#lenny save me. save me. lenny from legion. lenny from legion save me.

[rurutts]

People who keep saying "Jerma" and "Jerma/Kayne edit" are ending me please do not disrespect David like this

David Haller / Lenny did not go through the shit he did in Legion for you to call him fucking Jerma 💀

Kayne Malevolent has escaped containment

[cadomoisspokenfor]

Legion Rewatch Notes,

Chapter 6:

Balance

Farouk later says he made all this to keep David comfortable. But then why go through the effort of having therapy sessions with anyone else? Is he just delighting in the gaslighting?

Small thing, Ptonomy’s not technically a psychic in the same way David/Farouk/Oliver are, but he does have well practiced mental abilities. I wonder if it takes more work to trick him than the others. Same for Walter I guess.

“I like to think i’m a time traveller. I can go back and back, but all I can do is... watch.” Sad and also relevant for future episodes. Thinking about it, this a pretty character defining statement for Ptonomy. Perfect recollection of all the horrible things he’s seen in the past, but never able to change anything.

Also, Farouk sat there and listened to Ptonomy’s entire story patiently and quietly. To what end?

Do Cary and Kerry still think of themselves as siblings in this simulation? Or are they just codependent friends?

So Walters problem is fragile masculinity?

Why is Syd able to see through Farouks delusion? Why doesn’t Farouk do anything about it?

I theorized once that Syd could see through it cause she knows what it’s like to be in the white room, but Ptonomy and Melanie have been in the astral plane too. And Ptonomy prides himself on knowing when he’s in reality. Could it be that Syd just has a really strong sense of self? Because of her power I mean. “Everywhere I go, I’m me.” It’s also possible Syd holds no insecurities about whether she’s psychotic or not. So when reality suddenly changes, she doesn’t just brush it off.

Is Farouk over inflating parts of Amy’s real personality, or is this just a completely inserted personality with no tangible connection to the real Amy?

This isn’t how David sees Amy, but maybe it’s how Farouk sees her, for holding David back?

Ptonomy takes Lenny’s place here. By Farouk’s design, or is it just to show similarities between their personalities? Ptonomy can be a bit cruel towards people with trauma and grief.

David no longer loves dogs.

“Paul” and not ��Ptonomy”. I think it’s just a nickname, and I *think* they use it later too.

“I just feel so in control here. Like- my expectations... I’m not trying to bite off more than I can chew...” David feels most comfortable with low expectations and small and manageable goals. This feels really relevant for later.

I think Lenny here realizes she’s made David too comfortable. He’s never gonna want to leave and become a God if this keeps up. Also, his attachment to Syd keeps him from becoming what Farouk wants him to be.

On that attachment, this is maybe the most at peace we’ve ever seen and will ever see David be in the show. And he cites his relationship with Syd as the reason.

(Small note) I don’t think it’d be fair to say that David moving forward, or even David before this, not prioritizing their relationship all the time is a mistake on his part. Even though the show sorta paints it to be one, most of the time when he’s pulled away it was either to save someone in mortal danger, or to stop a global threat. David’s constantly dealing with the classic superhero dilemma, but the others don’t seem to see what they’re putting him through. Or in some cases they do and think he should just get over it. Curse of his powers I guess.

“People always talk about the depression. But it’s the other side, that... invulnerable feeling. Tha- it’s.... dangerous.” The more David gives into the thought that he is a powerful mutant who can’t be damaged by anything, the more dangerous he becomes. This one’s hard to reconcile cause it means even if he wanted to use his powers for good he couldn’t because it’s treated as a slippery-slope to him becoming a villain. Dammit, Hawley...

Farouk clearly knows what makes David happy, but continues to try pushing him into the “I am God” thing despite this. Perhaps this is what he regrets in s3? He could’ve given David exactly what he needed, but like many parents, he wanted his kid to be a miniature version of him. He thought that was what was best for him. Later he’ll realize it wasn’t.

Melanie’s airplaning her food to no one. Is she just pretending or does she actually see Oliver there? Probably the former.

Cary and Kerry’s in-syncness isn’t always all that relevant to the greater plot, but it’s always fun to see.

Farouk’s probably still trying to build up David’s subconscious hatred of Amy.

David’s real upset about the pie. This note’s not necessarily important, I just feel bad for him 🥺.

Also, Syd tried to use this as an opportunity to get out of eating cherries. Valiant effort.

Those bugs are in the white room too. Is Farouk even leaving those on purpose? Or is it more like a mental infection?

The bugs are gone when Syd and the others are looking at it, but they reappear after she sits back down.

Farouk probably hasn’t gotten to flex his powers *this strongly* in 30 years. Hence the “Feeling good” dance sequence.

The same weird thing behind the glass that was in David’s room in Chap 1 is in Syd’s room this ep.

Syd’s also having nightmares about the real world here, just like she will in s3.

I reiterate, how can Syd tell?

MAYBE, the reason Syd could tell is she’s actually been in the real Clockworks before. The rest haven’t. Well, David has, but I don’t think he *wants* to question things right now. Being with Syd in Clockworks was a real happy time for him. Syd describes it like a feeling of deja vu. It’s all reruns to her, but... slightly edited reruns. A constant feeling of “that’s not how this went.” (Small note) It should be considered that David actively resist believing in anything supernatural because of his previous diagnosis. Ans his current one too, probably.

David feels the outside world is too complicated for him. “Too loud.” “I need the routine, the grounding. I’m good.” Interestingly, Dr. Busker’s the one who tells him the outside side worlds not cut out for everybody. Seems counterintuitive to her/Farouk’s goals.

David’s completely comfortable with growing old and dying in a mental hospital. This wasn’t the case at the start of Chap 1. I think the only thing that changed was Syd came into his life.

“I can’t stay here.”

“Not even for me?”

David’s relationship with Syd makes him feel happy and safe and comfortable, but Syd can’t stagnate. She assumedly has dreams outside of David or anything going on with Summerland. *Assumedly* since we’re not necessarily shown what those might be. (There is that alternate timeline where we see her in the back of a limi driving past homeless David)

This is all to say, their lives right now are too busy for them to sit down and talk about it, but there are hints that their long-term relationship goals are incompatible with each other.

It’s not brought up a lot but Kerry has a lot of chemical and prescription terms memorized. Probably from paying attention during Cary’s career, but still, it does make me wonder how she knows so little about other aspects of life in s2.

According to www.uofmhealth.org “Clozapine is an antipsychotic medicine that is used to treat schizophrenia after other treatments have failed.”

(Small aside for drug talk) [According to www.rxlist.com “Effexor (venlafaxine) is an antidepressant used for treatment of major depression.”

Those are the 2 drugs Cary and Kerry say Syd might be on. Said in response to Syd talking about the strange dreams she’s been having.

One of the listed side effects of Effexor is “strange dreams.”

Clozapine has a lot of things listed but I don’t see anything about effecting dreams. I do see drowsiness and muscle problems listed though, and Syd looks like she trips a bit before starting to talk about her dream.]

I didn’t realize on previous watches that Cary and Kerry both had Oliver related dreams. Cary saw the ice cube, and Kerry saw “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Probably in reference to the diving suit.

Melanie in Mental Clockworks acts very similar to Melanie throughout s2. I’d go as far to say they’re the same. Perhaps Farouk is just overemphasizing already present parts of their personalities. When driven to this point Melanie’s willing to do or believe anything that will bring Oliver back. In s2 this mindset will be intentionally orchestrated by Farouk, then subsequently exploited for the cave conversation.

Is Walter interested in Kerry because he subconsciously recognizes her as the girl he shot before?

When Cary’s first brought into the astral plane he’s in the middle of a forest. Could this symbolize the forest around David’s old house? David also had to make a journey before getting to where Oliver was located. Though I can’t remember what he was surrounded by when he came in.

If Syd’s not in there because she doesn’t want to be touched, then why did David still do the pillow divider thing when they were in bed together?

Syd was stored in David’s memories of his childhood bedroom.

Ptonomy’s powers give off a very “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” vibe. I think this is also the last time we see him in mental clockworks.

Walter definitely goes for power above all else.

Syd got locked behind that door she was so curious about.

Amy says some real targeted stuff here. She plays directly into David’s insecurities. If what she says is supposed to represent David’s deepest fears, than it would seem being unloved or underserving of love is the worst thing in the world to him. “You’re unwanted.” It feels doubly sad cause Amy visiting him in the hospital was probably what kept him going all those years without Syd. Lenny was nice but she... was also being treated.

Melanie prays.

Is it the actual Oliver that appears to Melanie at first? Whoever they are, they leave immediately after instructing her to somehow save David and Syd. It could be possible that Oliver did that to get a head start on it while he brought Cary up to speed.

Whenever someone questions his and Syd’s relationship, David’s only response is a defensive “We’re in love.”

Farouk’s sick of trying to indirectly manipulate David to his will and just starts outright venting about how he doesn’t get “love.”

This is also the first person-to-person philosophical discussion between David and Farouk.

Farouk also doesn’t get being “happy” and “fulfilled.” How sad.

Lenny says “Daaaviiiiiiiid” in the same way that Clark does.

Farouk calls himself a fungus here. If he’s using the previous metaphor, he means to say he’s feeding off David’s power and is eventually gonna burst out of his head, killing him in the process. (Added a few seconds after) I forgot he literally shows David that that’s what he means, lol.

Farouk’s downplaying his emotional connection to David here, claiming to only want to team with him for boosted power. But he does also say “I’m trying to help you.” I think this whole scene might be Farouk’s way of saying “Either you finally hatch and become a God, or I leave you behind to die. There are no other options.”

Again, Farouk knows what makes David happy and can’t accept that cause it’s not what he wants out of David. He’ll regret this later.

“Oh, you pretty things! Don’t you know you’re driving your mama’s and papa’s insane? Let me make it plain, gotta make way for the homo superior!” “Homo superior” in Marvel comics is another name for mutants. And David being the most powerful mutant in show would mean he’s the most “superior” of the homo superiors. Farouk locks his mind away for not realizing that. I guess he’s the “papa” in this scenario.

The lyrics to “Oh! You pretty things”in general is relevant to what’s going on at this point in the story.

Another line in particular sticks out, “Look out at your children. See their faces in golden rays. Don’t kid yourself, they belong to you. They’re the start of a coming race.” Farouk tries to essentially disown David at the end of this episode, but the song says “don’t kid yourself.” Farouk will eventually come to think of David as his son. A son that he knows he failed. Not yet though.

[zhouxuns]

thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

[sunflowerroland]

Name ten favourite characters from 10 different things (books, tv, film, etc.) then tag ten people.

I was tagged by @castiel-saved-me-from-myself - thank you dear :) I love doing things like this!

1. Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma - Gotham (and any DC media tbh) - I cant choose and they’re from the same thing so I just put them on the same point

2. Deadpool - Marvel

3. Adric - Doctor Who

4. Data - Star Trek

5. Klaus Hargreeves - The Umbrella Academy

6. Connor - Detroit: Become Human

7. Lenny Busker - Legion

8. Newton Geizler and Hermann “numbers are as close as we get to the handwriting of God” Gottlieb - Pacific Rim 

9. Steve Harrington - Stranger Things

10. Five - Dark Matter

(As an 11 bc I’m a rebel it would be Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens)

I tag @meatsy @mellondrops @chuckpanozzo @merrythemastermind @britishsixtiesbeat @mavhenaan @junjiito @fiestapig1979 @ragingbalzac and @thedyke 

[class-wom]

Another Legion Chapter 22 Spoiler Discussion:  Charles Xavier and the Butterfly Effect

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 SPOILER TERRITORY

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So here’s the thing (yes, there’s a thing):  On my initial “Morning After”-post, I made an ob about Charles Xavier’s one decision and his head-scratching priorities (mutant-hunting versus child-rearing/wife-supporting) and what I thought of them.  Did and didn’t think much of it at the time (in other words, I thought it was “just me”)...and then went online later and noted that I was hardly alone in my ob!  As a matter of fact, I read one quote by Harry Lloyd himself noting that this one moment was the one that, at least where this characterization is concerned, revealed that Xavier was hardly a hero.

