Friday, April 27, 2018

Legion - Chapter 12


"Chapter 12" is the first episode of Legion's Second Season that isn't framed in narration from an unseen Jon Hamm toying with larger themes and how they relate to David (Dan Stevens) and the Shadow King (Navid Negahban). Instead, nearly the entire episode takes place inside the mind of Syd (Rachel Keller) as David tries to navigate the loop of her life and fails repeatedly to find the right answer. With the focus on Syd, both we and David learn far more about the complicated mind of the woman who has won our protagonist's heart.

Pearl Amanda Dickson, Audrey Lynn, and Violet Hicks guest-star as younger versions of Syd. Dickinson's scenes are the most memorable, especially those that focus on her mother's boyfriend and using an obnoxious teenage boy to take out some aggression on a group of mean girls. There's an interesting question in this episode. Just how aware is Syd of what she's doing to David? Is she consciously forcing him to learn more about her life before returning to the outside world (an extreme mutant version of a girlfriend test) or is she trapped in the same maze as the other characters which we saw the previous week? Given that other characters wake up earlier, the second (which would be a real dick move, by the way) seems more likely.

No comments: