It had sensational style to spare.
But was there enough substance?
Legions premises trolled its genre and toyed with conventions.
Credit: Michelle Faye/FX
The supporting players werent figments of his imagination or fragments of his shattered personality, thank god.
Like all devils, Farouk worked to make David crude, cynical, incapable of love.
Over time, she came to represent Farouk in total.
It expands a growing category of shows (Mr. One of the seasons key symbols: spectacles that allowed wearers to see through Lennys bullst.
Someone needs to mass market those things, ASAP.
But Lenny stands for any bad idea that gets into your head and grows wrongheadedness.
I saw her as a symbol of pop junkie excess and media-nourished narcissism.
She started the season as Davids Beats-wearing sidekick, blocking out the world with her tunes.
The sicko was bad for mental health, but made for great television.
Her idyllic headquarters, Summerland, was a school for gifted youngsters re-imagined as a counter-culture commune-cum-Scientology retreat center.
He was also a cautionary tale about the cost of staying divorced from reality.
Legions Summerland set warmed up what could have been a too-chilly show with heart and humor.
Who is he without his phantom?
Is he still mentally ill?
How can he know for sure?
Can he possibly give and receive love in such flux?
Legionwas consistently vibrant in the first half of its season but hit-and-miss in the second.
The show wrote itself into a corner with its own WTH?
(David, it turns out, is the son the X-Men founder Charles Xavier.
Farouk became a disembodied consciousness after losing a psychic battle with Professor X.)
But where was Rationale David earlier in the season?
Still,Legiondidnt known how to bring its hot mess of elements to a proper, climactic boil.
But the capper disappointed by being surprisingly conventional in plot and form, give or take a few subversions.
For the first and only time in the season,Legionfelt like a generic sci-fi superhero show.
Exorcising Lenny should have been a true character struggle and another brilliant set-piece.
Instead, Davids salvation hinged on magic MRI machines and brainwave-sucking EM vortexes.
Everyone stood around either watching or worrying about whether David would survive the physical trauma of Carys gizmos.
We deserved a more imaginative depiction of the threat Davids persona and his relationship with Syd.
Her choice to sacrifice her own identity to take Lenny into her?Powerful.
And it didnt last long or matter much.
(Which felt correct.
Olivers mind was vulnerable, his character weak.
Hes totally the kind of guy whod run off with a young hussy in a midlife crisis roadster.)
Interesting ideas were set up, then abandoned, subverted or tabled.
I like The Interrogator a lot.
With a flick, David effortlessly neutralized his army, rendering him powerless.
St, he deadpanned.
His decision to join forces with Bird was explained almost in passing, as everything started going to hell.
Whatever moved him, it wasnt earned.
David perhaps due to Lennys dwindling influence suddenly embraced a philosophy of must-we-fight?
This certainly honors the original sixties-era civil rights allegory of the X-Men, but the turn felt forced.
(That said, Id like to see where this goes.
Can a superhero fantasy especially one that promotes give-peace-a-chance/cant-we-all-just-get-along?
(Theres part of me that wishesLegionwas a one-and-done limited series.
The season would have been a stronger, more striking piece of work, likeThe Singing Detectiveof superhero shows.
like, investigateThe Singing Detectiveif the reference throws you.)
We can imagine the shape of things to come.
X-Men fans will have theories (Shiar?
Mastermind of the Hellfire Club?
Im happy our hero flushed his demon.
HopefullyLegiondidnt lobotomize itself in the process.
