Dogs & Cats, Living Together: TV's Legion

Discuss this batfuck tv show

... and if any of you comic-splainers try to take over this thread with boringness I'll whack you with a rolled up newspaper (jk it's cool, luv u guys)

i'm interested in this. big Dan Stevens stan here.

he's so good!!! and completely different again from his prev work. he even seems younger

i like the weird retro staging too, and the music has been p good

i liked him in downton abbey, loved him in the guest. probably not gonna see Beauty and the Beast but glad he landed that role.

i know he had auditioned for The Force Awakens, don't know what part he was aiming for.

the cast looks good. love Aubrey Plaza too. And Rachel Keller and Jean Smart, glad they are in it. Keller really impressed me in Fargo S2.

there can only be one many apparently

One of the characters is called Syd Barrett???

Lol, the two threads were made at exactly the same time?

Noah Hawley, of Fargo, is running this, and directed first episode. Can't wait to see it!

i have no experience or really interest in psychotherapy, medication or superhero stories... but i'm in

either this tv version also sees people who aren't there, or that weird yellow-eyed ogre person looks normal to everyone else

i too want to know how dan stevens looks ten years younger in this (i didn't recognise him till about 10 mins in)

right!?

clearly occult worshiping involved

this was outstanding! good lord.

yes i'm very excited for next ep.

the final sequence w/ all the CGI was almost too silly but i think they pulled it off at the end

i was trying to remember where i recognized the interrogator from - he's the guy from new adventures of old christine!

ohhhhhh that's where I recognized him from. I was trying to to place him too!

he's v handsome, I like him

I kept trying to figure out how many of the ppl were real and who was in his head

gave myself a headache pretty quick haha

aubrey plaza: was real, now in head
silent secret service escort team: head
syd: head

everyone else: tbd

he's v handsome, I like him

haha char said the exact same thing and then bemoaned the fact that he was dead + would not be appearing on future episodes

agree

;_;

he was dead + would not be appearing on future episodes

These two things aren't definitely mutually exclusive though, right?

The high concept, the swimming pool and the presence of a skinny, twitchy English actor all made me think of Sherlock, which made me worry that this show will become crap sooner rather than later. I hope it doesn't. I really liked the first episode.

ime a stylish director can keep an even quickly tired premise watchable for long past its expiration date cf most of bryan fuller's career (looking at imdb btw i didn't realize he was running american gods?? i'm suddenly interested in a show whose premise i was sure i was uninterested in.)

american god is dope, looking forward to the series

*s

this worked p well as an extended music video, looking forward to more

not totally sold on this yet. I like how the editing finds ways to mimic comic-book framing temporally, but I hated the beyond-stereotypical mental ward and the pretty much 100% CGI'd action (which was also an irritant on Fargo). also the "which characters are in his heeeeaaadddd maaaan" angle is fucking annoying and I hope they do away with it as quickly as possible

i liked the memory hijacking

aubrey plaza: was real, now in head
silent secret service escort team: head
syd: head

everyone else: tbd

i am on record as being extremely literal and trusting and gullible when watching TV shows and movies so maybe i'm missing something big here, but at the end when he says "are you real? is this real?" and syd says "i'm real. this is real. i love you, and i came back for you" i was like YES!!! and i'm gonna be pretty pissed if i was wrong to feel that way

yeah i think that breakdown is wrong. aubrey was real, now in head, yes. but it is a show about a mutant w/ powers to go along w/ his other problems. there isn't much of a show if silent secret service escort team and syd are in his head. (not to mention that would mean that all the gov ppl were also in his head otherwise how'd he get out of there.)

I had a cold last week and I am willing to suspend all ideas until I rewatch the show, which I can't seem to remember at all this morning

like did each of the secret service-esque people use a mutant power or was that something I dreamt happened after watching the show and taking cold meds

you mean at the end? yeah they were force-throwing baddies left and right, popping them right over the tree line toward the horizon with a jerk of their elbows

whew, I was ready to chalk that scene up to the nyquil

Dan Stevens overacts like crazy in this show. And the interrogator in brown is kind of unwatchable, not sure why. I love Fargo but am struggling to see the same kind of subtlety and intelligence here

i'm ok with the overacting cause the guy's reacting to stuff that's in his head, plus it'll all kinda hyperreal/surreal - but yeah, i hope he starts getting a little more real and honest with his performance

I don't know that 'honest' is a good goal for a performance basically ever, but particularly here, which (comic nerdery) is closer to a Shade the Changing Man TV show than anything else.

I found the interrogator (Hamish Linklater, no relation) to be incredibly watchable, hope to see more of him. Which may mean that I need to see more Fargo?

(not to mention that would mean that all the gov ppl were also in his head otherwise how'd he get out of there.)

The idea I guess would be that he has all these powers himself but he is along the road to being convinced that he's sane, so he has to imagine people who can use them.

I don't understand accusations of overacting in a show that exists in a state of heightened reality the way this one did in the pilot. Like, nothing that was going on was particularly "realistic" so I don't see how Stevens' performance crossed any lines that, for example, Plaza's didn't also cross.

otm

now picturing a mumblecore version of Legion & i already hate it

the last season of 'girls' reveals all of the titular women were actually in one character's head

lol

I dunno, to me it feels like Plaza's tuned into her own inner frequency. Stevens often seems like he's doing "hey look at me being crazy", little hyperactive face twitchy stuff a la Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys. Maybe I just like Plaza's "don't give a fuck" crazy better and that's all there is to it. To be fair, in the big moments where Stevens needed to be super locked-in w/Syd he abandons the hyper-alert sparrow act mostly.

that's because being both people in a conversation is hard work

Heh

Lenny was apparently written as a middle-aged man until the show-runner met Plaza - she insisted on keeping the lines as was - which does explain her enthusiasm for the idea of having tits.

So awesome!

first ep really reminded me of brit series Utopia

(I liked it!)