Now that isn’t to say that this makes Xavier a villain by default per se.  For that matter, Farouk’s simplistic Chapter 15 declaration that the “non-hero” by default was a villain and vice-versa does not make him a hero if Xavier is not one himself imo.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize that, had Charles made a completely different decision and put his family ahead of his obsession over whether or not he was the only mutant in the world, the “present day scenario” in which we find ourselves as an audience -- potential Apocalypse, David Haller literally versus the world, Farouk slyly and quietly pulling the strings on all sides, etc. -- could have been completely avoided.  (Not sure about whether or not David would have “psychotic mutant issues” per se; I kind of think he would have, but they would be milder and more manageable than what we see now, and he would hopefully be in a more supportive and understanding environment than he is at present.  Also, that Syd-thing probably wouldn’t have happened either, I’m thinking, because Farouk wouldn’t have messed with the Birds and Syd!)  Prevention is indeed less costly than cure, and Charles Xavier could have prevented the world from having to be saved in the first place had he not hunted down a Moroccan mutant that plunged his entire family straight down to Hell both literally and figuratively!  The point has repeatedly been made that David’s attempts at time travel and prevention have potentially exacerbated an already bad situation and all but sealed his fate as Farouk’s property, and while I acknowledge and note that on the one hand, on the other, had Charles stayed, we would be looking at a completely different present in which David may feel no need to go to such extremes in the first place!  Everything hinges not on Farouk’s actual possession (as David believes) but Charles exposing himself to Farouk in the first place.  To me it’s like teasing a poisonous rattlesnake:  Sure, the inevitable venomous bites have tragic consequences, but common sense could easily prevent them.

Lest this turn into a complete “Xavier Attack,” lol, we saw this to a lesser extent last week in Clark’s obsession with using Squirrel to track down Lenny in pursuit of David, if not landing David himself.  Sure, he launched a seemingly successful strategy on the “Tea Party Gang,” but it was that one little detail he neglected -- properly arming an expensive vehicle containing expensive vehicles and the literal brains of the operation in the form of Cary -- that proved D3′s downfall.  It was only too easy for Lenny the Target to hop in and whizz away with Cary in tow due to his neglect of the safety of all of the participants in the mission.  It’s always that one tiny little detail slipping one’s mind in a moment of focus that sometimes leads to boneheaded mishaps at the least and occasional tragedies at the worst, sadly but truthfully, and it’s the realization of how preventable the consequences were in retrospect that oftentimes lead to self-torture and regret.  But there are too many folks so focused on their own “priorities,” whether it be the determination of Clark and Syd to kill David and/or “save the world,” David’s determination to “fix things” (again, might not have been necessary in the first place, as we now know), or Charles’ determination to confirm his desire to “find others,” that the tunnel vision eclipses the ability to foresee the potential consequences of the actions in question.

Now this is how things look at present, as is the nature of this show; much to my relief, by all accounts this is hardly the last of “Chuck’nGabby” that we will see before the curtain call, and I’m eager to see Charles’s retrospective take on all of this.  Will he reflect on this with extreme regret?  How will that effect David’s wildly desperate attempts at grasping the situation for all of his internal and external struggles?  Now maybe there’s more to this:  Maybe Farouk did pose an immediate threat, and maybe Xavier was “called to attention” over it, being a soldier and all.  Now that would make more sense if that proves to be the case, but the way Chapter 22 presented it, it just appears that Xavier got a wild hair, booked a trip to Morocco, and kissed Gabs and Little Davey goodbye before their happy lives were forever changed for the worse.  I’ll hold my fire until or unless more info becomes available, but for now I’d say my biggest among many facepalms lies with Xavier.  In fact, I would call it the root ultimate facepalm:  The literal fate of the world lies with this one core decision, and it wasn’t necessarily David’s.  But we have seen enough of David’s psyche to compare it to that of his father’s now and say, “Oh, that’s where you get it!”

On that note, it puts David in Chapters 9 to Chapter 13 in a whole new light:  Distracted by conflicting missions, debating whether to destroy Farouk’s body via the D3-mission or to save it via FutureSyd’s insistence, grappling over the notion of having lost a year of his life as all others have moved on for better or worse, the last thing on his mind was the safety of Amy and Ben, which he clearly took for granted until he realized the truth too late.  Similarly, Farouk took advantage of his father’s distraction with his own mission by whatever motivation -- orders, self-imposed curiosity, who knows right now? -- and destroyed what he loved in a similar fashion with an equally twisted motivation.

Again, at least that’s how it looks to me.

[hexiva]

                                   S p i d e r s                            

                          a legion fanmix

Sydney Barrett | Ptonomy Wallace | Lenny Busker | Amahl Farouk | Oliver Bird | Melanie Bird | David Haller | Whole fanmix                                                        Click the read more for lyrics!

Syd Barrett

I Am Her, Shea Diamond - There's an outcast in everybody's life / And I am her. I Keep Myself to Myself, The Boy Least Likely To - I'll never be lonely when I am alone / and I keep myself to myself / I live in a little world of my own. Don’t Be Afraid to Sing, Stars - And too afraid, you're too afraid to fall for anything / And too afraid, much too afraid to sing. How Much More, Stars - You asked for time, and time takes you away. Hallelujah, Rufus Wainright - There was a time you'd let me know / What's real and going on below / But now you never show it to me do you? Believe, Mumford & Sons - I had the strangest feeling / Your world's not all it seems / So tired of misconceiving / What else this could've been. Mad Girl, Emilie Autumn - Mad girl / Can you believe / What they've done to you? / Wouldn't they stop / When you asked them to leave you alone / In all your faerie tales / How did the prince say he loved you? Hero, Regina Spektor - I'm the hero of the story / Don't need to be saved.

Ptonomy Wallace

Photographic Memory, Emilie Autumn - But I'm relying / On my photographic memory / While painfully realizing / It's not all that it's cracked up to be. Mind, Sleeping at Last - First, the ground rules get established / Memory is historically inaccurate. Kerouac, Morphine - His memories pull shades up and down. Always in the Past, Tears for Fears - And I can't stop thinking / Always in the past. Brass Buttons, Gram Parsons - My mind was young until she grew / My secret thoughts known only by the few / It was a dream much too real / To be leaned against too long / All the time I think she knew. In the Mausoleum, Beirut - Time travels to know / Your secret life / In your mausoleum. Time Travel, Daley - I can get back to a feeling / That existed in the past / Find somebody with some meaning / Try to equal what we had. Switched On, Vaux - Try, tried everything but it's all been wrong / Got, got all the circuits, but all the circuits are blown / So now all the pieces, all the pieces fit / Become the machine and the scales will tip.

Lenny Busker

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper - They just wanna, they just wanna / They just wanna, they just wanna, oh girl / Girls, they wanna have fun. Girls Like Girls, Hayley Kiyoko - I've been crossing all the lines, all the lines / Kissed your girls and made you cry, boys.Take it Off, Kesha - There's a place downtown where the freaks all come around / It's a hole in the wall, it's a dirty free for all.  Smoke Weed Eat Pussy, Ängie - I smoke weed, eat pussy everyday / And everyday is kind of the same / I have fun and I feel no shame. Theory of Relativity, Stars - Now that you’ve grown so wise / Use that head and stop to think a little / Just cause you’re crazy doesn’t mean that you’re free. Girl Anachronism, The Dresden Dolls - And you can tell / From the state of my room / That they let me out too soon / And the pills that I ate / Came a couple years too late. Spiders, The Vapors - She's got spiders inside her head / She's in danger she's easily led. Hey Sister, Simian Mobile Disco - Hey sister / Hey sister / Could you come a little closer? / Feel like my brain is spilling over / Do I seem a little strange to you?

Amahl Farouk

Pet, A Perfect Circle - Pay no mind what other voices say / They don't care about you, like I do, like I do / Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils / See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do / Just stay with me, safe and ignorant. Le Roi Des Ombres, -M- - All alone in the arena, I am the King of Shadows / All alone in the arena, master of the carnage / I am the shadow of your shadow. Plastic Soul, This World Fair - Consuming space and time, you welcome it / And drawing side by side the lines you see fit / To truth or consequence you yield and go / Take control and take control and take control. Das Böse, E Nomine - Ravenous monster / Evil comes to pass / Unclean monster / Forever tormenting. Spiders, Ozzy Osbourne - You think he's gone / You think he's dead / There's no escape / The spider’s in your head. Behind Blue Eyes, Navid Negahban & Dan Stevens - But my dreams, they aren’t as empty, as my conscience seems to be / I have hours, only lonely / My love is vengeance / That’s never free. Emperor’s New Clothes, Panic at the Disco - Welcome to the end of eras / Ice has melted back to life / Done my time and served my sentence / Dress me up and watch me die / If it feels good, tastes good / It must be mine. آینه‌ها, Farhad Mehrad - I see my face in the mirror / I rest my eyes for a moment / And I tell myself that it’s a mask / I can take it off my face.

Oliver Bird

Is That All There Is, Peggy Lee - Is that all there is / If that's all there is, my friends / Then let's keep dancing / Let's break out the booze and have a ball / If that's all there is. My Brain Is Like a Sieve, Thomas Dolby - Oh! My brain is like a sieve / Sometimes it's easier to forget / All the bad things you did to me. Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd - The child is grown / The dream is gone / I have become comfortably numb. Strawberry Fields Forever, The Beatles - Always, no, sometimes . . . think it's me . . . / But you know I know when it's a dream / I think a "no" will mean a "yes" but it's all wrong / That is I think I disagree. Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall, Simon & Garfunkel - Through the corridors of sleep / Past the shadows dark and deep / My mind dances and leaps in confusion / I don't know what is real / I can't touch what I feel / And I hide behind the shield of my illusion. Feelin’ Groovy, Simon & Garfunkel - Doot-in doo-doo, feelin' groovy / Ba da da da, da da, da da, feelin' groovy. Dedicated Follower of Fashion, The Kinks - There's one thing that he loves and that is flattery / One week he's in polka-dots, the next week he is in stripes / 'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion. Turn, Turn, Turn, The Byrds - To everything (turn, turn, turn) / There is a season (turn, turn, turn) / And a time to every purpose, under heaven.

Melanie Bird

Oblivion, Bastille - When you fall asleep with your head upon my shoulder / When you're in my arms / But you've gone somewhere deeper. Go Where You Wanna Go, The Mamas and the Papas - You don't understand / That a girl like me can love just one man / You've been gone a week, and I tried so hard / Not to be the cryin' kind / Not to be the girl you left behind. I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono, Dar Williams - But I won't be your Yoko Ono / If you're not good enough for me. Landslide, Fleetwood Mac - Well, I've been afraid of changing / 'Cause I've built my life around you / But time makes you bolder / Even children get older / And I'm getting older too. Heaven Forbid, The Fray - Twenty years, it's breaking you down / Now that you understand there's no one around / Take a breath, just take a seat / You're falling apart and tearing at the seams. A Hazy Shade of Winter, Simon & Garfunkel - Time, time time / see what's become of me / While I looked around for my possibilities. Battle Born, The Killers - You lost faith in the human spirit / You walk around like a ghost. Weight of Living pt. II, Bastille - All that you desired, when you were a child / Was to be old, was to be old / Now that you are here, suddenly you fear / You've lost control (lost control) / Do you like the person you've become.

David Haller

Villains pt I, Emma Blackery - I'll tell them that the villains on my list / They're what turned me into this / So I'll go / I'm better off alone. Dear Wormwood, The Oh Hellos - I have always known you, you have always been there in my mind / But now I understand you, and I will not be part of your designs / I know who I am now / And all that you've made of me / I know who you are now / And I name you my enemy. Spiderhead, Cage the Elephant - Either I'm in heaven, or I'm in hell / Am I losing my mind here? / ('Cause I can't tell) / I've been waiting for answers for way too long / Seems I'm always waiting around. The Villain I Appear to Be, Connor Spiotto - I don't have the time to tell you / Why I do the things that I do / Just please hold on and soon you'll see / That I'm not the villain I appear to be. Are You Out There, Dar Williams - Perhaps I am a miscreation / All I know’s the truth there is no future here / And you're the DJ speaks to my insomnia / And laughs at all I have to fear. Meds, Placebo - Baby . . . did you forget to take your meds? / And the sex, and the drugs, and the complications . . . Puppet Theatre, Thomas Dolby - One more night in the puppet theater / And I'm dancing on a string / One more pawn for the puppet master / The lines are drawn the hook is in. Brain Damage, Pink Floyd - The lunatic is on the grass / Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs / Got to keep the loonies on the path / The lunatic is in the hall. Life 2: The Unhappy Ending, Stars -  Life was supposed to be a film, was supposed to be a thriller, was supposed to end in tears / But life, could be nothing but a joke, could be nothing but a con / Where's my unhappy ending gone? Villains pt II, Emma Blackery - How foolish of me / To try and divide people into categories / I found it so easy / But what can I do / When I've got nothing else / Not even myself.

