Legion: Chapter Eight

Legion likes to play with our sense of perspective doesn't it?  Subvert our expectations, take us for a ride.  Maybe someplace south.

Or this...

We open our episode with an unusual story.   Unusual in that we get the back story of "The Interrogator" (Hamish Linklater) instead of the hair trigger standoff where we last left Legion.

It seems The Interrogator is a family man.  He has a gay lover, if not husband, an adoptive son and a very sweet and loving home.

They all seem to cherish each other and it makes the man who wants to capture David and kill his friends seem very human.

At least he seems to have a human heart.  His new visage is another matter.

He is a man on a mission and that mission is to put an end to Summerland and the mutants that populate it.

We learn that he is a member of the U.S. military and part of a global consortium that means to put an end to the mutant threat.  A threat humanity thinks means an end to them all and the rise of the mutants.

There is a new God in town.

  
Something Division Three quickly learned as David easily dispatched their strike team.  They are ready to roll with another, but they have somehow retrofitted The Interrogator with a visual interface in his bad eye.  Now, they can track and listen in on everything Summerland is willing to divulge to their prisoner.

Sometimes a little intelligence is more important than rescuing your lover.

Melanie Bird is very forthcoming with their secrets.  To their credit, the Summerland group is willing to divulge what they know.

Perhaps it is the trump card that is David.  Why not let your enemy know everything you've been hiding as long as you have the ultimate weapon that is "Legion".

Still, I do think they were very sincere in what they were willing to share.  For a long time they have been hunted and persecuted.  Now is their big chance to come out.  

All they want to is to be accepted and treated like everyone else.

  

"Hi sexy!"

Well, almost all of them want to be treated the same.  Amahl Farouk is still bent on world domination.  Here he is seen as Lenny and appearing before Syd in the "White Room".   The halo may have him/her trapped inside David but that doesn't mean she still can't reach David's girl.

Farouk threatens David's life.  He will not be pulled out until he is ready and he is willing to kill David if it means his plans are threatened.  (A little counter intuitive, but whatever, he's evil.)

 

Only Syd is privy to this threat as the rest begin the process to free David from The Devil.  ("When we pull, you push.")

  

David is taken through the various phases of his life.  Unbeknownst to the rest, Syd has flipped the monitor in The Interrogator's cell and he watches the whole show unfold in front of him.

I'm not sure how Syd knew The Interrogator should be watching.  Maybe she thought he would make a good ally should things go south.  David, in his position of power, seemed to trust him.  Maybe Syd thought David's instinct were right.  One big happy world.  No more war.  Everyone equal.

 

Well, things did start to go south.

Farouk seemed to be choking the life out of David when David was really choking himself.  This was the point of no return for Syd and she literally and figuratively crossed the line to save David.

Here too, Kerry saw things spiraling out of control and left The Interrogator to his own devices.

Syd took the extraordinary step of making contact with David.  She had to know Farouk would inhabit her but I guess she thought it was a calculated risk.  

Maybe Farouk couldn't resist inhabiting Syd in that Syd had her own powers and he didn't have to deal with David's halo or the fact that he was killing his own host.

Either way, Syd guessed correctly.  I'm not sure she knew Kerry would leave her post.  Maybe that was an added bonus.  But David was now freed and as luck would have it, Syd would soon be free of Farouk too.

The "Farouked" Syd deliberately slipped off her gloves and made contact with Kerry.  An epic battle between the kung-fu kick ass  Kerry and the god-like David was on.  (I'm guessing Farouk preferred Kerry's fighting skills.)

You had to like David's entrance, so very superhero-ish.

This was an case on an immovable object taking on an irresistible force.

The resulting collision sent the essence of Farouk hurtling down the hallway.  (Pretty convenient.)

Unfortunately, Oliver was standing right there and Farouk had found a new home.

And what a new home!

The guy can sing, spout poetry and charm the pants of of anyone.  I can't wait to see him do a dance number!

The odd thing is, Oliver seems to be a willing host.  He retains his winning personality and functions quite normally.
He even chats up the Lenny/Farouk and happily asks where they are off to.

  

I wonder if Oliver's knowledge of Farouk and his time in the Astral Plane helps him.  Maybe this helps him accept Farouk and leaves him with enough of his own self wherein he can move Farouk far enough away from everyone.  Also heroic.

Of course, there might be a part of Oliver that accepts Farouk's power for what it is.  Intoxicating.

For Farouk's part, he/she may be willing to accept a measure of defeat.  Better to live another day.  

But, this doesn't mean we will see them again.  By the very end of the episode it looks like we are taking on a different track.  That would be too bad because Jemaine Clement and Aubrey Plaza are terrific.


The Epilogue

  

I guess there is no such thing as a happy ending in David's world.

I hope everyone stuck around after the credits rolled.  A small spherical object appeared before David and Syd.  They thought it humorous at first and speculated if it belonged to Cary.

Nope.  It scanned David and the next you know he is miniaturized and absorbed into the shere.

I believe this to be the "Equinox" the Division Three people decided they wanted to send in when David was going through his separation sequence with Farouk.

Maybe Melanie was a little too forthcoming in her confession to the Interrogator.   Now they have David and they know he is a "Worldbreaker".  Bad news.

You'd think David's powers would allow him to free himself.  But that device being the "Equinox", a term given to the point where day and night are of equal length, so I'm thinking this device mutes David's powers at equal measure as long as he is contained within.

What will they do with him?  Quick guess, weaponize him and turn him against other mutants.


Odds and Ends

In my last post, I wondered where everyone else was at Summerland.  In this episode people are seen  milling about.

 
The "Lenny" Farouk looks to be in pretty bad shape when halo-separated from David.

 
And, of course, we got a big halo hanging over David as Oliver prepped him for the separation sequence.

We got a look at the "Angriest Boy" when Farouk was being forcibly removed from David.  Which, in retrospect, brings up two points.

What was the fate of David's adoptive parents?

What did the Stars say?

In the "Angriest" book the mother dies.  Did the same fate befall David's adoptive mother?  Whatever happened to the father?

What did the Stars say?  This seemed to be a major point earlier on.  Something Syd kept bringing up as if it provided clues to David's nature.

Both points were left hanging.

When the "Farouked" Kerry finger shot Melanie I though she was really dead.

Oliver remembers his wife's name.  Maybe prolonged exposure to reality allows things to come back.

With this in mind, do you suppose this is why Oliver drove away with "Lenny"?  To save his wife?

David changed "triangle" t-shirts.  

The yellow one was reminiscent of the Holocaust "Yellow Badge" the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the time of their regime.  Holocaust lore figures extensively into X-Men or mutant history.  Professor X's constant adversary, Magneto, was a survivor of the Holocaust.

The triangle also serves as a prism.

The triangle prism is also famous for it's relation to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album.  There were many Pink Floyd references throughout the series.


David's new triangle t-shirt looks more dimensional now.  Perhaps to illustrate his union with Syd.  Or maybe it's symbolic of David being separated from the others.


In closing, Legion will return for another season and there are still questions that need to be answered.  I would especially like to see what happened to David's adoptive parents and whatever the stars "said".  Were those "words" really important?

I'd also like to see if we get any closer to X-Men mythology and whether David will be re-united with his biological father.

The biggest question may be, will David be forced to work for Division Three?