This show is great, Rachel Keller is completely entrancing.

I think it's fairly clear that the dude is mentally ill in some way, even if Jean Smart insists that his delusions are just a manifestation of his ability.

feel like even if he isn't suffering from a genetic neurological condition years and years of dealing w/ his powers/hearing voices would be enough to do longterm traumatic damage

This show is great, Rachel Keller is completely entrancing.

― ridiculous perm ban decision (voodoo chili), Thursday, 16 February 2017 20:57 Bookmark

fuck... it literally never occured to me that i wasnt watching rachel blanchard

second episode was super creepy

man I am loving this

just finished ep 1. just now realizing how funny it is that only when charred skeletons started falling into the swimming pool did my wife say "that was weird."

lol

http://www.mymbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/Legion-1.02-Chpater-2-vapour.png

that children's book

right?!

at first i thought it was maurice sendak's pierre but it was much darker

having the faceless shadow-dad makes it way creepier

feel like they're eventually going to get over this syd no-touching thing by having telepathy mind sex

yeah i think so too, it's got a short shelf life otherwise lol

hoping she meets someone else whose with a superpower that lets her fuck that person instead, just to drive the hysteria level up

sound design in this is so great, the way they so clearly layer voices to whispered, tinny, etc

Yes, I've been meaning to say that too. Dan Stevens' tic-acting is wearing incredibly thin for me but the approach to sound design is really something else. I don't think I've ever seen a TV show be so adventurous (I guess the "going crazy" aspect gives them this license)

The whole MRI business was about to give me a goddamn heart attack. Hey Bill Irwin - love your work but your character needs to get fired I think

yeah that MRi was terrifying noooope no thanks

I am vapefrog

otm

#vapefrog

Just caught up with the first 2 eps. Love this. BF made the observation the story moves in a rather Slaughterhouse Five way which I thought was a good point (if not perhaps on purpose).

I liked Dan's ticcy schizoid mannerisms!

How close to the comic/Xmen universe is this hewing?

At the moment:

. David Haller is a character in the X-Men comics
. They say the word 'mutant'
. Er...
. That's it

All the other characters in the show appear to have been invented for it (though what is reality, etc)

Right. So, the thing that immediately spoils this guys backstory if you look him up on wiki (ie who his parents are) is not going to be relevant or a thing here? I guess no one knows now that I type that out.

yeah, doubt it's a thing, but who knows?

It occurs to me they did have that memory scene where he couldnt see his dads face...

well now you have to know the spoiler that in the comics he never met his bio-dad until he was a teen and was raised by a stepdad

AH! ok that makes sense. Yeah I dont know this comic's story at all tbh. I dont suppose that will matter?

not a bit

a dude on the nerdist website did a recap on legion's comicbook backstory & i was like O_o O_O whuuuuuut & then I had a stroke

I am assuming that the reason this is a mutant story is that it was an easy way to get it made. But then I never watched Fargo - is that tightly tied to the film, or just an excuse to set a story in an insular town?

it is very tangentially related to the film--there are some archetype characters that are similar to major characters in the film (and one major piece of connective tissue), but it tells its own story. Season 2 has nothing to do with the film, as far as I can remember.

I feel like Legion's attitude toward its source material is probably similar to Fargo's. Wolverine's not gonna show up, ya know?

OR IS HE

i was trying to think what x-men cameos would be tonally appropriate w/ the show. xavier maybe?

I'm sorry, he's "Logan" now

xp

Fargo is so good. It has virtually nothing to do with the film.

That said, I'm afraid to start this. Is it still good after three episodes? (Haven't read thread yet).

i was thinking rogue might be good but syd is essentially thematically rogue already

xp it's still good, JiC

Wolverine was always Logan? Which isn't even his real name but an alias he *mumbles off into comic oblivion*

just a reference to the new movie which is titled after his new/old name

they call him Logan all the time in the movies!

half of The Wolverine was him imagining Jean saying "logan" interspersed with the actual plot

whatever his name is he's not going to pop up in legion

OR IS HE

James Howlett, the hairiest plot loophole

Holy christ new ep was scary as fuck

Is it still good after three episodes? (Haven't read thread yet).

I'm finding it simultaneously really creepy and a bit boring. Episode one, yeah! Great! Exciting! And now we're all sitting around twitching and talking about our feelings and sharing expository dialogue and delving into the same memory over and over again and it all feels a bit stuck. Maybe I'm just watching it too late at night and I'm too tired.

Holy christ new ep was scary as fuck

So on a scale where 1 is "Trapped in a MRI machine while Mike Myers' Fat Bastard is staring in at you and about to touch your feet", what does the new episode score?

Trish, I haven't seen the new one yet but yeah the second one tried to have its cake and eat it, intercutting between scary soldiers in the woods and their largely unconcerned prey. But I could watch another 8-9 episodes which are just memory hi-jinks, so I'm okay with that.

New episode has even more terrifying stuck-in-tight-spaces-while-being-menaced-by-childhood-terrors good times to look forward to, but for me it also has the added tension of A DOG, so now I'm waiting for something horrible to happen to the dog.

See, for me I am SUPER into the memory explorations because Melanie & the memory creation dude are coming at this from the x-men "he just hasnt learned to control his powers yet" that we the audience are already kiiiinda familiar with as a trope by now

and we the audience are a slight step ahead - we have a feeling that maybe it's not just powers, there's some deep mental illness/trauma/fear gojng on that we dont 100% understand

so I am super into watching the professionals catch up to us, learn through their testing what we kind of assume but don't know for sure - that David is something other than what they assumed, not only a bajillion times more powerful but waaaay darker & more broken than they're qualified to deal with.