[starrysplanet-blog]

{What Netflix’s “The Rain” Does Right That FX’s “Legion” Doesn’t?}

         It is extremely weird to compare these two shows that have nothing exactly in common with each other. Netflix’s ‘The Rain’ is a Post-Apocalyptic show about a virus being spread through rain that is killing people. FX’s ‘Legion’ is about an omega mutant named David Haller who basically goes on a self-discovery quest. Two very different shows, two very different concepts and two very different networks. Yet there is one thing that The Rain does right that Legion doesn’t. Warning: Do Not Read Further If You Have Not Seen Both Shows & Would Like To! And that is the ‘untouchable couple’. In Season 1, Episode 1 of Legion, we are introduced to David’s main love interest Sydney Barrett. A woman who he meets in the mental hospital as she is a new patient and hates being touched. She is wrongly diagnosed with Anti-social Personality Disorder, although this is never brought up again. David immediately becomes infatuated with her and asks her out on the spot without even getting to know her and she accepts. Immediately pointing out, ‘Do Not Touch Me’. A boundary is set from day one. One that he goes okay. In Season 2, Episode 1, we are introduced to Rasmus’s main love interest Sarah, a young adult female who suffers an immune system disorder that causes a simple infection to kill her. She must live in a sterile room where she is constantly checked up on. Her and Rasmus do not officially interact until Episode 2 where it is extremely awkward because Rasmus is the reason her brother is deceased. Yet they come to somewhat good terms in Episode 3 where she compares them to ‘Romeo & Juliet’. 

(Why Is Physical Intimacy Not An Option?)

       Physical Intimacy is not an option in either of these couples. Yet it does eventually happen for both. Think of these two couples to Rogue & Gambit from The X-Men. Touching can have serious consequences. Like David, Sarah is made immediately aware that she can never touch Rasmus. Sydney’s reasoning and Rasmus’s reasoning are very different but is mostly for the same reason. Protection. Sydney does not like being touched because her mutation is activated through touch and she switches bodies with whoever she touches. Rasmus can not be touched because the virus is a part of him and will infect/kill whoever comes into contact with him physically. His consequence is a lot more painful and devastating than Sydney’s but is still in the same concept of both cannot be physically intimate. 

(Thoughts On Physical Intimacy: Sydney & Rasmus)

       Despite being the factor of someone who cannot be touched. Sydney and Rasmus have two very different views on physical intimacy that is shown through thoughts, body language, and pasts. Sydney has shown from day one that she never liked being touched. However social norms can force us to feel like an outcast if we do not conform to them which resulted in a horrific mistake that painted Sydney as a bad person in the viewer’s eyes. She switched bodies with her mother and tried to have sex with her mother’s boyfriend in the shower. This scene is not treated as an okay thing. It leaves both her, her mother, and her mother’s boyfriend in misery. She lost control of her abilities causing her to appear as herself in the shower while her mother comes in to find them both. The mother’s boyfriend is sent to prison for statutory rape while Sydney is left traumatized for the awful action. She takes responsibility for her actions. Both Sydney and Rasmus’s first time have painful consequences. But for two different reasons. Sydney really shows no interest in physical intimacy. She is perfectly fine living a life where she isn’t touched. She even says in Episode 2 with David that she does not like being touched even with the gloves on. As it feels like ants are crawling all over body. When Sydney is shown showing affection, it’s through hand holding with a cloth, blowing kisses, sitting at a comfortable close distance, and having intimate talks. She’s honest with David from the start. Even when he asks her if having sex with him was her first time, she tells him the boyfriend thing. David kisses her without her consent in episode 1, resulting in them switching bodies and causing chaos. He finds a way around her “issue” in later episodes of Season 1 by using his telepathy to find them to be able to touch through their minds. Despite Sydney being perfectly fine with just having a ‘romance of the mind’. While Sydney seems intrigued by the idea of being physically intimate and has sex with David. She does not really initiate nor does she truly desire it. In fact, the only time that they kiss after Episode 1 and the few mind scenes is when Sydney kisses him to save his life. She is willing to sacrifice her comfort to save David. In Season 2, she tries to explain to David how much she missed him by using how she got used to cherry pie (something she once hated), she used to hold her breath until the kettle showed tea was ready, and explained how she looked all over for him after his abduction. David immediately goes into physical intimacy, ignoring what she said previously. Asking if he can kiss her and while she shows interest, it’s up to debate where Sydney feels forced to accept it. When David takes a look into her mind to figure out her puzzle, he sees a couple snogging at an art museum. And immediately assumes that this is what is bothering Sydney. The couple. How intimate they are with each other. How she witnessed them when she was younger and she comes there every day. He never takes into consideration that Sydney may just like art museums as she has shown art ability in Season 1 and her mother was a very artistic, creative person. When she says that is ‘wrong’, he seems almost baffled. She walks off a bit offended and tells him to watch it again. He retaliates by telling the couple to ‘get a room’ because he still subconsciously assumes that they are bothering Syd. Or it could also be that he is envious of how they are doing something that he wants to do with Syd. Of course, this all falls in the end when David rapes Syd after he assumes Farouk is mind-controlling her when she tries to kill him after seeing how he destroys the world. He rapes her by manipulating her mind to not remember much and has sex with her. There’s a lot of debate whether this counts as rape as she never said ‘no’ or seem ‘uninterested’. She didn’t seem exactly excited or into it either. She seemed confused and it almost clicked that it isn’t supposed to be happening. David refuses to accept this and tries to paint himself as the victim causing the ending of Season 2 to be him escaping his trial and leaving with Lenny. 

       Rasmus, however, is the complete opposite. Rasmus shows interest in sex real quick after witnessing Beatrice and Martin have sex and trying to question his sister on it. He’s sort of sheltered. He develops a crush on Beatrice who is older than him and starts to show interest being sexually active with her. Especially after she shows him her breasts in the shower scene. However, after episodes of somewhat conditioning and Beatrice not being as truthful (which is also up to debate), Beatrice fears that she will die from the virus after having a drip of water fall on her forehead. Rasmus and her decide that they should die together which causes them to have sex and that is Rasmus’s first time. The next morning, he is at first stoked that they both made it alive. Yet is horrified to find that Beatrice died from supposed infection which probably happened through sexual intercourse with him. A traumatizing first time. This leaves Rasmus temporarily suicidal and with his powers that cause him to not be intimate as he can kill anyone who touches him as the virus is inside of him. Rasmus tries to not be touched by anyone. However, when he meets Sarah in Season 2, he once again shows desire to be intimate. After Sarah notes that she wants to get super wasted, have sex and run a half of a mile without wanting to collapse. He notes that he cannot help her with that but understands how she feels. Indicating that he too wants to have sex with her. Again, intimacy is shown through intimate conversations, they run away together for a temporary time to see Bakken, seated next to each other at comfortable distances, he gives her his jacket, and she can touch him through gloves when doing his makeup like a clown and wiping it off. On top of the roller-coaster, Sarah notes that she wants Rasmus to kiss her and he responds with her sad that he can’t. (Note: A similar interaction happens between David & Syd, but she responds ‘You can’t’ in more of an aggressive and assertive way. Letting him know that he can’t after he kissed her non-consensual the first time.) Sarah gets sad and nearly jumps off the roller-coaster at the thought that he cannot touch her, only once. As she wants to have one good day with him that ends with a kiss and he doesn’t want to kill her. He talks her out of it and tells her that he doesn’t want superpowers if he cannot kiss her. Showing that he is willing to give up the virus if it means to be intimate with Sarah. Sarah almost has a weak moment touching Rasmus twice but stops herself the first time when she remembers that he doesn’t want to be touched. The second time, he pulls away with her in enough time and she looks saddened to remember but understands. After Rasmus is ‘cured’, Sarah and Rasmus holds hands and shows interest in being intimate now. Rasmus initiates it a lot more too. Rasmus’s and Sarah’s first kiss and her death scene is a lot different from David and Syd’s first kiss. Sarah tells him to kiss her and when he hesitates, she tells him that he is so slow and pulls him down to kiss her. He holds her in his arms as she dies. As Rasmus is way more open to physical intimacy than Sydney. And Sarah does not force physical intimacy on Rasmus as David does to Sydney. 

(Similarities: Sydney & Sarah)

       Despite Sydney being the untouchable one and Sarah being able to touch people. They do have some similarities. Both have boyfriends with deadly powers that they cannot control and end up killing people. Both have witnessed them kill people. Although Rasmus does it accidentally while David does it more willingly. Both have great fashion and colors assigned to them. Sydney wears a lot of black and orange while Sarah wears a lot of pink and creme colors. Sarah and Sydney are also a bit similar in personality. Strong-willed, brave, loyal, and understanding. Honest and blunt. A thing that comes to my mind that is similar is how their one-on-one conversations with their male love interests go. When Sydney first meets David, she goes on a monologue about how she doesn’t feel like she belongs in there. She is not enthused, a bit distant, and harsh. She simply states, “You’re in here because someone told you you’re not normal. How I don’t want to be handled and you hear and see things. That’s what makes you you”. She unknowingly tells David exactly what he wants to hear which makes him ask her out. He ignores everything else that she just said. After he asks her out, they meet at dinner and we get this short montage to the Rolling Stone’s song “She’s a Rainbow” which shows David’s view of Sydney. She is more lighthearted and cheerful, explaining things about herself while he ignores those things and tries to keep his false image of her. Sarah’s one-on-one conversation with Rasmus is different but has the same harshness when Rasmus tells her that he believes they share the same fate. She says, “So you see us as Romeo & Juliet?”. When Rasmus doesn’t get this, she explains that Juliet and Romeo cannot be together so she kills herself and so on. When he explains to her that he was locked up inside a bunker for six years, she breaks her harsh character and laughs and apologizes that she thought it sounded funny. He looks to her for assistance and she agrees to help him with his powers. Calling it a ‘date’ showing immediate attraction between them as she is a lot more cheerful. Sydney and Sarah both accept their male lovers for who they are until David becomes a danger to Sydney and breaks her trust. Sarah is very protective over Rasmus and doesn’t keep any secrets from him. Similar to Syd. 

(Dealing With Not Being Physically Intimate: David & Sarah)

       As the two characters who are with two characters who cannot be touched. David and Sarah react to it very differently. David does not accept boundaries nor does he try to have a non-intimate relationship. He creates this mental room where him and Sydney can have sex. He also reads her mind without permission. He kisses her without permission. He tries to persuade her to be okay with touch through her gloves. And while he tries to be understanding, he fails. He willingly puts Sydney in danger and keeps secrets from her. He has a mutation that makes him unstoppable and he is not a very good person. He seems very controlling towards others. However, Sarah is the complete opposite. Despite showing desire towards Rasmus, she accepts his boundaries. She doesn’t touch him nor tries to. She doesn’t put him in danger and in fact helps him out of danger. She becomes perfectly fine with not being intimate especially with Rasmus trying to keep them the satisfaction through touching by a window. She enjoys his presence and has conversations with him and learns to love him by who he is and not his body. She doesn’t have a false image of Rasmus, she sees him for who he is. And in fact, she doesn’t want him to be cured, despite that meaning they can never be physically intimate. As she worries that it may not be the right thing and how she envies how he can be connected to something. She doesn’t know what it feels like to be normal, similar to David yet instead of forcing everyone in a mess to solve it. She fears that Rasmus will become cured and she will die of her illness as her illness is becoming worse. She doesn’t want him to sacrifice anything for him. His comfort or his safety. She’s honest about this too. Wanting him to know that she accepts him either way. David does not accept Syd either way. 

