LEGION Chapter 1 Review: Journey Inside of the Mind of a Very Powerful Mutant


Noah Hawley created LEGION for FX and the show is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The new series is focused on David Haller, an unstable young man who is trying to adjust to his mental illness.

The pilot episode starts off with a baby David. Throughout a short period of time, we get to see the baby growing up into a normal child. However, what seems normal at first starts to get a little strange as David gets older. David starts to light things on fire, scare his classmates, act weirdly, drink, fight and hang around shady people. As David grows older and older, it is obvious that he is crazy. The audience is shown several out of order images, some distorted, along with echoes and voices inside of his head. The voices say awful and negative things to David. A lonely David then approaches an electrical wire, wraps it around his neck and attempts suicide.

Suddenly, David, played by actor Dan Stevens, is in Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital. Sitting across from David is his sister, Amy, played by Katie Aselton. Amy is attempting to celebrate David’s birthday, but the guards won’t allow David to have the cupcake she brought for him. While Amy and David are talking, there are more distorted images and voices inside of his head. There are also flashbacks that are fast and violently cut. David states that he has been in the hospital for 260 Thursdays (five years) and asks when he can come home. Amy says that she will talk to his doctor and her visit comes to an end. 

David is now in the facility’s lobby area with other patients, including his friend Lenny who is played by Aubrey Plaza. According to Vanity Fair, Lenny was originally supposed to be played by a middle-aged man. However, creator Noah Hawley changed his mind after he met Plaza. Interestingly enough, the script was kept the same. This made Plaza’s character even more interesting and a helped her character’s tone throughout the show. 

While Lenny and David are hanging out, a new patient comes in. Her name is Sydney Barrett, played by Rachel Keller. Davis is attracted to Sydney at first sight and tries to talk to her, but David quickly realizes that she doesn’t like to be touched. David sees Sydney again while he is in a group therapy session. Throughout the session, Sydney is seated directly in front of very bright sunlight coming from a window down the hall. As a result, Sydney appears to be an angel, or a savior, from David’s point of view. This foreshadows that Sydney will be of big help to David throughout the series. Sydney expresses that she believes the reason they are all in the hospital is actually what makes them special. She says that people viewed Einstein as crazy, but it was just who he was. David then asks Sydney if she wants to be his girlfriend and she agrees. 

David has his first of many nightmares in the episode. There are many flashing images, a theme of red light, loud and piercing noises and a little man with yellow eyes. During his nightmare, David makes his bed levitate. When David wakes up, the bed drops to the floor and hospital staff rush in to drug David. 

David is now in a room with doctors and a man sitting across a red table. The man seems to be with the police and is interviewing David. There was an incident at the hospital and Sydney has disappeared. In fact, the hospital has no record of Sydney ever being there. David tells the man interviewing him that he can control things with his mind, but says that medication makes that go away. 

A flashback of the hospital shows Sydney coming into David’s room late at night. She tells David that she is leaving the hospital tomorrow. David is happy for her, but once he realizes that it means he won’t be able to see her, his happy expression leaves his face. David then tries to kiss her, but she backs away due to her fear of contact. 

David is back with the man interrogating him. When David asks for a break, the man leaves the room and it is revealed that David is at some sort of government base with doctors, a booby-trapped room and dozens of armed men. The men begin to talk about how David is the most powerful mutant that they have ever encountered, but he doesn’t realize his power or how to control it. Suddenly, we see a flashback of David in a kitchen. David is furious, and as a result the entire kitchen seems to explode and appliances fly all around him. In the midst of all the madness, red utilities are constantly flying past the camera. David once again sees the small man with yellow eyes. 

We are now back at the hospital and Sydney is leaving. As David says goodbye to her, he leans in and kisses her, against her wishes. Suddenly, the two are thrown backwards and the world is turned upside down. David looks at Sydney in horror and lunges at her, screaming at the top of his lungs. Hospital staff come and restrain David while Sydney is taken out of the room. Sydney is escorted to a medical room and the audience discovers that David’s consciousness has been transferred into Sydney’s body. David (in Sydney’s body), then goes back to find his body. However, the room that was once chaotic and full of patients is now completely empty and lit in all red. Sydney’s body heads to a hallway after hearing the screaming of patients and realizes that all the doors in the hallway are gone and the patients are trapped in their rooms. Sydney, aka David, then looks up to see his best friend, Lenny, bloody and split in half with a wall going through her body. Sydney, aka David, is escorted out as David’s body with Sydney’s consciousness is stuck inside the facility. 

Once David is clear of the facility, he somehow gets his body and consciousness back in the same place. He then goes home to ask his sister for a place to live. Amy lets him sleep in her basement and David begins to hallucinate a dead Lenny talking to him. Lenny warns David that men are coming to find and kill him for what he did. David tries to explain that it was actually Sydney who killed Lenny and trapped all the patients, but Lenny says that David shouldn’t have given up his body to someone who can’t control it. 

Meanwhile, the government man is still interrogating David. Once David realizes that they are not police, his powers come to his rescue. David shatters the table, stabs the man with a pen with his mind and throws everyone against the wall. However, the room is then gassed and David wakes up in a swimming pool sitting on a guard chair. The government man demands to know where Sydney is and threatens to give David a deadly shock if he doesn’t give him the information that he wants. 

David has yet another flashback and this time he is trying to find Sydney, but has no luck. He then realizes that two strange people are following him, so he has to lose them. When he does, Sydney appears and tells him that this isn't real, but just a memory. Sydney then tells him to slide into the swimming pool and not to come up until he sees her. David wakes up, slides into the swimming pool from his chair, and suddenly there is a flash of orange light and burnt bodies of government men fall into the pool. David emerges from the water to see Sydney and the two people who were following him from his flashback. From there, David escapes the facility with the help of his new mutant friends. In a glorious one-shot action scene, we see the group of four fight off government men and they escape and make their way down to a boat where an older woman is waiting for them. The woman is Melanie Bird, played by Jean Smart. David is hesitant to go with them, but after looking back and seeing a hallucination of the man with yellow eyes, he takes Bird’s hand and concludes the episode. 

This was a very strong pilot episode. With a futuristic and retro design, the show has its own unique style. The most interesting part about this show is the choice or narration. The narrator is David, but he proves to be an unreliable source. This causes the viewers to doubt themselves, reality and forces them to pay close attention to every detail. It really demands your attention. The fast editing style allows David’s narration to be even more effective. David can’t focus on something for a long time period and the editing makes the audience feel like they can’t either. You truly feel as though you are in David’s shoes and it is done perfectly. To add to that, the visuals of the show are incredible. The show has a unique visual style with heavy reliance on color. Color plays a big part in the mood of the scene and the foreshadowing of events and characters. For example, red is displayed as extremely bad or dangerous. The government man was sitting at a red table, after the incident the mental hospital was red, and David’s nightmares were all red. The special effects were also great and didn’t feel unreal or cheesy. 

This Season 1 Episode 1 journey was a great start to the series. The characters felt real and the mental hospital setting was very interesting and displayed perfectly thought the use of editing and camera shots. The writing was pretty good and felt very unique in terms of a superhero show. There wasn’t a dull moment and it was a lot of fun to watch thanks to its impressive visuals. I can’t wait to see where David will end up in next week’s episode.

Written by James Philbrick, LEGION Beat Writer -- Click to read James' posts


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