Legion: A Superpowered Slow Burn
A superhero series that starts loosely and vaguely only picks up steam after the halfway point, but the acting and visuals compensate for the weak script.
David Haller has suffered from psychological disorders since a young age. He’s haunted by terrifying visions, hears voices, and occasionally falls into oblivion. His family places him in a psychiatric clinic, where the young man is convinced that his problem is simple schizophrenia, which can be, if not cured, then at least managed and kept under control. However, in reality, David is under the surveillance of a special government organization that suspects he is a powerful mutant, but Haller himself is unaware of his powers. In defiance of the government’s Division 3, a group of mutants kidnaps David straight from the hospital, with their own plans for their newfound comrade. But first, they need to figure out what’s going on in the mind of a person who doesn’t understand the nature of his power and control over nature.
Rachel Keller’s character was named Syd Barrett after the musician from the legendary band Pink Floyd, who greatly influenced the work of “Legion” screenwriter Noah Hawley. Barrett, by the way, left the band in 1968 due to a psychological disorder.
The Evolution of TV Criticism
Just as film critics definitively separated themselves from theater critics over half a century ago, despite the similarities in their approaches and analytical tools, we should soon expect a complete and unconditional separation between specialists in analyzing feature films and “surgeons” of serials. Despite their shared roots, the branches of this tree have grown too far apart. This is most evident in attempts to draw far-reaching conclusions about serial pilots using the templates of traditional cinema. TV shows have long outgrown the short pants of modest dramaturgy and limited budgets. New genre laws are being established on TV, requiring a modern approach.
“Legion” is a trap that has caught more than one critic, let alone a viewer. This show is created according to modern television canons, which state: “Reveal nothing in the first episode. Obscure as much as you can. Avoid precise formulations and unambiguous interpretations.” There is a risk in this; the inert mass of viewers continues to evaluate new releases based on the first, at most, two starting episodes. However, those who make it through the thicket of the pilot are rewarded – such shows reveal themselves in all their glory closer to the finale. And then they don’t let go for quite a while.
According to the creators of the series, “Legion” is part of the cinematic universe of “X-Men,” but this statement has not yet been confirmed by any cameos or other references to the films.
A Risky Approach
The creators of “Legion” didn’t take too much of a risk; in any case, they weren’t counting on a warm reception from viewers who are far from comics and modern mass culture. For these people, there are traditional sitcoms and procedurals. But the viewer for whom Legion is not just a word, but a significant mutant, equally dangerous to both the forces of Evil and the side of Good in the X-Men universe, will watch the show without outside prompts or reviews. However, this complacency hides the main Achilles’ heel of this approach – new viewers cannot be attracted in this way, and the core audience can be lost. You never know what fans will like and what will be met with hostility.
Fortunately, “Legion” was more of a hit than a flop. But the success should be attributed not to the plot or even the visual part of the series, but to the very good cast and the interesting composition of characters that managed to hook viewers. Alas, David Haller himself must be immediately excluded – no matter how much Dan Stevens rolls his eyes and grabs his head at the slightest opportunity, his character in the first season of the show is more often led and regularly becomes the object of influence, rather than the initiator and engine of the plot. But his partners on both sides of the barricades turned out to be simply excellent! The team of mutants is curiously selected – instead of all sorts of Mercurys, Magnetos, and Storms, the main trio consists of a girl who cannot be touched, a guy who rummages through other people’s memories, and a man inside whom lives a girl with a bat weighted with nails – this is at least an ambiguous approach, but quite working. On the opposite pole, the multifaceted Aubrey Plaza runs the show, outdoing all the other superheroes with the grimaces of her character. The confrontation turned out to be colorful and quite convincing, but only within the framework of each specific episode.
Pacing Problems
But the overall plot didn’t work out very well – in fact, eight episodes of the show literally tread water. Three episodes out of eight are devoted to a tiny moment, the duration of which is the time it takes for a bullet to fly from one wall of a three-meter room to another. Of course, the authors did everything to keep the viewer from getting bored during these three hours, but the impression of wild stretching and unprecedented slowness of action did not disappear – “Legion” is really very unhurried. The show likes to get distracted by trifles and details, play with the image, jump from a musical to a pantomime of a silent film, just to avoid talking about the substance. However, in this, the series is close to the comic book – in them, too, the meaning is often reduced to three sentences behind a pile of pictures.
And yet, I want to give “Legion” a second chance – the show is clearly non-trivial, its authors are not without talent and ingenuity, the actors of the series have only just gotten used to each other, and many plot and stylistic decisions have not been fully implemented. Yes, the monotonous walls of the mental hospital begin to irritate by the end, yes, at times the characters show phenomenal stupidity and squander the chances given to them, yes, some plot twists and mutant tricks are far-fetched, but this is in any case more curious and exciting than the monotonous confrontations with the villains of Flash or Arrow. It remains only to figure out who Legion really is – it’s worth waiting for the sequel for this.