(Differences: David & Rasmus) 

       David and Rasmus are surprisingly similar in a few ways. Both have abilities that quickly kill people and are a danger to society. Both have controlling men after them to use them as weapons or world domination. Both have loving, protective older sisters who did a lot for them. Killed people. And have put their loved ones in danger. And had fathers that abandoned them at a young age. Yet Rasmus is different from David in a sense that he is actually a good person. He does not deny his actions as when Sarah shows him how he killed the lab full of people after losing control, he shows remorse. He is honest, fearful of what he can do and is trying to learn to control it on his own. Most of his kills have been accidental. He has been a lab rat for finding a cure for the virus as he is the only one who can help. He does not play the victim. And when feeling betrayed by his older sister, he runs away with Sarah to get some air and does not plan the end of the world. David is complicated, he has killed people intentionally and continues to do so. He really only thinks about himself. He’s not a lab rat yet Division 3 is trying to understand him and then they are trying to stop him. He tortures Oliver Bird for information. Is an aggressive person who inflicts pain when he doesn’t get his way. The list can go on why these two are different but the first instance that I want to mention is the ‘protection of their girlfriends’. Rasmus and David handle dangerous situations that put their girlfriends at risk very differently. Sydney has been nearly killed twice due to David. She has had to save herself both times. The first time was the mental asylum reality altering caused by the Shadow King where Sydney had to work to wake David up from his delusion and get him to stop the bullets coming right at them that will result in his and her’s death. Second time is where she has to kill the Minotaur in a giant rabbit hole to save her life while David was too busy torturing Oliver Bird. David doesn’t really risk his life a lot and likes to take an either aggressive way out or ignorance. Rasmus is the complete opposite. Rasmus gives zero shits. When Kira is about to shoot Sarah in the head, he risks everyone’s life almost by intimidating Kira to let go of Sarah and leave by slowly unleashing his powers. Saving her life and his own. He is not afraid to risk his life for her. He wants to be with her and doesn’t want her to get hurt. 

     The second instance I want to touch on is the ‘bad guy turning point’. The season two finales for both shows is intense especially the last scenes. David is put on trial for future crimes and raping Sydney and he ends up escaping the shield that is supposed to hold him in while he is gassed. He leaves them there and frees Lenny and notes that there is no Blondie anymore, referring to Syd. He also raped Syd which counts as his bad guy turning point too. Rasmus’s turning point is completely different and is understandable. It comes down to his protective instincts. Sarah is killed by a simple gunshot by some Apollon members. After she is unable to speed up to catch up with the rest. She dies in Rasmus’s arms and it is quickly discovered as the rage built up in him that he is not cured, at all. He is furious, heart-broken and sick of this shit. He goes on a ruthless and sorrowful massacre throughout the whole facility, killing every single Apollon member that was invading the area with his ability. Infecting them and murdering them. It’s an intense scene because it is the first time that he actually intentionally murders people and his sister, Simone is unable to stop him. Although Rasmus tries to deny his actions by blaming everyone. The Apollon members killed Sarah, Simone wouldn’t leave him alone, and Martin is always calling the shots. As Rasmus came close to killing Martin, Simone shoots him which he quickly heals from but comes to his senses. Betrayed, he leaves the facility and comes in contact with the main Apollon dude. Presumably handing himself over as he, himself realizes the threat that he is causing.  Sarah wakes up from death, now infected with the virus. And seemingly will come back together with Rasmus in the future. As we see that their love is much stronger than Sydney and David’s. 

(Why Is FX’s Legion So Frustrating Fan-base Wise?)

         Legion suffers from what I call ‘justification of an irredeemable villain’. Sydney is hated in the fan-base, especially after Season 2. She is seen as the bad guy to the fandom despite being the hero in the story. Some say that it feels unearned and that she’s a hypocrite due to how she raped her mother’s boyfriend and got him in major trouble. And I won’t deny that was a shitty thing to do. She should have never done that and it is probably the cause of why she hates physical intimacy so much nowadays. She has hurt someone for life and she feels intense remorse over it. BUT. She is honest about it, she does not defend her actions, and she knows she’s not the victim in the scenario. She is entirely aware that she deserves to be seen as awful for what she did. She has accepted it. David shows no remorse, plays the victim, defends his actions, and does the exact same thing that The Shadow King would have done. Yet he is loved by the fandom. Was what Sydney did shitty? Yes, she was a sixteen year old girl who felt that she had to be sexually active and felt stupidly that she could have done it but it failed miserably. Could Sydney have spoken up? Yes but she was already walking on thin ice with her mother and was a mutant. Which would have caused her and everyone more harm than good. Did Sydney deserved to be raped? No. Is Sydney a hypocrite for feeling betrayed by David? No. She trusted him. She defended him against everyone who told her that he was a bad guy and he violated her body. I am so sick and tired of hearing it be the woman’s fault that she got raped. She didn’t love him enough, she didn’t accept him enough, she was easily manipulated by the Shadow King. It was never Sydney’s job nor did she owe him her full loyalty. He lied to her, he kept secrets from her, he invaded her privacy and he ended up harming her in the end. Sydney did not owe him her forgiveness. And she even brought up getting him some help and he went on the defense mode. RAPE IS NOT JUSTIFIABLE. BY ANY STANDARDS. IF YOU CAN’T JUSTIFY SYD RAPING HER MOTHER’S BOYFRIEND, DO NOT EVEN THINK OF JUSTIFYING DAVID RAPING SYD. And as sad as it is, Sydney raping her mother’s boyfriend is actually a bit more justifiable than David raping her. Age, stupidity, and lack of control. Her reaction is what makes it more redeemable than David’s. David blamed Syd for it, til the end. Syd blamed herself. 

(In Conclusion)

       In Conclusion, The Rain did a hell of a better job of the untouchable couple than Legion. Which is quite sad Sarah and Rasmus are young adults while David and Syd are in their late twenties to early thirties. They had no concept of consent nor accepting boundaries. Their relationship was toxic and manipulative. It was built on false imagery, distrust, and misunderstanding. It was built on Syd falling for a villain who disguised himself as a victim and hero. I personally love the untouchable couple because it forces the writer to build a dynamic and powerful couple without the normal physical intimacy. It is truly built on personality and conversations. Also creative ways of how they can quench their thirst for intimacy. Rasmus reminds me a lot more of Rogue’s scenario than Syd. I feel like it also depends on how the character reacts to physical intimacy and how much they want it. Legion shot themselves in the foot when they wrote Syd as being such a character who really doesn’t seem to want physical intimacy at all while The Rain put it out there quick. 

        I hope you enjoyed this comparison. Feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the notes as I am always eager to hear. Also feel free to reblog, like, or follow my blog.

                                             -Starry Fleur

[versaphile]

Taking Fixit Requests

Okay, so here’s the premise of my S2 fixit AU:

Everything is the same up to the intervention scene. But instead of busting free, David isn’t able to break out of Cary’s orb before the gas takes him down. Cue David being hauled away for imprisonment/treatment, with D3 keeping Farouk close at hand as an ally in case he tries to break free.

The story then follows the entire Summerland gang as they work to recover from S2’s traumas, figure out a way to break D3’s alliance with Farouk, and save David from himself. Featuring the return of Oliver and Melanie, Clark being amoral, Farouk being an absolute piece of shit, Ptonomy to the rescue, Cary and Kerry being their essential selves, Lenny and David bonding, and however much David/Syd repairing as I can figure out. It will of course all center around David Haller, mutant catastrophe and emotional dumpster fire.

So! As I get digging into the outline of this probably 50k+ story, I am taking requests from the entire Tumblr Legion fandom! What did you wish we got in S2? What do you want more of? Did you want to see more Clark and Syd chats? More Loudermilk twins? A particularly vicious form of revenge against Farouk? Give me your requests and I’ll cram in everything I possibly can.

[damn-stevens]

Legion S2: Life in Binary and the Long Con

Continuing from my last post about 2x07. Let’s talk Big Bads and bullshit, people.

2x01 is really important to this season. A lot happens in it that doesn’t make sense until you’ve watched several episodes. There's STILL a ton of strange little hints in the first episode that probably won't be clear until the very end, but I think the last scene holds something of interest at this moment, right after the end of 2x07. Listen to the end of "White Rabbit". I’ve been wondering about it ever since I first saw it. 

OMG. Riiiight? The voice always sounded a bit like Ptonomy to me, and it keeps saying, “Ten...one...one...one...ten...” etc, which made me think of binary the first time I heard it. There’s many binaries in this show: red and green, David and Farouk, “bad” and “good”, past and future, Cary and Kerry, “David 1″ and “David 2″, the list goes on and on. But is living life from the point of view of duality actually helpful to the characters on this show?

So we know that David appeared in a mini forest on top of a tall building sometime before he turned up at the Club, sitting alone in a chair. My guess is that the “forest” is a mental version of the Mainframe referred to by Fukyama/the Vermillion and David-in-the-orb is going to be dropped there sometime soon in what we might as well refer to as the “present day”. He’ll have a very important conversation with Ptonomy there, which will probably (?) then lead him back to the Club where he’ll battle with Oliver and a new version of “Lenmy” who will come into being in the next few episodes.

Wait, what? Well...

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually — from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint — it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff.

- The Tenth Doctor, Doctor Who, “Don’t Blink”

So what I’m saying is that while I’ve always believed this was a timey-wimey season, my current hypothesis is that up til now I was thinking it was timey-wimey in the wrong direction. We assumed that David’s memories of what happened after he entered the orb were in the past, but in actuality, they haven’t happened just yet. 

I assume this because of the way the roof-forest resembles the Mainframe and the binary code being said in Ptonomy’s voice in David’s memories. Also concerning the “Lemny” theory: there are two scenes in which Lenny doesn’t look quite like herself in 2x01. There’s the delusion chick hatching scene, in which she picks it up and kisses it after killing the “healthy” idea. Her hair is curly and auburn like Amy’s, if slightly shorter. She’s also wearing a very sweet and adorable, Amy-style dress. The only thing about her that resembles original Lenny is that her eyes are brown. Then in the Club dance fight scene, her hair is in a short bob, but still looks slightly auburn even in the odd lighting of the Club. It’s also full like Amy’s but not overly curly like Lenny’s black hair would be. Again her eyes are brown. The last time we see this version of “Lemny”, David remembers her approaching him to give him a kiss, which could mean anything, but is probably (?) a sign of sibling affection.

Something else: the whys and hows I don’t know yet, but the longer this season goes on, the more I’m sure David is being played. He’s been manipulated by somebody who knows things they aren’t telling him, someone who’s a talented liar. And in typical Legion fashion, this person isn’t Farouk, because that’s just who you’d expect. No, the liar is clearly Syd.

But hey, what about Future Syd and her prophecy of doom? Who IS Future Syd, really? Well, she’s Present Syd, I think. Remember how Syd was practicing switching places with a cat early in the season? Now at the end of 2x07, Future Syd looks into a very familiar-looking neon ring at an image of Present Syd, who’s sitting in her room. But actually, there is no Future Syd, just an extra Vermillion that Present Syd found lying around and put her own face on (!) She probably initially wanted to use it to touch David in the real world when he returned home, but now instead she’s used it to trick him into helping Farouk find his body (I dunno why yet, but there’s a lot about what happened to her in the past year that I believe we don’t know yet). While the actual Syd pretends to be herself from the future in a Vermillion body, the computer mind of the Vermillion just sits around in Present Syd’s body...vermillioning.

David is being lied to, probably only by Syd because she knows/believes something about him that she’s not telling anyone else. I feel like she learned something scary about him during the last year, and she sees this trickery as the only solution to the potential dangers of the future. Maybe she’s trying to save him from Clark, or maybe she’s trying to save the world from him, or maybe both. But she wants him involved this hunt for Farouk’s body, which may or may not be a wild good chase. It might just be a distraction, like Lemny’s delusion chicks.

Uh, ok...that’s confusing enough, but who is the “big bad” of the season then? Tbh I don't think there's any actual villain in this season. It's more about bad feelings created by secrets, lies, and deceptions ending up in bad results; feelings like fear, mistrust, betrayal, and rage. I'd keep my eyes on Clark, Syd, Lenny, Melanie, and Oliver to see what they do. David and Farouk are involved but are more of a cause than the effect, I believe. 

