Legion “Chapter 13” Review- The Rebirth of Lenny
“Chapter 13” should have been the halfway point of Legion season two, but now FX has ordered one more episode of this season which has me both excited and concerned about the show’s future. You don’t hear about shows getting an extra episode that often and I’m worried that they’re being given a chance to wrap everything up in a nice bow instead of getting a third season. Let’s hope that that’s not the case because “Chapter 13” completely threw a wrench in Future Syd’s plans of saving the future and things going forward seem explosive.
The theme of this season has been to prevent the future. While the details of this future are still incredibly vague we know that David killed the Shadow King, bashed his head in as a matter of fact, half the world has been wiped out, people are being hunted, Syd lost an arm, and David is…it’s complicated. Which leads me to believe that after he kills the Shadow King, David goes a little crazy town banana pants. The motives of Future Syd have been rather questionable, as a large majority of the fanbase can’t figure out whether to trust her or not, while seemingly hinting that maybe the Shadow King is what we need in order to protect the world from David who could very well be the monster of the future. If that’s the future that Syd is trying to prevent I think we took our first real steps toward it yesterday.
Very early on this season, David struck a deal with Farouk, Oliver, and Lenny saying that he would help them find the body of the Shadow King if they promised to stop killing people. David is a man in love, or in love with the idea of being in love depending on how you interpreted last week’s episode and is willing to do anything for Syd whether she be from the future or the present. That deal fell off the hinges with the arrival of Lenny and her new body though. Lenny has spent the majority of this season kind of suppressed by Farouk having done her job of delivering David to him, and I don’t want to say the show has suffered cause of it (it hasn’t) but Legion is a much different show when Lenny is at the forefront. Aubrey Plaza gives such a dazzling performance with this character that I selfishly just want to see her on screen all the time. At times crazy bonkers and others sympathetic, Lenny is at this point an extension of David. She represents a past that technically never happened or did but with someone who wasn’t actually Lenny and a future that is all too real. Lenny is what could happen to David if he let himself go to his darker desires and I think Lenny loves to exploit that fact. It’s easy for her to sort of get in David’s head having lived there for so long.
David has made a ton of progress since he’s purged Lenny from his brain but he still has those insecurities. That need to sort of please everyone and that doesn’t change with Lenny. Lenny’s arrival at Division III is no accident and both the Summerland and Division III folks are right to doubt her motives. No matter how many stories she tells about getting drunk with her grandma when she was nine or how many time she claims not to be working with Farouk she can’t quite make a dent with anyone. It takes David and his bleeding heart to get the truth out of her. The fact is Lenny is still working for the Shadow King and this is part of the bigger plan because Farouk has found the body.
Immediately the episode makes it seem that Farouk and Oliver have found the location of the body that the Monks have been hiding. We also got our first real look at Oliver’s psyche as he is fully aware that he’s being held against his will and is determined to kill the Shadow King when the opportunity arises. He even goes so far as to tell this to Farouk who just laughs the whole thing off. I wonder if it’s possible to take someone who is constantly in your head by surprise? A question for another day as the two go out into the desert and dig up a body that Farouk lovingly caresses the hand of while Oliver runs a sample of its skin in some kind of high tech ray gun that he stole from Division III giving more reason to their attack a couple of episodes ago.
From here things get dark. Oliver and Farouk park outside the house of David’s sister, who is being kept under SWAT team like protection, and kill everyone leaving Amy the only one left. Oliver uses his mind powers to trap Amy and then busts out the ray gun from Division III and injects David’s sister with it. And just like that… Lenny is back having taken over Amy’s body. Turns out the body that the two dug up in the desert actually belonged to Lenny and now the character who had been wishing for freedom finally has it. As her “skin” is superimposed over the body of David’s sister. Think of it kind of like a video game and it hurts your brain a bit less.
David, of course, being a mega telepath is able to read this in Lenny’s mind after he notices that her eyes aren’t the color they once were. Questions of whose body Lenny is in possession of dominating his train of thought and ultimately lead to his discovery and breakdown. David doesn’t have a lot of family, in fact, he only has his sister. A person who was always looking out for him and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now she’s gone. Taken away from him by the entity he agreed to assist. I’m sure Farouk can argue that he never really killed anyone and that Lenny is just using her body, but I don’t think it’s going to matter to David. He’s going to want to revenge and I’m starting to believe that that revenge could lead to the death Future Syd has warned us about. The revival of Lenny could be the jump start to the apocalyptic future we’ve been trying to avoid.
What do you think Geeklings? Were you happy to see this episode focus mostly on Lenny? Did the Shadow King cross the line? Can David be kept from going off the deep end? Is the apocalypse inevitable at this point? Sound off in the comments below. If you’d like to talk more Legion with me then you can find me on Twitter @iamgeek32. I’m off until next week, in the meantime careful navigating the maze and be sure to question everything!
Images from FX
Kevin Carey is an
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Amazon. While awaiting his Hogwarts acceptance letter, Kevin lives on
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