Legion: Chapter 6

“Deja vu, but not?"

Legion is already pretty damn experimental and avant-garde for prime time network telly, but this is a specifically experimental and avant-grade episode. Gulp.

The whole thing is set during a frozen moment in time as the bullet hurtles towards David and co. David, Sid, both Loudermilks and Ptonomy are in a mental home run by Lenny; it’s uncertain whether this is a shared dream reality or just David’s, but the set-up gives a good opportunity to give a bit of character background for everyone before the focus turns to Syd and David. Incidentally, Ptonomy mentions that his mother died while loading the dishwasher; this is the first inkling that the series is set in a post-60s time frame.

At first it’s all played straight, albeit with Lenny coming across like a bit of a Freudian quack, until suddenly the fourth wall smashes into a million pieces as she does a music video dance routine to Nina Simone.

But there are little kinks in this reality- Sid starts to remember things and notice a kind of Schrodinger’s door that is sometimes there, sometimes not. And so things finally collapse until the point where Lenny (briefly appearing as that demonic figure that I’m sure is the Shadow King) Who is sonehow orchestrating all this for the purpose of using David’s power in some way.

We end with David, in a box, falling in the dark, and two episodes to go. This is powerful, non-linear, weird, wonderful telly.