We're a superstitious animal, always turning the weather into acts of God. Like, probably, the Devil was just some guy named Lucifer who beat up kids for their Lunchables, and then a few hundred years later...

- Clark, Legion 2x01

Clark’s little speech sounds like it’s pointing at heart of this season: the power of assumption, fear, and utter bullshit. I think David and Farouk create an abundance of all these things between the two of them. Farouk is the true, seasoned con artist of the two because aside from his little mind-fuck games I don’t think he has any power of his own, but David is almost worse because he appears to be conning himself in order not to face ugly truths. 

Now we’ll just have to wait to see how much of what I just wrote is bullshit after 2x08 airs.

[wastrident]

so maybe I'm dumb or maybe the next episode will explain it but what was the point of this week's episode?

I think there are a lot of people asking that same question. Honestly, I’m in as much the know as all the rest of us, but let me try to speculate here a little bit, since I’ve barely gotten into gear for this episode, forgive me!

You know, it’s you know, there’s different possibilities. … Multiple realities. Different realities. … It’s this thing, t-the multiple worlds theory, from, like, quantum mechanics, right? … Every event, the things we do, there’s like a million possible outcomes. … And the theory is, that each outcome actually happens. … Like a tree growing branches, and-and each branch is, like, an alternate timeline. … And every time each me makes a decision, or something happens where the future could, like, go in different directions, another branch springs up. And that branch makes branches, and that branch makes branches, and that branch makes branches, and that branch makes branches. - David ( “Chapter 14” )

So, I take it this is one of the most pivotal conversations in this episode. Granted, all of the different “branches,” all of the different “realities,” serve as a distraction from the main narrative           our main narrative, the question of the universe the audience has been tracking. This presentation of multiple timelines happening at the same time is exactly in the spirit of Legion: it shakes our perception of what is real, which is what this whole show has been trying to get us to question (consider: the “All In Your Head” preview, and Lenny reminding us that “what [we] think is real never occurred” while simultaneously reminding us that what’s coming is “very real”). What is real, what is not, and why are we tracking this specific timeline.

I think the most important part of this episode happens near the end, when we’re fed again Farouk’s word of advice: that “you decide what is real and what is not. Your will.” Note: the last minute of the episode is a quick chronological synopsis of what has happened in both season one and season two, but if you look closely, this short shot is not in the correct order. It’s interposed between the shots of Amy being, uh, “transformed” into Lenny, and David freaking out about it (all are Chapter 13 scenes, while Farouk speaks with David in Chapter 10). I have no doubt this was intentional on Hawley’s part. No doubt, no doubt. This was a very calculated reminder          and that’s important.

David decides what is real and what is not. I don’t entirely know what’s going to happen in these next few episodes (does anyone ever really understand Legion logic), but perhaps it will have something to do with David’s (the audience’s) reality and its extents. Don’t forget that David is still battling to save the future. If he can somehow learn to “decide what is real,” then perhaps he can save the future after all. Or not.

All these worlds, too, are important players in David’s mind. I’ve heard several people speculate on the possibility of all these different Davids being his split personalities: i.e., don’t forget his D.I.D. That’s a really, really great argument, and I think the powers exhibited by each of them will/should eventually play a role in David Haller coming to terms with his own power and self.

[telegion]

 you  know  ,  it’s  you  know  ,  there’s  different  possibilities  .  …  multiple  realities  .  different  realities  .  …  it’s  this  thing  ,  t-the  multiple  worlds  theory  ,  from  ,  like  ,  quantum  mechanics  ,  right?  …  every  event  ,  the  things  we  do  ,  there’s  like  a  million  possible  outcomes  .  …  and  the  theory  is  ,  that  each  outcome  actually  happens  . …  like  a  tree  growing  branches  ,  and-and  each  branch  is  ,  like  ,  an  alternate  timeline  .  …  and  every  time  each  me  makes  a  decision  ,  or  something  happens  where  the  future  could  ,  like  ,  go  in  different  directions  ,  another  branch  springs  up  .  and  that  branch  makes  branches  ,  and  that  branch  makes  branches  ,  and  that  branch  makes  branches  ,  and  that  branch  makes  branches  . -  david  (    “chapter  14”    )

 so  ,  i  take  it  this  is  one  of  the  most  pivotal  conversations  in  this  episode  .  granted  ,  all  of  the  different  “branches  ,”  all  of  the  different  “realities  ,”  serve  as  a  distraction  from  the  main  narrative              our  main  narrative  ,  the  question  of  the  universe  the  audience  has  been  tracking  .  this  presentation  of  multiple  timelines  happening  at  the  same  time  is  exactly  in  the  spirit  of  legion  :  it  shakes  our  perception  of  what  is  real  ,  which  is  what  this  whole  show  has  been  trying  to  get  us  to  question  (  consider  :  the  “all  in  your  head”  preview  ,  and  lenny  reminding  us  that  “what  [we]  think  is  real  never  occurred”  while  simultaneously  reminding  us  that  what’s  coming  is  “very  real”  )  .  what  is  real  ,  what  is  not  ,  and  why  are  we  tracking  this  specific  timeline  .

 i  think  the  most  important  part  of  this  episode  happens  near  the  end  ,  when  we’re  fed  again  farouk’s  word  of  advice  :  that  “you  decide  what  is  real  and  what  is  not  .  your  will  .”  note  :  the  last  minute  of  the  episode  is  a  quick  chronological  synopsis  of  what  has  happened  in  both  season  one  and  season  two  ,  but  if  you  look  closely  ,  this  short  shot  is  not  in  the  correct  order  .  it’s  interposed  between  the  shots  of  amy  being  ,  uh  ,  “transformed”  into  lenny  ,  and  david  freaking  out  about  it  (  all  are  chapter  13  scenes  ,  while  farouk  speaks  with  david  in  chapter  10  )  .  i  have  no  doubt  this  was  intentional  on  hawley’s  part  .  no  doubt  ,  no  doubt  .  this  was  a  very  calculated  reminder               and  that’s  important  .  

 david  decides  what  is  real  and  what  is  not  .  i  don’t  entirely  know  what’s  going  to  happen  in  these  next  few  episodes  (  does  anyone  ever  really  understand  legion  logic  )  ,  but  perhaps  it  will  have  something  to  do  with  david’s  (  the  audience’s  )  reality  and  its  extents  .  don’t  forget  that  david  is  still  battling  to  save  the  future  .  if  he  can  somehow  learn  to  “decide  what  is  real  ,”  then  perhaps  he  can  save  the  future  after  all  .  or  not  .

 all  these  worlds  ,  too  ,  are  important  players  in  david’s  mind  .  i’ve  heard  several  people  speculate  on  the  possibility  of  all  these  different  davids  being  his  split  personalities  :  i  .e  .  ,  don’t  forget  his  d  .i  .d  .  that’s  a  really  ,  really  great  argument  ,  and  i  think  the  powers  exhibited  by  each  of  them  will/should  eventually  play  a  role  in  david  haller  coming  to  terms  with  his  own  power  and  self  .

[cadomoisspokenfor]

Legion Rewatch Notes,

Chapter 7:

The King In Yellow

Walter’s really putting his all into that whistling.

Kerry ended up losing Walter eventually. But I guess she was chased out of her hiding place by the zombies.

Theory: Much like how David feels most stable and confident when Syd’s around, Kerry feels most stable and confident when Cary’s around. She’s much less likely to lose a fight or get scared if Cary is in the vicinity. This would also explain why she feels so betrayed that Cary left her in Mental Clockworks. She works best when he’s around (power of love and all that) so when he’s not around she constantly feels like she’s on the ropes. Maybe only subconsciously though.

Lenny says “Hey” a lot.

So Farouk... actually seems distressed here. This is him at his least chill. He’s just shoved a person he actually cares about into a corner of their mind cause he just couldn’t understand them, the dream he’s created is collapsing and he has no plan on how to deal with it (rare for Farouk), and the location of his own body (his temple) is still lost to him after all this time.

Also, there’s apparently no specific place it could be. Farouk’s body could be anywhere on the globe. I guess he and everyone who knows about is aware that he could come back to his body if he knows where it is?

Even though it’s pointed out a lot I’ll also note that Charles is in his wheelchair in Amy’s flashback. And given future/past events (confusing, I know) this either means Farouk is the one who put him in a wheelchair, or whatever caused it happened between defeating Farouk and giving away baby David. And there’s... really not a lot of time in between those 2 events.

As we’ve seen before, while Farouk can probably see into Oliver’s ice cube residents, he can’t actually go inside or do anything to Oliver (or his guest) while he’s in there.

Farouk doesn’t want the dream to end until he’s located his body.

Cary is used to finishing Oliver’s sentences.

Cary and Oliver think very alike. The biggest difference between them I suppose is Oliver’s reality bending powers.

David never agreed to the barbershop quartet but Oliver put his name down anyways.

I never caught this before, but the thing that makes it obvious to Cary is the fact that the parasite called itself “King”. Before when watching this I thought “it’s just a name,” but I guess the point is... what other villain would be so hubris filled as to advertise who they are so openly. It speaks to the brazenness of Farouk. If Charles had ever checked back and found out David was talking to some invisible friend named “King” Farouk woulda been discovered then and there. I can only assume this means the name “King” was taunt of sorts. A joke only Farouk was in on. Not to mention, Farouk probably would never have settled for a name any less dignifying.

Oliver doesn’t remember any of his past friends, but he does remember Farouk. I wonder, did him and Cary hear about Farouk before or after Charles defeated him? Farouk hasn’t been publicly doing things for 30 years, and the only event that could reasonably be linked to him is Meiser Sunday. If they knew about him before Charles defeated him then that would just speak to his prolificness as a villain, I guess. “The Shadow King”, an unstoppable force for years until a random prodigy mutant gets him on his first try... or so they thought. I believe that’s how it happened in the comics too.

I’ll also note, Charles is an important figure in the mutant community, but it shouldn’t be discounted that the mutant community still existed and had a whole rich history before Charles even stepped on the scene. It seems like either Xaviers School doesn’t exist in this timeline, or they just don’t know about it. And given that, Summerland seemingly founded itself off the same general ideas of the Xavier School, but completely independently. Like 2 people coming up with the same idea on different sides of the planet.

Farouk’s weakness as Oliver puts it is, “He puts all of his energy into tricking David. Didn’t think to watch his six.” I wonder... is this a consistent weakness of Farouk’s? Could this be what Oliver means when he says he found his weakness in s2?

Oliver admits Farouk is too powerful for him. It’s not like he’s one to have a power complex, but it is interesting how shameless he is about it. He doesn’t really philosophize about that kind of thing, he’s matter of fact about it. Farouk’s got more measurable power than me, we need to find another way around him. He also notes though that *David* could defeat Farouk if need be. Everyone recognizes David as the top of the food chain.

Small note: I guess this is how it works between omega lvls. Always thinking of ways around each others raw abilities. Farouk knows David is too strong for him in s2, so he finds away around it. David knows he might not be able to hold out against Farouk’s built up experience, so he finds away around it. Brains over brawn every time, it would seem.

Cary feels really really bad for David. Seeing him screaming his brains out in a locked box knowing full well how much David hates small space. It’s very sweet. But also, 2 episodes Cary seemed a bit more standoffish about David. Knowing what he knows now recontextualized all those past events. David is a victim of something incomprehensibly terrible. He sees that now.

My boi Dan’s gonna need a lozenge after this one.

“We’re gonna need everybody.” They never get Ptonomy :/

I didn’t pick up on any of the other times, but Syd’s job here is to be a distraction. Sure, she has to protect the others in the process, but freeing them from the dream is the job of Cary, Oliver, and Melanie.

Still though, David is the victim who needs help here. He’s not the hero who saves them, he’s the one in need of saving. And Syd takes charge in the plan to do so and is tasked with protecting the others, making her once again closer to the hero archetype than David is. In the moment at least.

Syd’s talking fast cause they don’t exactly have all the time in the world here.

The zombies vanish but the architecture remains. There are “degrees” of real in the astral plane.

“Just thought it’d be interesting.” She’s over the whole “jumpscare haunted house” thing by now.

