Legion: Chapter 4

"I was a woman who couldn't be touched, in love with a man who wasn't there."

Legion just gets weirder and weirder; among other things, this episode features a girl living in a bloke’s head as his imaginary friend and getting out in to the world, and when she dies, he does.

It’s all very fairytale, which brings me to the opening. We meet the mysterious and stentorian Oliver, player by that bloke from Flight of the Conchords and a splendidly surreal individual with his discordant jazz and pronouncements on literary theory. He lives, it seems, on the astral plane, where David’s consciousness has become stuck from excessive dreaming. That’s the sort of thing that happens on this show.

Through Ptonomy we, and Syd, begin to realise that David’s memories may be partly false and are covering something up, and indeed that he may not be as nice as he seems. Certainly it’s evident, after the two of them make enquiries, that all old memories featuring Lenny reflect the reality of a big man called Benny, a bad influence.

The whole thing is as well directed as ever, which is good, because this sort of telly relies on that. The “real” world still has a stylish ambiguity between ‘60s and modern styles. And motifs recur- Syd keeps seeing the Hitler-like Angry Boy from the storybook while out and about.

I hold my hands up; I have no idea what’s going on at this point. But I’m enjoying the ride.