Legion Episode One Review – An Esoteric X-Men Story

Being a billion dollar movie franchise these days without having at least one spin off TV show is something of faux pa. It’s like being the only house on the road not to have a conservatory. Sure, your house is as big as any on the street, and the lawn is meticulously manicured. You even have the big drive with three cars on it. But without that family sun room you’re just not quite keeping up with the Joneses. Hence Legion, Fox’s first TV spin off of their X-Men movie juggernaut.

Airing on FX in the US, Legion is a show I wasn’t entirely confident I would like. Now, sitting in the afterglow of its first episode, I can tell you it is very good – possibly even great. What I’m less confident of, however, is whether I’m qualified to tell you why its so good. But I’ll take a stab at it.

David is a mutant. This being an X-Men story I don’t feel like I’ve violated any kind of spoiler code of ethics by saying that. He’s a telepath and can read thoughts and move objects with his mind. Except he’s in a mental hospital and maybe he’s actually suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. There’s a new girl on the ward though, and she and David hit it off straight away. Or do they? It’s hard to be sure in Legion if anything is really happening.

Legion’s biggest narrative weapon is  David’s viewpoint itself. While he’s not the show’s narrator in a traditional sense, it’s through his eyes we see Legion’s reality. And he’s so unreliable he doesn’t even trust himself to know what’s really happening.

Maybe it might help to break down the different worlds David finds himself in. First there’s Clockworks Mental Hospital, all white walls and 70s chic interiors like the inside of a Tom Baker TARDIS. Here David is mundane. He takes medication to suppress his hallucinations and hangs around with Aubrey Plaza.

Then there’s the interrogation room, where he’s being questioned by folks who may or may not be the government. Oh, and then there’s the bit where David kisses Sydney, his lady friend from the mental hospital, and things go entirely bonkers. I won’t spoil anything for you, but everything beyond this point has a tiny asterisk above it. Which parts of what we’re seeing are real? Is David truly being tailed by mysterious strangers? Is he at his sisters house or in a swimming pool? David flits from scene to scene without obvious explanation of how.

It’s all quietly effective in building a sense of paranoia in the audience. We all saw Westworld and we are all determined not to be caught out again. All is not as it seems, and even as we watch David’s big escape at the episode’s close, we’re not sure we can trust what we’re seeing. Who are these people helping him? Is Sydney really who she seems to be? Even as we watch some cool mutant action sequence we’re left wondering if we can really trust David’s interpretation of what’s happening.

Dan Stevens does an excellent job as David, anchoring the bizarre world around him. Those hoping for a more conventional leading man have likely missed the inherent weirdness of Legion’s premise. Rachel Keller is also a stand out performance, embracing the idiosyncratic nature of her first major role. I quirky dance sequence near the end is proof positive both leads are right for the show, as both commit to the oddness of it without looking self conscious. As always, Aubrey Plaza is great too in a supporting role, adding more bursts of strangeness to the show.

Strangeness is going to be a hallmark of the show going forward, and I suspect the impatient are going to be waiting a long time if they’re looking for clear answers. Legion is full of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them oddities. A strange man with yellow eyes and a bloated face keeps recurring in David’s visions. Clockworks Hospital may or may not be home to a guy dressed as a tree. Both are left in the background without explanation. Something tells me a small army of viewers will be rewatching this episode in awe once Legion finally tells us what’s really going on.

I’m reminded, as I tie up this review, that Legion is at least notionally a superhero TV show. This label might be disservice to it. This is not Arrow, where Steve Amell’s grizzled chin fights all the crime. This is a show of more subtle, esoteric ambitions. If you’re looking for a new puzzle to tide you over until Westworld season two, Legion might be the obsession you’ve been looking for.