Silly me, the Melanie scene took place after Cary went to gather people. So it’s definitely Cary in the suit.

Melanie’s glad to see he’s back but she’s not completely love struck. Probably both cause he doesn’t remember her, and cause lovestruck Melanie was a result of her mind being altered to fit the delusion. Cary is guiding them out of the delusion so she’s back to her old self basically. Rational, and concerned with the mission.

This isn’t important, I just like how Melanie wakes him up here. It’s sweet, and bitter, cause it’s too late for him anyways.

Why does Farouk simulate this whole process for Rudy? What’s the use in tricking him if he already can barely do anything? We know Rudy gets him eventually, but it’s just surprising that Farouk recognizes him as being a potential threat.

Cary neglected to inform Syd who else he was personally waking.

Is Walter seeing the zombies too? Unclear. But he’s less chill about his tormenting now.

David starts using humor to cope. From what we’ve seen he’s been non-stop screaming for a while. It seems like he stops panicking as much specifically because his mind is fracturing to help him cope.

His first alter (that we see). Rational Mind.

RM says the coffin is just an “idea.” Very specific word choice there.

Rm tells him to forget all the “lies” he learned in memory work and the MRI. That was all Summerland stuff, though. “It’s your mind.” Essentially, trust yourself. You know who you are, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Not even your new friends. Very reminiscent of, “You decide what is real and what is not.”

David doesn’t want to call his adoptive parents his parents anymore.

David’s happy to finally contextualize Farouk as a mutant and not a mental illness. It all starts making since to him, his whole life.

RM’s the first one to say “boohoo,” and it’s in response to David’s sadness over his bio-parents giving him away.

“I am pretty, I am loved.” “Good, keep going.” This mindset David’s falling into is specifically encouraged by his alters. In fact, it’s RM that pushes him down this path in the first place. David (non-Shadow King possessed David) has been avoiding this thought all season.

David’s a bit wrong here, and I think the difference tells us something important. David assumes Farouk possessed him after he was already living in the Haller’s house. But, we know it seemingly happened before Charles even got back from Morocco. So, given that Gabrielle’s mental health was already bad from post-partum depression (alternatively, it’s just the depression she already had) and Charles leaving her alone to go to Morocco, Farouk coming in and haunting the house probably sent things over the edge. David was most likely given away because Gabrielle wasn’t well enough to care for him like he needed, and Charles... 🤷🏾‍♀️ tbh. Might just’ve not wanted to raise David without Gabrielle. They both said they didn’t ant him to turn out like them. In s3 it’s made to seem like the house haunting was a combination of David and Farouk. David’s haunting time travelly presence probably made things worse, but Farouk would’ve gotten to the baby much sooner if not for him, and without David in the way Farouk probably would’ve upped his own intentional torments. The goal was revenge after all.

David assumes Farouk’s goal is revenge upon the whole world. Makes sense since that’s what Farouk’d been encouraging David to all season. And what he’ll continue to encourage him towards throughout s2 & 3.

Syd “woke him up.” She makes him more stable and sane. She grounds him in reality.

“I was sick, but I’m not sick anymore.” A moment of quiet deliberation with his alter and then he awakens with newfound confidence and a plan. This will repeat in a very tragic way later on.

Kerry, Syd, and a damaged comrade in a wheelchair. If I had nickel for every time this happens I’d have 2 nickels. Very weird it happens twice. Unless... mental clockworks and the end of s3 are supposed to parallel each other.

I assume the astral-plane diving suit protects whoever’s wearing it from psychic threats, much like the ice cube. At the moment, no one’s wearing it.

Sometimes psychics powers require a bit of miming to manifest. Oliver can’t just wave his hand and make a shield, not a strong enough one at least. Similarly, Farouk can’t just expand his mind into the future, he needs to go through a whole time machine building process in the astral plane.

Cary and Melanie seeing Walter get killed must hit hard for them considering he used to be a student of theirs. Sure, he turned against them, but still...

They juxtapose Walter dying with Rudy fully waking up. I wonder if that means it was his powers that were keeping Rudy docile and not necessarily the stab wound.

David is the one that wakes them all up, destroys the dream, and puts them back in their real bodies. And just in time for Cary to place the halo on his head. This is I think the first time David does a real act of super-heroism. The only potential one previously is saving Amy and he wasn’t really the one in control there. This is his first win against Farouk.

David’s not only got control of his powers, but control of himself for the first time, too. And it’s to the point where he’s perceiving things at lightning speeds and moving fast enough to catch bullets. Along with whatever power he’s using to halt the bullets momentum too. For now at least, this is our hero.

They play sinister music whenever he does the bright white light teleport. He does it again at the end of s2. Is it a specific kind of teleport, or is he just adding flair?

David didn’t teleport them directly to the base.

Kerry sadly looks at Rudy’s body.

Melanie looked around for Oliver but in doing so missed him meeting up with the others.

Everyone’s relaxing after their long fought for victory. David and Syd seem really happy. They find Oliver funny/charming.

When Cary’s talking to Kerry, in the background I can barely make out everyone else talking about potatoes.

David’s fine with Amy apologizing, just not in front of the others.

Instead of “The Poor Woodcutter and His Wife” Oliver calls it the “The story of The Lady and the Crane.”

Farouk doesn’t like small spaces either. Ha.

[zhouxuns]

So what changed? And what didn’t?

(long post)

This meta about the future timeline will be broken down by three affecting aspects

- The integrity of the timelines and multiverse

- David’s dissociative identity disorder

- Ptonomy’s time theory

According to the Vermillion, the future we see Syd in and the moment she sends to orb to retrieve David happens roughly 20-30 years from season 2. 

Future!Syd’s timeline is apocalyptic because of David. She’s missing an arm. Her hair is knotted. Her gloves aren’t even gloves, they only cover her fingers, not her whole hand. And she exists in some sort of capsule. Things are horrible and bleak in the future he creates. Still, she’s able to reach past!David to deliver him a message in hopes to change everything.

And the end of s2, Syd’s still wearing the compass necklace that David gave her, the same one we see her wearing in the future. At first I wasn’t certain that Syd’s future timeline was intact anymore because of how the season ended (Farouk being alive) but because the Vermillion confirm that it’s Cary who still builds the orb decades later and because of Syd still wearing the necklace, this makes me think it still is, or at least some version of it.

This very compass necklace, that, incidentally, David had Cary make as a “gift” for Syd at the beginning of s2 to quell her fear of abandonment. Syd never stops wearing this necklace even after David’s betrayal. Which is how she’s able to find him no matter where he goes.

Future!Syd tells David that he’s how she knew him before The Turn. Aka when the split personalities take over and he becomes evil and leaves to become “god” or whatever. She called him sweet. We knew before that this meant David ends up on a dark path. But now having seen David’s crime against his relationship with Syd unfold, it puts a whole new tragic spin on what Future!Syd says. She even tells David she wants to be “his Syd.” That she misses that David. To have what they had before. Syd still held on. All those years later.

David tells Future!Syd “I don’t know what happens to me, to us, what disaster or monster, but...you came to me because of love. You trust me.” And he’s right. Because horrible (f u Noah) things do end up happening to them as we eventually find out.

But the inevitability is that David turns anyways. And Future!Syd came to this conclusion when he decided to stop working with her. You see, The Turn isn’t that David kills Farouk. Everyone was so focused on that. We thought oh, once he commits the final atrocity, he will become too evil and too powerful. The Turn is the psychotic break. That he sees what he becomes. And it was going to happen one way or another. Future!Syd doesn’t tell David if he’s dead in the future, rather that it’s complicated. And she’s right.

”Our” David is not the David of the future. Future!Syd tells David that the apocalypse came about “ like any other idea. Like an egg.” We know from the Jon Hamm narrations the egg analogy is about delusion. David’s insanity broke loose and he became Legion. With uncontrolled god powers, David then breaks the world.

In comes David’s dissociative identity disorder. With dissociative identity disorder, different personalities, or alters as they’re called, can possess different mental illnesses. They have different lives, different histories, different worlds they live in.

Legion is a collection of personalities. Divad tells David that he is the mentally ill one. That his sickness is his delusions. That it started “like an egg”. Dvd, the other alter, says David is not sick. That Syd is sick. David’s alters that we’ve met so far hate Syd. They try to convince David that Syd is a delusion and so is his love for her and hers for him. That he doesn’t need Syd or any of them. That Syd suppresses them. That David is “god”. This obviously works as his alters control him and he takes the back seat. David is no long he. He becomes they/we/us.

So next we have Ptonomy’s time theory. Ptonomy’s time theory is that there is no present. There is only past and future.

We actually have already seen Ptonomy’s time theory unfold in season 1. The final scene of the finale where the orb takes David. The one Cary builds in the future using the coordinates from Syd’s necklace that David gives to Syd in the future, which has become the past, to prevent the future David causes.

Everything that has happened in season 2, the “present” has been completely inconsequential to the past and future. Syd had already retroactively caused her own pain by taking David from her in the orb. There was no love to save because Syd and David’s relationship had already been doomed to failure. Future!Syd is alone and heartbroken. Future!David is...someone else. David’s Turn was already set in stone because his personalities had grown more present by the time he was freed from the orb and exacerbated by the return of Lenny, the murder of his sister, the manipulations of Farouk, and losing Syd’s love. Heck, even every time Farouk was so close to being killed, something has gotten in the way of stopping it. The past and future already dictated each other.

Does this mean everything is permanently doomed? Perhaps not. Because we have the the multiverse. Chapter 14 showed us all the paths David’s life takes. Paths where Shadow King had won and David was never freed of his torment. Paths where his lives ended in demise or where he became an evil douchebag. We know that the multiverse exists in Legion. 

We also know that this current timeline/verse is the only verse that David has met Syd in. I say this because it was exactly through Syd that David had woken up from the Shadow King. There is something about this verse that was meant to be different from all the others, where through Syd breaking his chains, David was able to have a fighting chance against Shadow King. 

It’s also worth noting that we’re given a glance of 616!David watching Future!Syd in a crystal ball in a room full of bones and a swell bellied Lenny with blood coming out of her mouth. (Which spurs on a whole new set of theories because this David and Lenny aren’t older like future!Syd is. So is he merely watching an alternate timeline or is Syd captive in his own little pokeball?)

So with all that being said, what about the future timeline has changed? And how do things change in the future timeline? They tried to prevent the future by preventing the past. But maybe that wasn’t the way to do it. Maybe there is another way. 

According to this article,

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/legion-creator-noah-hawley-explains-why-that-big-finale-twist-was-always-part-of-the-plan?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Noah Hawley says that in s3, Syd becomes the protagonist. That, according to Noah, Syd is the real “hero”. We will see Syd vs David in s3. I am unsure of the outcome of everything or how exactly that’s supposed to work. Naturally I hope they do change things. That maybe things will come full circle after all. And if/when they do, despite Amahl’s involvement, Syd will play a key role in all of it.

[class-wom]

Legion Chapter 21 -- More Thoughts on Farouk

WARNING:  By my own admission, this one is a doozy in the content department.  Apologies in advance if this is upsetting to anyone.                             

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 SPOILER TERRITORY

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“He thinks he’s the victim!”

This Syd-line about David is being hailed in reviews as nailing David for being a conceited rapist-jerk validating his own bad behavior.  And while on the one hand I get that, on the other, it’s difficult to forget that, by the same criteria, she is literally declaring this to...

...(wait for it)...

...a CHILD MOLESTER!!! 

Seriously, an aged mutant who (as far as we know so far, in all fairness) entered the mind of an unsuspecting infant mutant?!? and all the quotes I keep reading about him keep saying “He loves David, he wants to save David”?!?  And this is supposed to make this tiny little detail hunky-dory, that a child molester is behaving out of “love”?!?  If what David did to Syd wasn’t love, how does what Farouk did to David count as love?  (Thinking back to SK Lenny’s Chapter 6 speech about love, where “she” compares it to an insect literally sucking the life out of a victim before going on to the next ((shudder)))

While we can, and in the name of a fair argument, can we please talk about the fact that, if what David did to Syd was rape, what Farouk did to David was child abduction at the least and child molestation at the worst?!?  I mean, what consent was there where Baby David was concerned?!?

