Let’s Talk About ‘Legion’ Season 2 Episode 5, “Chapter 13”

We keep saying it but Legion remains a high point of episodic television.  It’s trippy, very psychedelic, and strangely addictive.

The story of mutants and mental powers being told in the rich visceral era the original Chris Claremont X-Men stories were placed in was a genius move, and one that sets the show appart on FX from any of the other comic book based properties.

If you didn’t see last week’s episode “Chapter 12”, you can catch up here.

Season 2 episode 5 “Chapter 13” has another simple synopsis:

“An uneasy reunion leads to a shocking truth.”

Things that happened in Legion s2e4:

• The episode begins with a little recap of Lenny (Aubrey Plaza) and David’s (Dan Stevens) relationship, she tells him that he killed her. We get a flash of Lenny and Oliver in the pool, her trying to off herself in the other realm, and her reappearance
• An upside down cell with a really neat ceiling gives way to a fabulous rotating shot
• Lenny is there talking to Clark (Hamish Linklater), and she says she wants to talk to David
• Lenny says her name is Lenore, and she’s named after her grandmother
• She asks for drugs, and Clark tells her she’s a consciousness without form.
• He asks Lenny if she’s the Shadow King, and she continues to tell him stories about her family.
• She maintains that she’s a victim, that being stuck in a wall was not cool man
• He leaves her alone in the room again, and Lou Reed starts to play
• We see Oliver driving Farouk in a convertible through the desert, and they start talking about the body the monks are hiding. “Will I have to touch it?”
• Farouk and Oliver are digging in the middle of the night, uncovering the body
• There’s a flashback to Oliver going through the dark facility, and he steals a piece of tech
• Ptonomy talks to Lenny, and remarks that her eyes are the wrong color
• He mind-melds her, to see who she is. He sees what she told Clark about- Grandmother and the can full of vodka
• He gets sucked in, and we see the oily little thought demon make it’s way into Ptonomy’s ear
• He sees inside Fukuyama’s basket helmet, and sees a creature
• The sky is a rolling ocean, as the narrator tells us about Chapter 6.
• It’s all about patterns, coincidence, conspiracy, and how the human mind will dismiss thing
• Farouk talks to Oliver about morality, and Oliver vows to kill him.
• That submarine donuts car is the best thing and I want to drive it around right now.
• David finally comes to see Lenny.
• “I had no idea what silence was until Farouk was out of my head,” he says to her
• He gives her a twizzler, and reminds her that he can read her mind
• He asks her why she’s there, what her purpose is
• They’ve established it’s not really Lenny’s body, that she’s taken over someone else’s, hence blue eyes
• Farouk and Oliver are conversing again in the desert, in different languages
• We see Lenny when she woke up, naked and covered in blood in the desert
• “But why would he send you here,” David asks her. “I don’t know, but he has a plan.”
• The driver of the sub Ben goes home, and his wife (David’s sister) is arraigning sunflowers. She tells him about a dream, where there was a basket, and she had a mustache, and spoke in song (obviously it was the Vermillion)
• Suddenly the large windmill outside their home stops, and theres a ring from the doorbell.
• There is a pile of ash by the door, obviously Ben isn’t Ben anymore.
• Oliver is in the house, washing his hands, singing happy birthday, and she recognizes him
• David tells Lenny that they buried her old body in desert, and Lenny surmises the body Farouk and Oliver are digging up is actually hers
• I cannot even begin to describe this scene with an incredible cover of”Don’t Come Around Here No More”, and we see who Lenny took the body of

***

As much as I was going to say this week’s episode was a letdown, the last eight minutes really pulled me back in hard, and I am completely right back in awe of the series. Scenes pulled off like that, with so much oompth to them, that’s what I’ve come to expect from the show.

Legion airs on FX on Tuesday nights.