Rachel Bellwoar reviews the first episode of Legion…
Legion’s pilot has no qualms pulling the rug out from under you. Here are some of the arguments made for why you should put up with it.
Coming off of successfully reimagining Fargo, creator, writer and director of this episode, Noah Hawley, brings the same visual inventiveness and soundtrack to a show where reality’s in flux. At Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, David (Dan Stevens) is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. This diagnosis is pointed to whenever he mentions having telekinetic powers but new patient, Sydney (Rachel Keller), thinks the doctors are afraid; that they would have David doubt his powers with meds because they are real.
Is Sydney real? Turning their heads so their reflections kiss in a window, not since Pushing Daisies has a show wrought so much emotion out of a couple not touching, but watch the door when she enters David’s room to tell him she’s leaving. No feet walk through. Touching meant death on Pushing Daisies. It’s not so upside down here.
Time is the next premise to fall. David is no longer staying at Clockworks but being questioned by The Interrogator (Hamish Linklater) in a room off an empty swimming pool. The Interrogator, like viewers, wants to get David’s story straight but David can’t differentiate between memory and the present. Recollections are experienced as if they’re happening for the first time. Then there are the dreams and ghosts; memories as they occurred but with people replaced. The plot is muddled because we see the world as David does but his relationships, with people like his best friend, Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), stand evident and firm beneath the turmoil.
One character challenges, though, and that’s David’s sister, Amy (Katie Aselton). Visiting David at Clockworks for his birthday, the first thing we see is the image of the cupcake she brought, overlapped with the image of the noose David tried to kill himself with. It looks like the candle is burning the noose and during their conversation she often comes off as oblivious, licking the icing off the cupcake David can’t eat, and saying he looks better while he imagines people behind her laughing. Dressed in sixties attire, chaos bounces right off her but, at the same time, when David shows up at her home, he has a place to stay in her basement. When he knocks over a lamp, she doesn’t fear for her safety. She fears for his, fishing up a reason to move the garden tools but not panicking. Legion strikes a convoluted narrative but its characters are a potent asset.
Rachel Bellwoar
Originally published February 9, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