I think the idea that maybe they're making him worse rather than better by just wandering around his memories like a shopping mall ... it's clear they're out of their depth & i love it .... ugh this is sooooo tl:dr i couldhave said this in 2 sentences sorry lol

like i kind of think that gross yellow eyed dude and bighead angry boy are maybe gatekeepers for the worst memories that he is not accessing, that even David maybe doesn't know he has. like he's somehow mentally abdicated control to the yellow eyed guy and the bighead angry boy

idk

it's fucking cool though

it's clear they're out of their depth & i love it .... ugh this is sooooo tl:dr i couldhave said this in 2 sentences sorry lol

No, I get what you're saying. I am probably being too impatient. I think it's just that I've seen so many shows where they start with something really exciting and then just backfill and backfill and make no forward progress, and I am just worried that this is going to go the same way. And I don't want it to, because it is extremely promising.

But I hadn't considered that they are making things worse.

the fact that they just drag him into these memories without any psychological guidance or consideration is so crazy to me!

it is like watching a car crash in slow motion

like throwing lit matches at a can of gasoline

like rain on yr wedding day no wait

Yeah the lightbulb bit for me was his "what if I'm not sane?" bit. Like, what if he has powers and hes also nuts? And thus freaking dangerous?

That latest ep was great btw. I'm loving this show. Same guy as fargo S2 does the soundtrack, so it has all that tense Tangerine Dreamish arpeggio stuff going on. "Traycebait" as my bf called it, lol.

hey, they're starting to pull back the curtains

Highly recommend the Reddit on this show btw, ppl coming up with some excellent theories.

Last night's episode was incredible--that final shot gave me chills.

My god. This show

we were two episodes behind. we watched the 3rd one tnite. too scary!!!

I said to Mr Veg this is like the nightmare child of David Lynch & Wes Anderson

i wanted to watch the 4th but mrs mordy needed respite

it's def not a binge show. O_O

It's one of the few shows where I really care that I'm watching it in something like real time (IE the laughably low bar that I watch one episode before the next one appears on TiVo).

I said to Mr Veg this is like the nightmare child of David Lynch & Wes Anderson

there is nothing Lynchian about this show imo

The Devil with Yellow Eyes counts, not least for the name.

all the "surreal" shit has a one-to-one plot or character function

on another note, this show should really have been about the dude and teenage girl who share a body

is Lynch yr dad or something

Simon H, I take some small umbrage at being dismissed like a child, but i'll explain my reasoning.

My reason for citing Lynch is because of the way the boogeymen-type characters are shown/revealed etc. Brief glimpses & flashes in shadowy hallways, frightening closeups that quickly cut away & the soundscapes/music that accompany to create these terrifying *experiences*. The waking-nighmare quality of those portions of the show are for me very Lynchian

Cool if you disagree, it's not a hill I have to die on

we just watched ep 4. guys, this show is so good.

my theory - the dog was the personification of his childhood innocence. At some pt something (the father?) disrupts that innocence and the dog becomes the Demon with the Yellow Eyes - a manifestation of everything that is angry and violent about David.

Jemaine Clement killing it

yes absolutely. there were so many things i liked about that episode but i would be bummed if we doesn't reprise his role (and i feel like he must)

sorry to be dismissive VG, I'm currently rewatching Twin Peaks and seeing a lot of folks make kneejerk Lynch comparisons (as people do whenever a new thing incorporates dreams and/or weird lighting schemes) and it's been rubbing me wrong. I can see where you're coming from.

if he* xp

xp no worries! <3

jemaine was awesome, so happy he's in this

i like yr dog theory mordy!

lenny = the yellow eyed man was something i wasnt ready for, holy fuck is aubrey plaza doing some good malevolent work here, goddamn i love her

lenny actually being benny is interesting. who actually got stuck in that wall and died, if anyone?

right? total mindfuck

Oh my god this show peaked with Jemaine doing beat poems

and when I say "this show" I mean "all television"

astral purgatory

The minute I realised it was Jemaine at the start I was very pleased.

I feel like I have less idea wtf is going on now tho, geez. So the ex gf isnt dead? I was going on the angle he'd killed her and blocked it out.

Or hang on, wasnt that actually her, given it obviously wasnt the doc either?

I think it was her. She dumped him after coming home and finding him all vapefrogged out with big old gross Benny

Re the Lenny/Benny thing, I think they are actually 2 people. Benny was real pre-Clockworks. Lenny was real and a CLockworks patient, until she got killed by Syd, and then the yellow eyed dude has taken on her form and overlaid the Benny memories with Lennys form. Why I have no idea,something about controlling david?

From above:

Lenny was apparently written as a middle-aged man until the show-runner met Plaza - she insisted on keeping the lines as was - which does explain her enthusiasm for the idea of having tits.

(I have no idea what this means regarding the revelation)

I wonder if they're going so far as to spread misinformation. Probably not, but.

I find the thematic underpinnings of this show a little concerning but I like the storytelling as much as anything I've ever seen on television. It also has the genre-plastic throw-shit-at-the-wall approach of a lot of the comics I like (it does seem way more Shade than anything else, even the outfits) though given the lack of humour it's maybe more Hickman than it is Morrison or Milligan.

Definitely not very Claremont though, thank fuck.

Lack of humour?

*snaps to beat poetry*

I would have agreed with it being humourless til that last episode yeah cmon.

Theres a real Kubrick vibe to the visuals and Hawley admitted he was watching clockwork orange and Quadrophenia before he worked on this which I can see.

The colouring too seems deliberate.

It's funny all the way through! Hamish Linklater's very discreet freaking out, a lot of David's reaction shots, anything with Lenny before this episode.

Good point, the vapefrog scene.

beat poetry? vapefrog? lenny? the title of that angry boy look and the scary/ridiculous appearance of the character following them around? the masturbation jokes?

yeah i have found it p funny all the way through

Whaaaat no the angriest boy and YED arent funny! Dear god, theyre frightening!

idk most of these things read as vague campy weirdness rather than actual humor, especially a conchord reciting ginsberg

clement's comic turn seems to operate on some of the same levels as syd's incongruous noir narration, they're there to indicate that Oh We're Doing This Now

actual humor is garbage. surrealism and people who think they're hip but are insufferable, when you watch other people have to suffer them, is funny

You're an odd fellow, thomp.

mh 😏 otm

I think my major block for this show rn is that I just don't find Dan Stevens' performance or the character (whose name I honestly cannot recall right now despite having watched all eps so far which is maybe an indicator) at all compelling. also it's depressing to watch Aubrey Plaza re-enact Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys.

