how the show's narrative is mired in the delusion/what is reality question. The example of interacting with people online and having issues appreciating their independent reality is a perfect contemporary example of the age-old question of what is real.

 

[Forbin]

Okay, if Syd didn't know where they were ("Where is this place?"), how did the pilot know where to take her. Also, I thought David was in some kind of mind space, not the physical world? So how did Syd even get there??

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Another great and peculiar episode. With this episode, I've come to realize how much different this season from the first. Not just narratively speaking but also in the way things have progressed. The story feels far more passive and adrift that the first season's more active and introspective movement (for the individual characters, at least). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I am left wondering how things are all going to fit together in the end. Much like the first season, I'm certain I'll get more enlightenment about what's going on on the second viewing in rapid succession than on a weekly basis.

That said, I do wish the supporting cast, particularly Kerry, Cary, and Melanie, had more to do. Melanie in particular hasn't had much to do at all although that seems like that's about to change.

Okay, if Syd didn't know where they were ("Where is this place?"), how did the pilot know where to take her. Also, I thought David was in some kind of mind space, not the physical world? So how did Syd even get there??

From the compass that David gave her to track him.

I'm pretty sure they're in some kind of physical space, albeit one that's apparently easily malleable (by the monks at least). I didn't recognize the name of the land though. Anyone have any thoughts on that?