Set apart by its unique visual style, unreliable narrator, and approach to mental health, Legion was a dazzlingly original show created by Noah Hawley that delved into the premise of villain creation in a humanistic way. Now it’s time to take a look at what made the show so special.
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Legion is based on the character Legion from the X-Men series of comics. There are differences from the source material, the main one being that in the comics, David Haller is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder whereas in the show David Haller (Dan Stevens), is a man diagnosed with schizophrenia at an early age and who has suffered from aural and visual hallucinations for years. Now he is in a mental institution after a suicide attempt.
David is accompanied by his friend Lenny Busker (Aubrey Plaza) in a vibey, vaguely 60s vaguely space-age-style institution. The first episode introduces David through flashbacks showing the decline of his mental health and how he lashed out and abused substances to cope with his problems. In the present, in the institution, a new patient appears. Her name is Syd Barrett (Rachel Keller) and as soon as he sees her David falls in love. The only problem is that Syd doesn’t like to be touched.
From the get-go, it is hinted that David may be more than he seems. Things levitate, explode, smash around him. However, this is almost all shown through flashbacks initially and with his mental illness, is David the most reliable of narrators? After an incident sees David switch bodies with Syd, and utter carnage is wrought upon the hospital, killing Lenny, it begins to look like he may indeed have mutant powers as does Syd. By the end of the first episode, David has escaped a secret organization known as Division 3 who are intent on obtaining both him and Syd and been taken to a safe haven for mutants, Summerland.
Throughout season one there is a pervasive evil that follows David, a yellow-eyed demon, grotesque and sinister lurking in the shadows. It is truly menacing and creepy in every appearance. It haunts his dreams and his memories. There are some scary visuals when inside David’s memories. The main character from The Angriest Boy In The World storybook that frightened him as a child comes to life and chases him. Season one is all about decoding trauma and unraveling the stories we tell ourselves.
David Haller houses hundreds of personalities within himself. Some are good, some are not. Almost all of them are at war with him and inside him. Legion as a whole is about who wins out. About finding balance. Unfortunately, balance is hard to find when you are fighting yourself and a parasitic psychic entity, known as The Shadow King or Amahl Farouk, using you as a host. As the series progresses David’s power grows and reveals more and more of itself. For fans familiar with the comics the outcome of David’s character will be no surprise. He struggles between hero and villain, at once trying to save the world but also to control it.
The use of dreamlike visuals and saturated colors throughout the series only serves to highlight the surrealism of the series. The whole series often takes on a dreamlike quality blurring the lines between reality and sleep and the astral plane. The scope of David’s power to shape reality in a way that suits him is mirrored throughout the episodes.
Dan Stevens and Aubrey Plaza absolutely shine throughout the entire run of episodes. Stevens gives David an innocence and likability that is charming and even in later episodes it’s hard to dislike him, whilst Plaza has a positively gravitational pull as Lenny/Farouk. It’s also hard to discuss later seasons without giving too much away about the timeline of events and the direction the narrative takes. Suffice to say it starts weird and stays weird and in fact, even increases in weirdness as the series continues.
Legion was, and is, visionary and did something different with the comic book genre on television. The show’s heady mix of visual style, soundtrack, and comic book story was put together in a way that subverted what is usually seen from comic adaptations. There’s no caped crusader fighting evil or super-strong patriots saving the world. There is, instead, a deeply troubled man trying to make sense of who and what he is and Legion shows that good and evil aren’t always black and white. Sometimes the waters are a little muddy.
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