Legion Review: Chapter 20 (Season 3 Episode 1)
It’s David against the world on Legion Season 3 Episode 1, “Chapter 20,” as a new character helps ease us into the way things work now.
Switch (Lauren Tsai) brings a breath of fresh air to the series. She’s a guarded character up front, and on a show where sights and sounds tell more about a character than their words, Switch’s mannerisms and observations help define her.
Tying the premiere completely around Switch brings a lot of energy and excitement. Everything we’re seeing is introduced through someone’s eyes who is new to this world. It also allows for an unusual and invigorating way to tell the story, being able to retell the same events with different outcomes.
Time travel, as a concept, is done here as a creative measure of portals. Hopefully, the demon waiting at the edge of too far back on the timeline becomes an integral part, as it’s a rather creepy image, lurking in the darkness, and the pitfalls of time travel could be a fun avenue to explore (outside of losing teeth, which is never a good thing).
David’s cult, with its drug pig (there’s a drug pig!), retro style, and no secrets mantra (a callback to season two, where Syd and David promised each other never to keep secrets), leaves a large window into David’s headspace now. All he wants is to be loved, and he appears to have found it, at least partially and temporarily.
David’s multiple personalities appear to take on their own forms more openly now, as Switch realizes as she catches a glimpse of them arguing as he fetches the tea. The calm demeanor he puts on in front of her is likely just a mask, potentially breaking his one rule of no secrets from the very get-go.
Hopefully we get to find out about Lenny’s Breakfast Queen moniker more, before things get too crazy.
The psychedelic nature of his safe space is such an inviting visual style, Andrew Stanton’s direction helping to create a methodical and atmosphere-driven casual vibe to match the calmness David wants to instill into his new world order.
The opening especially, with Switch as the only marker of color in a muted, almost grey tone, as she goes to school and walks the streets, before the red bus appears, is a reminder of how spectacular the show gets with its imagery.
The episode takes repeating moments and uses them to great effect, as both we and Switch know the outcome, and it plays with this to (pardon the pun) switch our expectations. The team striking the cult leads to some of the series’ best action, continuously killing off main characters with ease before snapping things back to their original state again.
The episode is almost playful with its no-holds-barred attitude, as though the final season leaves a lot more on the table to go crazy with.
After the events of the second season, though, Switch wanting to help David leaves a conundrum. She is drawn to him and his need for a time traveler, but is she doing more harm than good by helping him? She’s perhaps too young and innocent to know the full damage she could be causing, but at the same time, perhaps David is on the path to doing the good he always wanted.
Syd and the others are quick to kill David, no longer looking to reason with him. It makes allegiances, as a viewer, rather conflicted. They are so certain he will end the world, when events have transpired to make that not entirely a foregone conclusion now. But with the assault and David’s secrets and lies, there’s perhaps a level of due diligence, of making sure.
Farouk being part of the team is still a little hard to get used to. Going from antagonist to leveling the playing field against David to help Division 3 comes across as a little sudden still, from how events played on Legion Season 2 Episode 11, “Chapter 19.” There’s no mistaking David being a villain now, but every villain has a path to redemption, as Farouk proves.
Legion Season 3 Episode 1, “Chapter 20,” takes time and makes it a weapon. We don’t know what’s going to happen, which is in itself exciting, and then, when we do know, it’s flipped on us. Coupled with Switch and a strong visual command, the show is confident heading towards its end, Noah Hawley & Nathaniel Halpern’s clever writing setting a stage of completely open possibilities.
What did you think of this episode of Legion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Legion airs Mondays at 10/9c on FX.
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Kevin Lever
Kevin Lever has been following television closely for most of his life, but in starting to cover it, he has grown a further appreciation. He strives to give the blockbusters their due, and give the lesser known shows a spotlight to find more fans.