See I'm not getting that feeling from either of them. And Aubrey's become quite malevolent in the last episode! (srsly what is with the whites of her eyes. Is she wearing billiard balls for eyes?)

I'm convinced there's eye-light touch-up done in post..

Halfway thru most recent one and it's great but I agree about Stevens. Just don't need all the facial reax nonsense. Would it kill him to just say "really?" instead of *squint* *raise eyebrows* *tilt head* *frown* "really?" Also starting to not care too much about his past and his book etc. You were scared of stuff and were into drugs who the fuck wasn't

lenny http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12052003

lol

hmm yeah some kind of shadow king, other consciousness infestation

that was like watching one of my bad dreams dear god.

Man, Bill Irwin is a national treasure

reread some old comics after the show, kind of see some of the inspiration

would people appreciate posting of comics images if I get around to it (no possible spoilers)?

I would

that wd be cool

time to put that marvel unlimited subscription and my ability to crop screenshots to work

There was an interview with Noah Hawley a while ago where he was fairly firm on the fact they wont be following the comics much at all tho.

Tho its obvious now we do have the Shadow King, right? (from what little I know of the story).

The last 10 minutes reminded me of that Buffy episode where no one could speak!

Also, what the heck with the last scene? Were they teleported back in time? Is that a fakeout Clockworks? Waahhhh?

Man, Bill Irwin is a national treasure

The bit where he realised no one could hear and he yelled MOTHER FUUUUUCK and gestured "see!?" and then Bird shakes her head, that was awesome.

https://gfycat.com/ShadowyCrispKawala

I watched this with my missus and afterwards noticed that we both went completely silent when the show did.

I assumed that the last scene was David taking everyone away in the same way that he did to Syd, except Lenny is in control. The 'next week on' definitely leans that way.

whaaaaaaat a mindfuck holy shit, how much scarier can this get jfc

gonna just fall into my old Fringe habit & just roll with this & see where it goes instead of trying to "get" it

also i dont think i want to hear Rainbow Connection for a v v long time GAH

Ha yes his version was so broken and full of terror. And man the words fit! Especially the bit he didnt sing:

Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me.

gaaaaaaaaaaah

lol sorry <3

I commiserate, this episode was like one of those bad dreams I have where everything is too dark and I'm desperately trying to turn lights on and they wont come on and I cant talk or move.

the negative security-cam footage of the yellow eyed man freaked me the fuck our

Yeah that was horrifying. And a real whiplash bcs 5 seconds earlier, I was giggling at Dan gleefully dancing thru the halls, flicking his hands and obliterating soldiers into random body parts and nothingness. Then it was like hahahahOH DEAR GOD

TBH I'd well worked out what was going on by that point though. The way he acted like another personality was done quite well.

I didn't really twig until they said it and then I was like OH OF COURSE DUH

I was a little too creeped out by his having fun at maiming people and destroying property while making light of it to laugh. Like realizing the guy you have thought of as a friend has had a knife pressed to your throat the whole time, you were just having too much fun to notice.

(Sure, it's the "bad guys" but given it's a malicious personality doing this, it's irrelevant who he did it to)

And now of course Syd is thinking "wait, did I fuck David or the monster?!? Ewwgh!"

yeah fucking hell

and her story of her first time was like um O_O

extra um O_O

I can't be the only person thinking a) Holy Jesus that's fucked up and also b) as soon as she turned back, she'd turn into him? Or does her power have a cooldown?

what? her actual body was in the other room

oh wait, I see the confusion:

her mom's consciousness was in her body, which stayed in the living room or w/e, her consciousness was in her mom's (which she took into the other room)

Yeah, and after it wears off, her body rubber-bands to her consciousness...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And then would she have likely swapped with him at the moment, assuming they would be touching each other?

Yeah it took me a while to work out, but yes when she touches someone and they swap minds, when it wears off, the *bodies* swap back not the minds.

So yes, the bf would have suddenly found he was fucking his stepdaughter or whatever she was meant to be to him. WHich was sort of left uncommented on.

It is funny to think on though: David was the one who said "you dont want to go in my head. You wont think the same of me afterward" but arguably Syd's done worse.

Mind you this will all be moot if it turns out Syd is just one of his personalities which I am still ready to accept could happen.

I bow to everyone's logistic excellence and am kind of glad I didn't puzzle out this startling rape/unintended sexual encounter drama while watching the episode

Yeah it only occurred to me on post-show thinking. Gross.

Hm a thought occurs: what if that wasnt Syd's story? What if it was the YED?

I'm not down for extrapolation just yet

Ha you sound like my other half. "why do you always have to try and work everything out before its happened goddammit"

oh, I always work stuff out, I'm just enjoying this one as it rolls

They seem to play fair with who the POV character is, I think.

while it's not position I understand where 'im indoors is coming from

where did his sister end up? in the last scene he's zapped everyone who was in the room into his imagineered group therapy session - including telekinesis guy ("Rudy" per IMDB) and The Eye (also note Rudy is in a wheelchair in therapy-land) - but his sister wasn't in the room, so she isn't in the head space, so what did Lenny do with her?

PS I am assuming his sister was real since The Eye's employers used her as bait

it's kinda too easy to miss stuff in this show. police squad / kimmy schmidt 22-jokes-a-minute is one thing, blink-and-you'll-not-know-why-that-guy-is-evil-now is not something I'm accustomed to.

