Spoilers for Legion follow. Be forewarned. Shall we begin?
Well, that was certainly one heck of a ride! And I hope you all stayed after the credits like good superhero movie-loving nerds, because if you didn’t, you missed something big. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Last week’s episode marked the triumphant return of the Division 3 employee who first interrogated David in the pilot, and as this episode begins, we learn all about what he’s been up to since then. Well maybe “triumphant” isn’t exactly the right world — he and his army of goons might appear to have the upper hand as we open this eighth chapter, but his face and body were badly burned during David’s escape attempt, and the trauma of his recovery is wreaking havoc on his relationship with his husband and son. Yup, didn’t expect a flashback about how the evil shadowy government goon is actually a caring family man, did you?
Now that David’s aware of his full power, though, it doesn’t take much for him to easily subdue the Division 3 army via Katamari Damacy methods‚ aka crumpling them all up into a giant mass of angry stuck-together people. With the Interrogator (who we learn is named Clark) captive, the gang has different ideas of what needs to be done next. Ptonomy, unsurprisingly, wants to kill him; Dr. Bird wants David to read his mind and steal D3’s secrets; David just wants to try to reason with him and learn how to coexist with mutants; and Cary just really wants David to stop exerting himself and let ’em take the Shadow King out of his head already. And all the while, everyone at Division 3 can see everything that the Interrogator is seeing (including his husband, who appears to work there, too! That’s… adorable? Do you think that’s where they met? How dare this show make me care about the minor villains so much!), because he’s got a camera in his eye that’s recording everything.
Of course, Cary is right to think that getting rid of the Shadow King should probably be their main priority; he’s starting to break out of confinement. During their negotiations with Clark, Syd receives a sudden mental visit from Lenny, who’s able to communicate with her because of the time Syd and David swapped bodies. Unsurprisingly, she’s not on board with the whole “forcibly remove the Shadow King from David’s head” plan, and tells Syd that the only way she’s letting go of David is if Syd helps her escape; otherwise, he dies when they try to separate the two. Syd doesn’t quite buy it yet, but she is quick to fill Clark in on the details in the hopes that he’ll help save her boyfriend, which is some pretty potent foreshadowing for what’s to come later.
Speaking of which, it’s all about to pop off now as David’s taken to the lab and strapped to a machine that, I kid you not, looks exactly like the electronic cerebrectomy device from The Muppet Movie (Given that this series has already borrowed from the Muppets in the form of David’s terrified “Rainbow Connection” cover, I’m gonna go ahead and call this intentional). The machine, we’re told, will identify all the brainwaves in David’s head that don’t belong to him and suck them out, which also has the nifty side effect of allowing David to go on a psychedelic trip back through his own memories while Pink Floyd plays in the background.
Finally, David comes face to face with his demons, literally. He’s worried that the Shadow King is a part of him too, now, and asks Lenny point blank: “Who am I without you? What happens to me when you’re gone?” You know, the sort of typical stuff you worry about when you’re in recovery for a mental illness and you’re not sure how much of your personality is rooted in the behavior making you ill in the first place.
And as we all suspected when Lenny first floated the idea past her, Syd takes matters into her own hands and extracts the Shadow King from David herself with a well-timed kiss. Things go pretty nuts from there as he bounces from Syd to Kerry, and Ptonomy shoots up the whole lab trying to stop it from happening (dude, a machine gun? Are you really that bottom line-oriented that you’d be cool with killing all your friends?).
With the Shadow King’s psychic powers and Kerry’s rad martial arts skills, she’s nearly unstoppable until David gets in her way and the two launch themselves at each other like superheroes and villains are supposed to do. The good news is, the Shadow King gets forced out of Kerry’s body. The bad news is, he plants himself right into Oliver instead (who just got his memories of Melanie back, because twist the knife why don’t you), and he escapes in his body before anyone even realizes they’re gone. And together, they seem to be looking for something. Or someone?
There’s also one more good thing to come out of the aftermath: they might not have won, as David tells Syd, but he and Clark agree that Summerland and Division 3 should probably be working together to stop the Shadow King. Except, maybe nobody actually did tell the guys at D3 headquarters, because the end credits are interrupted by a GIANT ROBOT EYEBALL trapping David inside itself like a pokéball and flying away with him? Could that have been the “equinox” the D3 guys talked about deploying earlier in the episode? Or could it be something else entirely? (Fingers crossed for Mojo — I will have satisfaction, damn it!) Who knows, but I’m certainly going to tune in next season to find the heck out.
What about you? Now that the first season is done with and all (well, most) of our most burning questions about David have been answered, what did you think? Let us know in the comments!
Images: FX Networks