Frankly, bringing up this touchy little subject reminds me of a particularly eerie, cringe-worthy X-Files S3 ep entitled “Oubliette” about a child abduction victim-turned-adult named Lucy who has escaped her captor and, after a long personal struggle, seems to be reaching a better albeit not perfect place with a job, a place to live, and a sympathetic and supportive boyfriend.  Unfortunately, the abductor, sadly free all this time, has struck again with a new victim, and Lucy’s lingering issues stemming from her abduction manifest in a psychic connection with the new victim.  Her only ally is Mulder, who is hoping to use her strange experiences to save the new victim if not somehow help Lucy herself in the process; everyone else in law enforcement, rather than seeing her as a victim, take her odd behavior and what little evidence there is as signs that she’s conspiring with her abductor in this new abduction and treat her as a suspect, complete with arrest.

Sound familiar?

Happily, albeit in a bittersweet fashion (let’s just say sacrifice is ultimately involved w/o spoiling that ending), that entire issue was more or less wrapped up in one ep.  For the sake of this final season, we’re stringing this along, but it’s killing me that this issue with Farouk has not been entirely and satisfactorily addressed while all of David’s “evils” are magnified for all to see.

Am I saying Syd isn’t a victim? no.  But that doesn’t mean David isn’t another victim, even if Syd is feeling too violated and angry to see it that way right now.   Sure, we’ll find out that the secret behind his psyche isn’t entirely the whole “There was a monster in my brain when I was a baby but Mommy and Daddy didn’t know!”-thing and not a complete excuse for David’s actions (but let’s face it -- it didn’t help!!!), and okay, I can see all that.  This is a very complicated show -- a lot more complicated than S1 made it seem -- and there is a lot to see for those of us that the characters in question cannot at present.  But just because David has behaved irresponsibly and out of a strong sense of confusion and misunderstanding with a tremendous amount of power doesn’t mean that he isn’t a type of victim.  And this is part of what I’m hoping will eventually be realized as David struggles to come to terms with his identity and understand things if not completely take responsibility for his actions and/or make some sort of sacrifice before the final curtain.  Yes, to use David’s own terminology, his own perspective does need shifting, but that doesn’t mean that he’s the only one in need of a larger and more accurate perspective if anything is going to finally be settled!

[ranger-of-estel]

A Legend Returns: The Truth of Things

Leonard returns to the Waverider, and finally learns exactly who the men he'd worked alongside really are.

Also on AO3

               After meeting Lily Stein, and spending a couple more hours being questioned by Team Flash Sara approaches Len where he’s taken residence leaning against an unoccupied wall. “I’m going to head back to the ship.”

               One eyebrow rises, “Lisa and I were going to head to a bar later.”

               Sara smiles, but it’s halfhearted. “I’d love too, but I have a few things to take care of before we leave.” She pats his crossed arms, “You two have fun.”

               Before he can say more she’s moved away, sharing embraces and well wishes with the others in before disappearing out of the room. He and Lisa leave not long after, and he finds himself surrounded by the familiar sounds and smells of Saints & Sinners. Sitting in a booth with burgers and drinks.

               “So,” Lisa pops another fry into her mouth. “You’re going back tonight?”

               “Don’t know,” he leans back in the booth, watching her. “I could stay?”

               “Stay?!” She looks at him in something between surprise and anger. “Absolutely not!”

               He blinks in surprise, “No?”

               “I mean,” She softens a little, “don’t get me wrong, I want you home….But-” she motions outside. “You belong with Mick, and Sara, so you have to go back to the ship.”

               He nods, both knowing there is no real argument to be had. “I’ll try and stop in more, find a way to keep in touch.” He finishes his burger.

               She smiles, “Sara has already promised that.”

               “Has she now?” he smirks, “Plotting behind my back Sis?”

               She scoffs, “Hardly, we weren’t just planning visits for you.” She teases, then quiets. After a moment her eyes meet his once more, “Sara cares for you Lenny.”

               He sighs, “Sara cares for the team,”

               Lisa rolls her eyes, “She hasn’t kissed the whole team.” He looks at her with some surprise, she just grins smugly. “She told me about it.” She changes to an almost scolding look, “And how she called your bluff with the gun.”

               “I was more than a little on edge at the time…besides.” he frowns. “That’s been more than a year ago for her. A lot can change.”

                “Only one way to find out,” she shrugs, but he can see a glint in her eye. She steals one of his fries, dipping it in the ketchup still on her plate. “Now come on, I want your help canvasing a job before you leave.”

               He finishes his beer and they head out. It doesn’t take long for him to realize it’s little more than an excuse to be together, buying time before he returns to the ship. Her target is one he’s hit before; not only does she have his notes, she’s got part of his original team. But he mentions neither, finding himself equally reluctant to part with her.

               They are just reaching their bikes when Leonard’s phone rings. “Mick.”

               “Boss, we got trouble!” Len can hear battle in the background, “Bounty hunters.” And then the line goes dead.

               “Lenny?” Lisa is looking at him with concern.

               “The team’s in trouble,” he steps up to the bike. “I have to go.”

               “I’m coming too.” She states, approaching her own.

               “No!” he forces himself to calm down, releasing where he’s caught her elbow and evening his voice. “Not this time Sis.” He looks at her, pleading. “I need you safe.”

               At first she glares, but after a moment she nods. The little girl back in her eyes once more. “Be careful Lenny.”

               He gives her a small smile. “Always am.” Pressing a soft kiss to her crown before adding. “See you around, Sis.” He mounts the bike, knocking the kickstand back and roaring the machine to life as he pulls the helmet on. Then he’s peeling out of the ally, navigating to where he started the morning before.

               He hardly takes the time to park before pulling the coldgun from the back of the motorcycle. Swinging his helmet to hit one of the bounty hunters from the back, saving Raymond a painful shot to the shoulder.

               “Boss!” he ducks to the side, flames hitting something to his right as he slides into place with his back against his partner. They dispatch the remaining enemies with very little trouble.

               “Everybody alright?” Sara asks as she approaches.

               “Mostly superficial cuts,” Amaya replies, her gaze dropping to a bleeding gash on Mick’s arm. “Nothing Gideon can’t patch up.”

               Sara nods, “Good,” She swivels slightly, “Ray! Call Barry, let him know we have some guests to pick up.” The man nods, reaching up to touch something on his helmet as she returns her attention to the rest of the team. “Now everyone on board, we need to get out before reinforcements arrive.”

               They nod in agreement, everyone making their way back toward the ship. Leonard notes Sara’s walk is both slower and heavier than normal as she moves just in front of him. But she’s moving purposefully toward the bridge the moment they step on the ship.

               “Jax, tell me she’s ready for takeoff?” she calls down one of the halls.

               “I am perfectly capable of getting us into the timestream Captain.” The A.I. replies.

               “Then let’s get out of here.” The moment they are strapped in she gets them out of Central City. Once they are safely in the timestream Nate makes his way toward medbay, Amaya dragging Mick close behind. Sara is talking to Jax, and Len gathers from the conversation that the men appear to have been sent by Maestro, and some minor damage was done to the ship as well. She approaches him next, “You alright?”

               “Peachy,” he frowns, motioning to where one of her arms rest awkwardly around her abdomen. “You?”

               “Bruised, maybe a fractured rib…” she drops the arm, frowning. “I’m sorry your night with Lisa got cut short.”

               “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” he replies with a frown of his own.

               “Don’t worry about it Len,” she pats his shoulder, “Get some rest Crook, things are about to get interesting.”

               He can’t help but scoff as she makes her way down the hall, shaking his head. “That’s one word for it.” He returns to his room, cleaning his gun before putting it and the leather jacket away. It’s late, but he knows sleep isn’t going to be an option a while, so he makes his way to Mick’s room instead.

               “Hey Boss,” The other man greets him with a half nod, not moving from where he’s feeding small pieces of cheese to Axel…Whom Leonard is yet to understand the man’s attachment too. “Need something?”

               “Just checking to see if Gideon got you reassembled,” he drawls, looking to the fresh skin on his partner’s arm.

               “Good as new.” Mick grunts, turning to give him a curious glance. “Surprised Lisa wasn’t with you.” He motions toward the main deck. “Always came to see Sara and me off.”

               “She’s been on board?” Len’s head tilts slightly.

               “Course,” he nods. “She and Science girl both. I keep telling Blondie they’re going to stowaway if she ain’t careful.” Mick’s eyes hold something close to amusement, “But none of that’s why you came in here.”

               “Mm,” Leonard hums thoughtfully, leaning back against the wall as his arms cross. “I was wondering if that offer for old movies still stands?”

               Mick smirks, “As long as you’re getting the beer.”

               Len feels a smile tug at his mouth, “I think I can manage that.” He turns, making his way toward the galley. Part of the reason their partnership has always worked so well is that they’ve never needed to spend time together outside of ‘work’; and yet, he enjoys the other man’s company when they do.

               “Snart, hey!” He’s drawn from his thoughts at the ever cheery voice. Necks of four beers in hand as he turns to face the younger man. “Thanks again for saving my skin back there.”

               “Well,” he drawls, “I would have hated to see that little scientist of yours upset.” Ray flushes and Leonard smirks.

               The other man recovers quickly, “Oh, speaking of the ladies.” He tilts his head curiously, “How is Sara doing?”

               “Couple bruises –“

               “No,” Ray cuts him off with a shake of his head. “I meant after her trip.” He frowns. “I know going back after letting Laurel’s killer go couldn’t have been easy.”

               “She let him go?” The question is out before Len can’t think better of it.

               Raymond just nods, “All I can guess is she found out killing Damien in the past would cause other aberrations in the timeline.”

               “Of course,” He shakes his head, “She seemed herself when she joined us in Central.” He adds with a shrug.

               “Good,” the other man nods to himself, picking up the mug of tea he’d been fixing and turning to leave the galley once more.

               Beers still in hand Leonard makes his way to the library. “Gideon, pull records for Damien Darhk.” Hundreds of files flash across the screen as he sets the drinks on the desk. “Narrow to results concerning Star City.”

               “Is there something specific you are looking for Mister Snart?” Gideon asks

               “I’m not sure,” he lies, walking up to begin rearranging the icons on the screen. He notes several articles with pictures of Damien but captioned as Kenneth Vender. Something about H.I.V.E. and what looks like aftermath of an earthquake. But the article he finally settles on says, ‘Beloved DA killed in uprising – Mayoral candidate claims tragedy.’

               “There you are!” Mick’s voice comes from the doorway, “Was beginning to think-“ he trails off, coming to stand at Leonard’s side with a sigh. “Was wondering when you’d get around to looking this up.”

               Leonard turns to the other man, “What happened, really?”

               Mick shrugs, “Sara didn’t tell us much, but.” He approaches the screen. “Darhk was apparently planning to destroy the earth,” he pulled up a couple of the pictures Len had assumed linked to a massive earthquake. “Captain’s sister was trying to prevent it, got stabbed by Damien...died in the hospital.” He shakes his head, “Arrow ended up killing the guy, not that the fact seemed to settle Captain much.”

               “And she let him go?” Leonard wasn’t sure if it was surprise or anger that made him ask.

               Mick nods, then crosses his arms. “Not without a fight though…she spent the first part of our fight with the Legion out to kill him.” He shrugs, “But then we found you,” Leonard feels his stomach knot; the idea he’d worked alongside the man who left that broken look in Sara’s eyes gnawing at him.  After another minute or so Mick shakes his head, making his way toward the desk. “Blondie doesn’t blame you.” Len frowns, Mick grabbing the beers as he heads for the door. “When you get done thinking come find me.”

               Once Mick is gone Leonard turns back to the screen, “Gideon.”

               “Yes, Mister Snart?” she replies,

               “Give me any files pertaining the Legion Members and Sara Lance up to the present date.” He approaches the screen once more. Gideon leaves them in three neat stacks, he quickly dismisses his own name before pulling up Damien’s. Most of the information pertains to various face offs between them, but there is some further information on Laurel’s death. He’s amazed at her restraint, he knows that if there places had been changed he’d have taken the man out the first chance he had. Sara’s grown in the year, this isn’t the woman he stopped in Russia, not the woman who had to kill to fill a void. He almost smiles.