Then again I did get quick enough to start figuring out most of what goes on in The Expanse so practice, practice and I forgot the third thing

the expanse is a similar sort of tricky, lots of softy elements then someone does a quick move offscreen that people have to react to. that's it's thing, they never show people deciding to do things or the moments before, just the acknowledgment they started something offscreen and you have to figure out why and then wait for them to explain how

Shit I hadnt even noticed Amy wasnt with the rest of them. I always feel like i should watch each ep twice.

with these kinda complicated show, I tend to just kinda relax into it & the show will eventually tell you need to know. It becomes harder to enjoy if u stress out trying to "get it". I am slowly learning that certain shows are smarter than me & I am slowly becoming ok with it

except for Hannibal which confused the christ out of me & I still dont know wtf I watched most of the final season

I found Game of Thrones hard enough to follow, lol.

I somehow found 0% of Hannibal confusing

at home my tv viewing is very slipshod these days compared to cinema, too much time watching while tidying or finishing off some beers

well la dee da arent u smart lol jk

I too make the mistake often of drinking while TVing. Then promptly declaring i have no effing idea whats going on all the way thru. That last Sherlock episode ruined me. No way I could be drunk watching Legion. I'd never have a clue.

(I am notoriously faceblind with TV/movies, though)

I drove Mr Veg bananas when we watched Fringe. Felt like three times an episode I'd have to pause it like "EXPLAIN WHAT THE BLOODY EFF IS GOING ON PLEASE"

Mr Veg Bananas would be an excellent login

lol

A lot of tv shows, I'll often have a laptop or tablet on just to keep up with football scores or browse twitter etc.

With Legion I have to make sure they're all powered off and in another room out of temptation's way. And I still miss things.

this fucken show

Finally saw the first ep and loved it. My wife was harder to convince, since she likes neither people with powers stories nor "what is real!?" type stories. I told her to at least give it another try, since she conceded it looked cool and the acting was solid.

the teaser for next week's show explaining the underlying premise for this week's show in case you didn't get it was something

this fucken show

All the lynch refs were a little ham handed, but love all the rest.

So, I can gather this much now:
- Lenny is the Parasite/Devil with Yellow Eyes and has probably been attached/in Davids head since birth or early childhood
- it was fairly blatantly hinted that his dad is Charles X but I guess that'll all come out soon?
- at this point I'm wondering if most of these characters now reside in his head, even if they were real at some time in the past? There were some curious things that hinted that to my mind: Ptonomy tells the story of his mother dying in the kitchen in front of him, while he plays with some silly putty. In a later scene in Clockworks, David is playing with some silly putty. Theres a cloud over what happened to Davids mother. What if Ptonomy's memory is actually Davids?

And by which I mean, are all these people just cyphers for Davids own memories? Itd explain why Lenny/Devilgoo man was grilling all of them on various part happenings, but the dialogue smoothly moved as though it was all aimed at one person.

Various PAST happening argh.

I wasn't digging this after 3 or 4 episodes — it felt slow and hammily acted — but I'm totally on board now.

Its a show that I think demands a lot from its audience, inthat it loads it with clues and red herrings and imagery and whatnot. I know zip about the comics and I'm still getting a lot out of this, though tbf I've been doing some side-reads.

Have they been helping at all?

Also I totally missed the blatant hint, I guess?

Reddit page has yeah! Though a lot is obv speculation.

Blatant hint: his real father (Lenny saying to him "I know your father")

Sorry that should clarify with, if you know the Legion comics story (its an unavoidable spoiler I fell over the minute I looked up info on this show/comic)

also the stuff about him being so noble which is a common complaint ppl have about X

Yeah see I didnt catch that not knowing the Xmen story so well, but yeah.
BF complained this episode was too slow, didnt advance the story enough. I get what he means, but I wasnt bothered, because it did a lot of exposition and we're at the point it badly needed some, I think.

tbf 1/2 of the stories are about Xavier's intentions being noble and the other half are him doing or admitting to really heinous shit

yeah Mr Veg is getting annoyed that the story isnt going anywhere atm

idk, i still dig it. no clue whats going on really

so lenny is 100% driving the bus now? is that what him in the coffin box in space means?

She/he/it is certainly trying to drive it 100% but not quite succeding, imo. Particulary because Syd has twigged, and is noticing things aren't right. And him being in lerv with her is throwing shit off too.

I'm predicting next weeks ep will be a massive in-brain shitfight.

Though also I'm curious about the Oliver part of things! He seems to be... trying to save them? He managed to get Cary on side (that was Cary in the diving bell at the end, right?)

yeah but idk even know what parts are even actually happening anymore

i mean the house where the gunfight is that they go "back" to is his memory construct too

ack

Hey Trayce, I'm not being clear, I think (or very possibly being dim): when you said "- it was fairly blatantly hinted that his dad is Charles X but I guess that'll all come out soon?", what was the hint, was it just "you have a real father", and we know that in the comic books his dad is Charles X?

I kind of think that any Deus Ex Machina of this figure that we've not seen before turning up (even if he's known in the larger world, and indeed is swearing his bollocks off in cinemas right now) would be a really weird way for the series to go - you have to finish the game with the pieces currently on the board.

The house is real though I think? Isn't that why he took his sister back there?

Not sure if it's been mentioned upthread but season two is a go.

yeah Mr Veg is getting annoyed that the story isnt going anywhere atm

I am with Mr Veg. I'm going to give this till the end of this season, but I fear it just may not be for me. I want my superhero stories to be full of superheroing, not explorations of what it means to be a superhero and what is superheroing anyway? Plus daddy issues, always the daddy issues. Don't get me wrong, I see that it is very good, but it is not what I want.

But there's about a million other superhero shows/movies you can watch if you want that. I'm finding it refreshing that Legion isn't really walking that path.

I've rewatched all six episodes now and it's definitely rewarding. So much to pick up on. Last week's episode had lots of callbacks to the pilot for instance.

And what's with the green dude who hides in the trees/bushes?

I fear that you are getting Trish wrong.

