Legion Review: Chapter 11 (Season 2 Episode 3)

On Legion Season 2 Episode 3, “Chapter 11,” David is on a hunt for a monk in an episode about escape.

“Chapter 11” is an intriguing hour of television. There’s good and bad in that.

Legion is a show that could very easily fall victim to the pitfall of becoming too serialized and believe that it is a ten-hour movie. Some other shows have a tendency to do this to their detriment, having episode after episode that all blend together without any kind of individuality to them.

What Legion has done in its second season, however, is go completely in the other direction, delivering installments that do feel distinct. Each has its own insular story to tell.

Once it realizes that this is an episode where the characters can be trapped in a diseased building, it truly finds itself and has a wonderful scope as a result. That’s also where the show runs into trouble.

Ideally, this would be an installment where David is able to go into the minds of each member of Division 3 — but the show feels this need to stick to its overarching story with the Shadow King and the monk.

It’s understandable to stay on that route (given that that’s what the series is actually about) but as a result, it sacrifices the tightness that the episode could have had otherwise and only teases in the end.

On the other hand, it could become apparent on the next installment that the simple delving into Ptonomy and Melanie in this episode works on a thematic level that wouldn’t exist as strongly with the rest of Division 3.

If that’s the case, then it would be for the best, because the theme it’s working at with those two is quite effective.

In separate ways, Ptonomy and Melanie are both looking to escape in some capacity. For Ptonomy, it exhausts him to constantly have to deal with his own memories on top of everyone else’s. In that way, his mind chooses a reality where he is constantly allowed to forget everything, even what he just did.

For Melanie, she has always wanted to be carefree, but her relationship with Oliver made her veer off of that. In this reality of hers, she gets to be a void.

For this season, she has become increasingly withdrawn in the wake of Oliver getting taken by the Shadow King. To see a physical manifestation of that in this way is remarkably understated and, quite frankly, nice.

It’s entirely possible that Legion wouldn’t work as well as it does if it was grounded by someone other than Dan Stevens, who manages to constantly be likable and charming while also seeming slightly unstable. He’s able to walk a nice line between lucidity and psychosis that another actor might not be able to do as well.

There’s a certain elegance to that performance that feels specific to Dan Stevens and his acting prowess.

“Chapter 11” is a fascinating exploration of some characters, but it’s hard not to wish that it had committed to that more fully.

Some Stray Thoughts:

• There’s no Jemaine Clement in this episode. We’ll have to dock some points for that.
• Aubrey Plaza fed up with being trapped with the Shadow King and trying to kill herself in the background is a very amusing visual gag.
• Was Melanie a video game nerd in the 80’s?
• There’s a cow in Cary’s lab, as if John Noble is going to walk in at any moment.
• Cary scolding the cow is also amusing.

What did you think of this episode of Legion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Legion airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on FX.

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