Legion: Chapter One
Starring: Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza, Katie Aselton
Director: Noah Hawley
Writer: Noah Hawley
A review by Insha Fitzpatrick
Holy what the f*ck. I think it’s safe to say that Legion may be one of my favorite things about TV right now.
There’s a lot in the X-Men franchise to dive into. I seriously mean a lot. There seems to be a new X-Men “thing” every other week, including nine movies released since 2000. The latest in this long string happened to be X-Men Apocalypse, which really deserved a lot better than what it got. It was kinda shown that we needed something else from the franchise. Something nice, new and refreshing instead of constant Bryan Singer retreads. What we have now is Logan, out March 3rd, and Legion.
If you don’t know much about Legion, that’s okay! Trust me, before this show came out I had to do a buttload of research and comic reading to understand who this character was myself. Legion is the mutant brainchild of Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz for Marvel Comics. Legion, real name David Haller, is Professor Charles Xavier’s son, who is probably the most powerful, but highly unstable mutant known to their kind. He is basically the equivalent to ten A-bombs dropping on your doorstep. Yes, it’s that serious. Legion has the psychological illness of disassociative identity disorder, which gives him a slew of different personas. A constant battle for Legion is his identity within his father’s legacy, which he doesn’t exactly know how to live up to, but he’s trying his best. With this, however, he becomes a great anti-hero who is relatable and pretty damn dope.
If you needed a perfect introduction to the story of a new mutant, Legion takes you on a wild ride that is sure to leave you in a state of wonder and confusion. It breaks every single one of the rules you thought the X-Men universe should uphold. It doesn’t skip a beat to tell you what’s going on within the realms of the psychological thriller it aims to be.
The start of the series is aesthetically pleasing and captures you immediately. Glimpses of David’s life are shown straight from birth, to middle school, teenage years and finally, to his ultimate decision of college. It’s a timeline that’s worth showing and it’s always brought back to the plot of the episode. After his incident, David (Dan Stevens) finds himself in a mental institution, nicely named Clockworks Mental Hospital, he’s diagnosed with schizophrenia and his sister, Amy (Katie Aselton), goes to visit him frequently, but he needs something new to happen because it’s always the same new cycle. He thinks that the things he’s able to do are bigger than any medical diagnosis and continues to question his reality every step he takes.
In the hospital, Lenny “Cornflakes” Busker (Aubrey Plaza) is friend and companion, always with their headphones on and dancing to the tunes inside their head. One day, a new patient arrives that turns David’s world into a massive mix of sunshine and rainbows. Sydney “Syd” Barrett (Rachel Keller) is something of a dream to David, but Syd has a small issue: she doesn’t like to be touched or when people are too close to her. This obviously causes a problem in the intimacy department, but they manage this so perfectly until they don’t. Syd is about to leave the hospital, David does something completely reckless (despite him not being able to touch her) and this sets into motion a government agent having David inside of an electrocuted pool in order for him not to hurt anyone. Yeah, this sh*t is WILD.
I don’t want to give too much away because I’m still trying to wrap my head around it myself, but this episode lays the groundwork to what the rest of the season might be like, and if it is… i’m loving it so far.
The one thing that always gets us excited about X-Men is the cast. I always want to know if they’re playing the role or is the role playing them? For example, I have a hard time being convinced that Jennifer Lawrence is still any good for Mystique because I feel like this is just another job for her. She’s not fully committed to BEING that character. In Legion, they went the extra mile in trying to figure out the character while diving into them as well.
Dan Stevens is fantastic in the lead role, almost like it was seriously meant for him. He plays a naive, but questioning Legion. He wants to know answers, but doesn’t know how to get them. It’s great too cause production kept Stevens himself in a state of naivety throughout the season to make him just as confused as his character. If he doesn’t at least have THE HAIR by the final episode, I swear I’ll quit. (I won’t, but I really want them to do the hair… at least once.)
Another example of perfect casting is Aubrey Plaza’s character Lenny, who was supposed to be a middle aged man, but was basically 99% of her own creation. She was heavily influenced by David Bowie and created an androgynous character. In a Vanity Fair interview, Plaza says, “I was interested in making Lenny a man and a woman at the same time, and not being tied down to anything gender-wise.” BRILLIANT. She makes Lenny her own, as do Rachel Keller, Katie Aselton and more (there’s totally more, but these are the people we get a firm understand on immediately). They create a mystery in their characters and leave you begging to know them more.
Visually, this entire show is stunning. @regtvcritic on tumblr put it perfectly.
Legion is very much A Clockwork Orange meets Wes Anderson with mutants. It has a Stanley Kubrick-esqe quality which is perfect for this show. It’s also very hard to place. You don’t know what year you’re in but somehow, that’s perfectly okay. It has a sense of timelessness, but sticks with 60’s and 70’s elements mixed with the modern day. It’s incredibly hard to do, but the production design really gives you that sense of a timeless feel, without feeling dated. It lands you in a place where you don’t care where you are, because you’re so much about the “huh?!” of the show. Legion fuels my film school vibes and cradles my visionary soul.
Another thing I would like to talk about is the way the show deals with mental illness. Spoilers: It’s great. It’s actually quite refreshing to see this show deal with it, especially within the lead character. It deals with it in a old school way, but never disrespectful. Since Legion is about the mental illness and manifestation of David’s powers, I can’t tell you enough how nice it is to see a perfect balance of the character dealing with his reality, but trying to figure everything out.
The Verdict:
Watch It! If you want a cool visual journey that doesn’t follow any rules of the X-Men verse, I highly recommend Legion you! Noah Hawley’s direction is truly what the X-Men franchise needs at this point. It needs someone who’s willing to think outside of the box and someone who is not Bryan Singer. This show not only does a great job headlining someone who suffers from mental illness, but introduces us to a character who is so important in the X-Men verse and currently not very well known. It’s a fun and fantastic fresh start filled with wonderful music, insanely cool characters and a story that will continually make you go “what the actual f*ck.” Until next week! 😀