I can see that this is not a thread for complaints, and that's fine. It's not like I'm going to come here and bitch about every episode and my frustration with what I perceive as a disappointing lack of forward momentum. I really just wanted Mr Veg to know he wasn't alone.

I guess we'll find out very soon, but my impression of why Oliver was showing up has to do with where the episode is happening. I think the simulacrum mental institute that David's mind has put them in (being controlled by the malevolent yellow-eyed being) has been constructed on the astral plane. Since David's recently met Oliver on the astral plane, they're neighbors. So Oliver popped out of his little room and noticed there's a mental institute hanging around out there.

Well, we don't know that it's Oliver in the suit at all this episode - it could be Cary?

Maybe!

what was the hint, was it just "you have a real father", and we know that in the comic books his dad is Charles X?

Yeah sorry that was it, and this is just me, but I felt the part where she says to David 'Ive met your father" (or I know your father, whatever it was), felt like that was a callout we're about to hear more about. Maybe I am wrong!

Also no shade on trishy but I dont see this as a superhero show at all, tbh?

I'm his dad

No, I agree that the father is likely to be a element, either in the last two episodes or next season, but tbh with the show as it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if he was someone else.

god i love this show

new one excellent, best episode so far

No, I agree that the father is likely to be a element, either in the last two episodes or next season, but tbh with the show as it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if he was someone else.

I would like to clarify that my remarks here were taken out of context.

I haven't enjoyed any tv-nonsense as much as this since the parallel universes at war with each other in Fringe, which this series sort of reminds me of.

Not since Tomorrow's World have I had so much information dumped on me so elegantly by a TV show. Makes a really nice change from HBO-style sexposition.

haha i don't know how sincere that is, but i hope very because it's how i felt. i like that they waited so long to tell us anything and then did everything at once so you can't be sure what is material and what's colour. the timing was perfect for integrating the exposition into plot and character development, and like so much else with the show it really was done with style.

Hay! Mish! Link-la-ter!
Hay! Mish! Link-la-ter!

That is all.

Also I can't imagine this is a controversial view but it needs said: Aubrey Plaza has been killing it these last two episodes.

otm

xxp it's pronounced Hay-mish...damn

Either way excited to have him back, third-degree burns and all

took a while until i was able to get around to this episode but yes fantastic. glad they doubled down on the silent movie schtick. really want to see cary and oliver do more double act stuff. would be happy if last episode was just a big prison break action sequence, albeit i can't imagine that's where they're going with this

omg i looooooove this show

also who the fuck is cary

i mean i know who he is but i have no memory of him

Holy fuck at this week's episode.

Incredible

I'm not sure I understand the relation between the two clauses there, VG :)

But: He's played by Bill Irwin, he shares a body with Kerry, he seems to be the technical person in Melanie Bird's gang, he was I think first seen putting David into the MRI machine?

ok then who was the vegetative drooling guy they were wheeling around in the wheelchair, that melanie found stabbed in a closet, that they were calling cary

clearly I'm confused

I think you mean Rudy. I read this to try to sort out WTH is going on: http://ew.com/recap/legion-season-1-episode-7/2/

That's Rudy the barely developed character we're supposed to somehow remember anyway, yeah.

rudy. ok got it.

yeah I was like ok I don't remember him AT ALL, why do I care about him?

He's the one that can fling stuff around with his mind.

Yeah, Rudy's the one who flings doors and people over the horizon.

He's the one The Eye was impersonating in the house and was firing the machine gun at David and Syd.

He did seem to disappear from our screens though when they were at the institute type place travelling through David's memories.

Seems like a manifestation of the split personality. I wondered if that was what the main guy really looked like or saw himself.
Wasn't Legion shown as a paraplegic in one of the Xmen films or comic s? Trying to think what happens in X2 but I think Striker brings somebody into play that I thought would be the character. Very powerful psychic.

i did wonder if rudy's absence was a deliberate thing -- like we were meant to think something was up with that. i also didn't know his name until just now

i think there was one title card w/ 'cary!' where 'rudy!' would have made more sense, also

Really explicit Charles Xavier ref in the last episode. While David's in his mind classroom and he talks through being adopted, and left with his adoptive parents, he flashes back to being dropped off and there's a wheelchair with X wheels (plus the cartoon of the fight with the Shadow King totally looks like Charles Xavier).

Not to mention when David (not "Rational Mind David") affects a British accent he sounds remarkably like Patrick Stewart

is that a diff british accent than the actor normally has? i'm not up on regionalisms

Rational David is his natural accent - I'm not sure what voodoo chili is talking about.

There's a very brief moment where David (not Rational David) affects a third accent--when he says "sweetheart it's over I won, give me some sugar..." and his rational mind snarks, "is that a British accent?"

That part is distinctly Patrick Stewart-like

Lol yeah it kinda does, and he's impersonating his dad after defeating the Shadow King at that point

AND chalk dad is bald

He was definitely going a Pat Stew Xavier there for a moment, for sure. do not pretend that it wasnt BECAUSE IT TOTALLY WAS

this show is wonderful

I love the music in the credits

one of the best arrangements of bolero ever, too

Omg right!?

Yeah, that stood out to me too. This show is one of the most technically proficient I've encountered in sci fi. All of the audio design is superb, the music cues impeccable, the editing tight, and the mise en scene pretty inspired. I think at times this covers up for some shoddy acting / and slow, vague plotting.

It's so good that when Rudy doesn't make any sense, along with catching bullets, and Oliver escaping from a frozen diving suit without breaking the ice, or whatever, I'm fine with all of it. It's impressionistic comic book television, a thing that 2017 needed.

Yeah exactly

No spoilers as guess some won't have seen it yet but there's a pretty important post-credits scene this week so don't switch off once the credits start to roll.

dang

thoroughly enjoyable, well made show. maybe the best tv example of the comic book tradition of sophisticated handling of comparatively unsophisticated material.

ok that was dope

PINK FLOYD RULES

Is the post credit scene on every episode? I've been turning the show off when the credits roll until this week. So may need to go back and look at them for that if so.