               It’s gone the moment he changes to Malcolm Merlyn’s stack. He’d heard the other man talk about being the head of the League. He’d absently wondered if Sara had crossed paths with him…But as he looks at Gideon’s notes he feels bile in his throat. He’d been working alongside the very man who had ordered Sara’s death. The man behind the three scars he’d glimpsed on her abdomen in med bay. The reason her family had brought her back with the bloodlust, the reason she believed herself a monster.

               “Gideon,” His mouth feels dry, “Where is Sara?”

               “She appears to be moving her things into the quarters previously used by Captain Hunter.” She replies easily.

               He makes his way through the ship, mind still in turmoil. It’s not until he’s standing in the doorway, Sara’s blue eyes looking up at him curiously that he realizes he hasn’t the slightest idea what he is going to say to her. “Hey Len,” her voice is borderline concern, “everything alright?”

               “Peachy,” he replies instinctively, settling against her doorframe as he tries to force his thoughts into something more coherent. “You and Amaya not working out?” he drawls, motioning to the single box of belongings on the desk.

               She shrugs, “Figured if Rip wasn’t going to use it there was no reason to double bunk.” She steps closer, frown tugging at her lips. “You sure you’re alright? You look pale.”

               “I’m fine Assassin,” he wants to apologize. For what’s happened to her, for working with the men who wronged her so brutally. But the words aren’t there, and the ones that do come are far too vulnerable for his lips. “Just wondered what the plan is from here?”

               She sighs, returning to the box and pulling out a couple frames which she arranges on the desk. “Maestro has proven himself a threat, so our game of chase is over.” She checks her hip on the desk, arms rising to mimic his. “I figure we find somewhere for a proper face off, somewhere civilians won’t get caught in the crossfire.”

               “And you think he’ll take the bait?” Leonard questions.

               “I think he’s angry, and he’s desperate.” She frowns, “And desperate men will do anything to get what they want.”

               The ship jerks violently, causing them to throw out their hands for support and balance. “What the Hell?” Leonard growls.

               “It appears that they have located our ship in the timestream,” Gideon states, tone far too cheery for the red lights beginning to flash around them. “They are trying to knock us out.”

               Sara rushes by, Leonard tight on her heels. “Gideon, get the others to the bridge or tell them to strap in.” She swings into the Captian’s chair as Leonard drops into one of the ones at her side. “This isn’t going to be a pretty landing.”

Chapter 5 (x) Chapter 7 (x)

[briangroth27]

Legion Season 1 Review

FX's Legion, based on the X-men character, brought a fresh flavor to superhero shows last season; absolutely key to keeping the genre alive with so many series airing at once. All the acting was solid, the characters were likable, and it had enough classic mutant/human relations to feel like an X-men story even without the prejudice metaphor as a major presence. The production design was distinct and perfectly “off-kilter cool,” placing the show anywhere from the 60s to the not-so-distant future in the same way Batman The Animated Series blended the 30s and 90s. The direction and editing were masterful, seamlessly blending reality, memories, the astral plane, fantasies, and nightmares into an easy to follow narrative (if you paid attention; Legion refused to be a show you just have on in the background while doing other things). There were times the editing came off as just a bit confusing, with flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, memory-jumping, hallucinations, and the like all happening at once, but that uncertainty served to put us directly into David Haller's (Dan Stevens) fractured frame of mind.

Full Spoilers…

As clever and ingenious as the visuals and editing were, however, I don’t think the story itself is was mind-blowing or groundbreaking as a lot of reviews have said. The first three episodes covered well-trod superhero ground: a shadowy government organization chasing/studying David, a “school” where he’s taken to learn about and control his powers, a mysterious villain who wants to use him for its own nefarious purposes, etc. It felt a lot like the setup of the first X-men film, swapping jumbled memories for confused flashbacks and the Demon with Yellow Eyes (Quinton Boisclair) for Sabretooth/Magneto (with Stryker’s military attack force from X2 thrown in for good measure). Once the show got to episode four, however, the focus on the villain and their unique plan of attack spun the show in another, much more original direction. It seemed to really take off at that point and didn’t stop till the finale.

David Haller is a compelling lead and brought a good balance of fun (though not one-liners or laugh-out-loud comedy) and bewilderment to what was going on around and within him. Stevens made what could've easily been a campy or "kooky" performance feel real, but not like he was asking for our pity. I also thought he was a good romantic lead and his relationship with Syd (Rachel Keller) felt real, even though we only saw them together for a short time. When he needed to be—when the Shadow King is in control—he’s also very unnerving, slaughtering Division 3 agents left and right with a smile. I will say David never seemed crazy to me. Maybe it’s because I knew he had telepathy and wasn’t just hearing voices, but outside of an inability to keep a handle on when "now" is he seemed relatively healthy. Perhaps that’s because mentally ill people in shows are often portrayed more over the top than David was. For a good chunk of the season, I thought this might be the story of how he goes insane. I later thought Lenny was sticking around because he was absorbing the powers and personalities of the people around him (providing the comics’ David’s multiple personalities with different abilities), but it doesn’t look like the show is going that route yet. I’m glad they never made everyone a personality of David’s, though; it seemed like that would be too easy and maybe of a waste of all these new characters. They did, however, homage that with David talking to his rational side in a great nod to his comics’ dissociative disorder (and his British accent!), giving us his origin story and the backstory on the Shadow King via animation. Now that he’s free of Farouk, I can’t wait to see how David responds to being alone in his head for the first time in his life.

I called Shadow King/Ahmal Farouk as the main villain after the first episode, but was thrown off the trail for a while since one of the few things I knew about comics Legion is he’s got dissociative identity disorder; I thought the Demon with the Yellow Eyes might be a different personality of David’s. Nevertheless, this was my favorite depiction of the Shadow King so far and I loved how creepy they were willing to go with his various personas, particularly the World’s Angriest Boy in the World (Devyn Dalton). I’ve wanted a Shadow King appearance in live action X-media for years and this was an excellent introduction! Aubrey Plaza was fantastic as his favorite form, Lenny, and her ability to pinball from friendly to insane to creepy to funny was a highlight of the series. I loved that his backstory was more or less taken directly from the comics, and Xavier’s destruction of his body made revenge via stealing David’s the perfect plan. They did a great job giving David, who has so many powers, more than an equal as his nemesis. I did expect more from the Shadow King trying to fight for David’s body in the finale, but now that the internal conflict has been made external, I can’t wait to see what he does next. His escape from the facility, leaping from body to body, reminded me of the 90′s X-men Animated Series. I hope he’s off to track down Xavier next season.

The supporting cast felt authentically "off" and not like they were trying to be quirky or "insane" or anything. Over the course of just eight episodes, it was difficult to find time to explore most of them in great depth, but I enjoyed just about all of them and loved that the show never shied away from the presence and use of their powers. It was great that they used them in concert to free themselves from David’s mind; I love the X-men movies, but the times when their specific powers are needed and fit together to save the day have been few and far between. Thematically it’s stronger if your pseudo-family unit is the only one that can help work you out of whatever situation you’re in, rather than just any strong guy (sorry, Guido).

The best-developed and most likable of the supporting characters was Sydney Barrett. I loved Syd explaining how she sees the world and her concept of the soul thanks to her ability to swap bodies with people. It's always fascinating to me when superhero stories show us how the characters' outlooks are changed by their powers, so this was gold to me. Her talk with David about being in each other's bodies was fun and sweet, and allowing them to be intimate on the astral plane was a clever workaround to her inability to touch anyone. The one issue I had with Syd’s character was that it was a little unclear how her body-swapping worked, particularly when it appeared that her physical form would snap back to wherever her swapping partner was, rather than just her consciousness jumping back and forth.

I initially thought Carey (Bill Irwin) came off as crazy for the sake of being crazy, with him saying random words to "himself" that confused David, but I eventually enjoyed the unorthodox relationship he had with his other half, Kerry (Amber Midthunder). Kerry not knowing about the most basic components of human existence because she spends so much time inside Carey felt like a classic bit of X-men weirdness. The personality difference between them also felt note-perfect, as if Kerry took all the fight and assertiveness while Carey housed all the brains and trepidation from a single personality. Once Kerry decided she didn’t want to go back inside Carey, their relationship got even more interesting!

Jeremie Harris’ Ptonomy Wallace and his cool, calm attitude was a smart balance to the near-insanity of the other characters. His Inception-like dream navigating powers were cool and, given their low-tech application, allowed the show to use them often. I would’ve liked to get to know him better, so hopefully we will in Season 2. Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) was a solid Xavier stand-in for this mutant cell, but I wonder if her comment about humans being dinosaurs and going extinct in the face of mutants’ rise wasn’t just bravado, but a hint at something darker. I wouldn’t mind a twist where this team ended up being more in line with the Brotherhood than the X-men, or occupied a gray area between the two. Bird’s strained relationship with her husband Oliver (Jemaine Clement) was a tragic addition to the show and I hope that gets explored further next season. Oliver was an unorthodox delight, having spent so many years locked on the astral plane that he’d lost touch with reality. His interactions with everyone were fun, and I can’t wait to see him and Aubrey Plaza share scenes now that Farouk is in his head!

It was clever that all the heroes’ powers reflected the Shadow King in one way or another, but I wonder why it wasn’t made a bigger deal. We could’ve at least had a conversation between David and Carey/Kerry about living with another consciousness inside you. Maybe we could’ve gotten Kerry's perspective on being the other consciousness. Oliver being trapped in the Astral Plane as opposed to his body paralleled Farouk nicely and foreshadowed their eventual bond. Syd swapping bodies also reflected Farouk, so his opinion of her take on the soul would’ve been interesting to get. More importantly, her history with her mother’s boyfriend was a lot darker than I expected, and it’s essentially the same thing Farouk has been doing to David: stealing a body for his own purposes. Is it any better that Syd’s heist was only temporary? Ptonomy having the power to jump into other people's memories and the freedom to bypass boundaries could’ve given us insight into Farouk. Perhaps David will look for ways to get inside Farouk’s head next season and these parallels can be utilized then.

While the main mutants were engaging, if a little unexplored due to time constraints, the humans didn’t fare nearly as well. When she was kidnapped, I wasn’t concerned for David’s sister Amy (Katie Asleton) at all; her rescue seemed inevitable and I didn’t feel like I knew her well enough to be invested beyond “she’s a human in danger.” The government bad guys felt like stock X-men bad guys, and while that was fine for the pilot, they never really came together as a real threat or sympathetic on their own merits. David’s effortless thrashing of the entire Division 3 when he went to save his sister (and later, another squad of them at the end of the season) proved they aren’t any threat to the mutants. The Eye (Mackenzie Gray) was suitably imposing (if underutilized), but unless his power is “sensing astral projections,” I couldn’t tell you what his ability was. I wish they’d done more with him; killing him felt like a waste. Clark’s (Hamish Linklater) last-minute catch-up while we watched him heal from his injuries and learned about his family didn’t endear him to me (it was just too little, too late). I also don’t buy at all that we’d been watching David with the team for the several months to a year it must’ve taken Clark to recuperate from his injuries; it felt like the season happened over the course of maybe two weeks. Still, Clark agreeing to help the mutants against Farouk was an unexpected and enjoyable moment of common sense. I admired his rationality in that moment. I wonder if they’d spin mutant/human relations in a much less antagonistic direction then we normally see in X-men stories. In their earliest adventures (and First Class), at least some government agents were willing to work with them, so perhaps that’s where this is going.Maybe with more time to get to know Clark and his family, he’d be more sympathetic.

All in all, this was a solid season that really became something unique after episode 3, so I'm absolutely down for season 2. Using a typical superhero “recruit the hero, save the girl” setup to springboard into a battle for David’s psyche was a genius twist and propelled the show into unexplored territory. Few shows have the guts to go completely bonkers and still (a) make sense and (b) fully commit to the insanity, and this one absolutely did. Every single week my sister would text me going “why is Legion so WEIRD?” and she was absolutely right, in the best way. There were some standout sequences, like the noiseless horror film-inspired exploration of David’s childhood home and the silent film escape from his brain. I can't wait to see what Shadow King—and Legion—does next!

The eight-episode first season is on Hulu, and is definitely worth checking out!

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