What I’m Watching: Legion (Season Premiere)

Legion: Season 3, Episode 1 “Chapter 20” (B+)

There’s no denying the utter bizarreness of this show, but what a captivating and mesmerizing experience it is to descend down this rabbit hole. I wasn’t too thrilled about spending a good portion of the episode with a brand-new character as she received big giant subtitles as part of the narration, but this was actually the most brilliant way to introduce her. I don’t know why I wouldn’t expect a musical number at a dry cleaning place, and it was very interesting to see how both Lenny and David envisioned themselves in their created and very populated reality. Lenny as her majesty the breakfast queen was particularly wild, and she’s loving her new life even if it doesn’t exactly involve the body she so desperately wanted. David was also blunt about having tried trust and finding it much better to simply read people’s minds. I can’t even quite wrap my head around the way that David was able to save himself from death by somehow creating a scavenger hunt for a time-traveler who could show up, watch him get killed, and then repeatedly go back in time to try to save his life. It’s also jarring to see the different sides our favorite characters, not seen until close to the end of the episode, are now on. Farouk meeting Switch to tell her that she was cheating and then reporting on her existence to Syd and Clark demonstrated how he still finds a delight in the events he experiences even as he works with those he previously worked hard to harm. I like that the response was that they too should have a time-traveler, though Clark emotionlessly declaring that they’d kill her too since she could undo whatever they did was considerably more serious. I’m on board for the mind-bending, time-twisting rollercoaster that will be this show’s final season.