No, just this week.

welp, that was kind of a dramatically unsatisfying ending

So many ppl are saying that but i didnt feel that way at all

after episode 7 the season finale would have had to be really amazing to not be a letdown.

I'd go with satisfying but slightly anticlimactic after last week (but was always likely to be the case).

Lots of Season 2 set up and can't wait to see the Jemaine/Aubrey double act.

I like that they let Jemaine sing a couple of times. It feels so right

I hope next season there arent any more slow motion fight scenes

That was my only peeve this ep. Like, we just had the house slowmo that lasted 2 episodes, stooooooop dragging these out

can we have like half of next season be jemaine clement and aubrey plaza doing a sort of wacky anton chigurh pilgrimage of evil

Omg yes plz

Olly & Lenny

nymag did two nice little roundup pieces that I completely agree with

http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/03/legion-tv-show-aubrey-plaza-rachel-keller-jean-smart-hair.html

http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/marvel-legion-tackled-mental-illness-with-intelligence.html

what happened to David's sister, I'm gonna rewatch but I've forgotten

FX (xfinity) still isn't airing episode 8, on demand.. anybody else have this problem?

no, that was how i watched it

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-02/15/21/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web-07/sub-buzz-27632-1487211799-1.png?resize=990:555

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/54/fd/7a/54fd7a73f93dbec1aa3ad74958de41c1.jpg

If you're in the UK, Season 1 is available On Demand at the moment.

Rewatching before Season 2 starts up in a few weeks.

Annnnd trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmBIn9De-Yc

Can't wait.

eeeeeeeeee

Bill Sienkiewicz did a poster!
https://i.imgur.com/px3vSco.jpg

Awesome.

oooh

*ominous music intensifies*

fighting the urge to just post 'yesssssssssssss' to this thread every five or six minutes of this

I appreciate the psychic battle scenes, which have had myriad ways of visualization in the comics, being portrayed as surreal dance struggles

this show does such a good job of nailing the Marvel Goes Edgy And Weird aesthetic of fifteen years ago in the comics, by which i guess i mean it does an okay job of it, that i'm not at all able to maintain any critical distance

probably a question that crosses over with the comics board: what particular things do you feel like it's aesthetically close to from fifteen years ago?

They're definitely playing with some of the weirdness of Bill Sienkiewicz's visual ideas, but the aesthetic reminds me more of some Chris Bachalo stuff from the mid 90s when it comes to some of the sets and use of patterns and light.

for anyone enjoying the show and wondering about the earlier comics with some of the characters, this collection is still a buck at amazon if you're fine with reading the digital copy:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077ZG3DHQ/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

the cover seems to have been picked at random and has nothing to do with the contents

amusingly, the issues collected cover enough time over one of x-men's more tumultuous periods that they've inserted catch-up pages of text between arcs. even with those, the ephemeral bits happening seem ridiculous. "by the way, since the previous page, the x-men are now dead (but not really) and storm is a child. have fun!"

Maybe a little more than 15 years ago, but this show's clearly very reminiscent of The Invisibles and Doom Patrol! I'd assumed the only reason no one had explicitly said so upthread is that it's so obvious that there's nothing to say.

I know it's firing up the sic-signal but I find it curiously reminiscent of Steranko's Nick Fury run. Something about the slightly go-go costume design, slightly archaic but stylised technology and the psych undercurrents to David's experiences. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

My favourite bit was Cary Loudermilk dancing while David was in the flotation tank. Him dancing round while plugging 1/4" jacks into a giant panel made him look like a modular synth guy waiting for his new release on Tone Science to drop.

I keep waiting for swirling black and white or checkerboard patterns on things, which I was coding as Bachalo but probably move obviously is a Nick Fury thing!

xp

Movin’ and groovin’. #LegionFX pic.twitter.com/WKF4vkx4HR

— Legion (@LegionFX) April 4, 2018

oh maaaan i have missed this show

same as always, i dont know what i watched but i loved how it felt to take it all in!!

things i love
-the mustache girls who talk like Tina Weymouth in “Genius of Love”
-delusion chickens
-hexagons & shapes everywhere always
- dance off!!
- two of my favorite comedic actors doing the straightest, most serious faces is perversely hilarious
- BASKET HEAD BASKET HEAD
- vape elephant (rip vape frog?)

aldo otm re Cary dancing & plugging his plugs

probably a question that crosses over with the comics board: what particular things do you feel like it's aesthetically close to from fifteen years ago?

They're definitely playing with some of the weirdness of Bill Sienkiewicz's visual ideas, but the aesthetic reminds me more of some Chris Bachalo stuff from the mid 90s when it comes to some of the sets and use of patterns and light.

― alvin noto (mh), Wednesday, April 4, 2018 3:54 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heyo i was more thinking of the tone that arrived when they had grant morrison and peter milligan writing x-men books, the kind of awkward grafting of the tone they'd developed on vertigo and second-tier dc properties onto what still had to situate itself as mainstream and comprehensible. actually the second season is way more just straight up doom patrol on present evidence. i didn't mean visually.

things i love
-the mustache girls who talk like Tina Weymouth in “Genius of Love”
-delusion chickens
-hexagons & shapes everywhere always
- dance off!!
- two of my favorite comedic actors doing the straightest, most serious faces is perversely hilarious
- BASKET HEAD BASKET HEAD
- vape elephant (rip vape frog?)

cosign all of these

also 'that creepy thing they do with their teeth'
also i didn't even notice the narrator was jon hamm

ughhhhh the teeth was a huge pile of nope, that freaked me OUT

and yeah, Jon Hamm combining the Mercedes commercial voiceover & DSM nightmares, good stuff

first 30 seconds of this are momentarily amusing but there’s no way it needs to be 2:30 long (also lol @ the twitter acct)

lets get it started // legion pic.twitter.com/M7X8rJtH5X

— iconic scenes to iconic songs (@flghtscenes) April 4, 2018

thomp, that makes sense and I'd agree

-the mustache girls who talk like Tina Weymouth in “Genius of Love”

they sound almost exactly like the GLADOS computer from the video game Portal

oohhh you’re right

there are a half dozen things the basket-head guy reminds me of
http://comicsalliance.com/files/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-03-24-at-1.35.32-PM-630x628.jpg

i was hoping he would talk like Cobra Commander

i was hoping the sword in the stone bit would go on longer. B- episode

Not as thrilling or narratively compelling as the last, but that's a weakness of a lot of exposition episodes in television. Hopefully it picks up a bit.

this week's episode was a slight step backward, but i'm looking forward to exploring Syd's psyche next week. i think my favorite image of the entire season is still the cafeteria with the table river and the little boats bringing food. reminds me of something murakami might dream of.

the plot detail I've been trying to figure out is if this tv version of David is just a telepath and the Shadow King has other abilities? I assumed when he was doing all the wonky things (people dropping into the ground, being incinerated, etc) in the last season that was Farouk using David's powers, but now that he's exorcised, he's been doing those things in Oliver's body, too.

very minor nerd lawyering, here

David is capable of affecting the physical world too, like in the most recent episode when he teleported himself and the monk to the top of the building

yeah!

maybe Oliver's a telekinetic, too, and he's doing the incinerating

right. i think maybe the King is just a parasite that knows how to use his hosts powers better than they even do, kinda like Fry's worms in that one episode of Futurama lol

THE INEXPLICABLE LETTERBOXING IS BACK

Loved that episode. Even made Turtleneck sound good.

in the same vein i have a longstanding moratorium on dark moody covers but "white room" tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq7ZP215n0A

I still haven't seen any of this show, but someday I'll binge it all (probably will buy the DVDs).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWqAkhDLhhw

Renewed for a third season, which will certainly be interesting after this week's finale.

This season started veering into hate-watch territory for me. I hope they right the ship next year.

same tbh. i stanned hard for the first season but this one was... not as good

Damn, I was just about to start this. What flubbed the second season?

A lot of nonsense-for-nonsense's sake. I didn't read the comic, so maybe it comes from there (wouldn't be shocked! The comic creators were pretty nutty), but the mustachioed robot women, the basket head guy, the random ninjas and dance-offs and other goofiness. Also, the elliptical dialog really started to creak, with every sentence trailing off, questions being answered with more questions, etc. This show needs a voice-of-the-viewer character SO BAD, to just shake all these weirdos and be like "WTF IS HAPPENING DUDE?!"

Also it's tough to get invested in a show which doesn't seem to have any rules. David is pretty much a god, and so it's hard to tell what limits he has, and whether scenes are taking place in reality, his mind, or the astral plane. We never see ANY normal people (or I guess if we do, they are just cannon-fodder), only this collection of weirdos, so that's also hard to relate to.

But if you liked Twin Peaks, then this will probably feel like CSI Miami to you, so ymmv.

Season was definitely a mixed bag but the highs were still very high

i lost interest halfway through because it felt overexplained ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

catching up

so would people say noah hawley has issues with women or

hell of a finale

three people played by the same actor yelling at each other to express mental illness is kinda .. not something to be doing in 2018 though

one should have been a dwarf obv

I liked the showcase episodes a lot, I'm happy that the next season will presumably have a lot of Aubrey Plaza.

This show needs a voice-of-the-viewer character SO BAD, to just shake all these weirdos and be like "WTF IS HAPPENING DUDE?!"

We never see ANY normal people (or I guess if we do, they are just cannon-fodder), only this collection of weirdos, so that's also hard to relate to.

Hah, we were actually laughing about how much use they got out of Dan Stevens' "WTF IS HAPPENING" expression, apart from the showcase for Normal Person Amy Haller, which was pretty clearly the "Dan would also like to stretch his acting chops" episode.

We took in the last three in one sitting yesterday, partly because we were near the end and partly because we kept having to remember what happened before.

The end is fucked up in, eh, more than one way.

Third and final season coming in June

ooooh

There’s no time like the present. Or the past. Or the future. The final season of #LegionFX premieres Mon. Jun. 24 pic.twitter.com/TEH5jfAT0d

— Legion (@LegionFX) May 7, 2019

Damn, I completely dropped off the train on this show right on start of S2. And I was heavily into it.

yeah i fell off too! :/

S2 was not as satisfying as S1, but I’m ready to give S3 a shot.

plus Preacher’s back in June too

ooh yay :D

I remember really enjoying an awful lot of Season 2, but have no memory whatsoever of what happened in the end.

David broke bad

Those who’ve watched the show and read the comics: can someone explain how david’s multiple personalities relate to his powers. I know that in the comics, his power is to absorb abilities as personalities, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the show. Yet his increasing instability seems to be directly related to his split personality in the show?

What gives???

This season has been a massive improvement btw, the fairy tale episode from last week was batshit in the best way. Makes me wish Mantzoukas was in everything.

They haven’t really delved into the personalities bit in the show, although they’re setting that up to be the drop in the finale, maybe?

In the comics, he originally had multiple distinct personalities (although only three iirc, and a couple were based on actual people he’d absorbed during a bombing) that each had a different power, and didn’t coexist in the real world, although they interacted in the astral plane. This evolved over the years — he’s had moments of clarity where he could command a multitude of powers, and also periods where there was a mental prison/hotel of sorts where he could interact with characters with different powers and bring them to the forefront or “steal” their powers for use.

I’m kind of surprised by how little has been explained in this season and the finale is either going to give us a piecemeal explanation and some resolution, or a fuller explanation and less total conclusion, imo

For instance, what is up with those time wraith things?

I think the time demons were always lurking in that hallway, waiting for someone to destabilize the timeline enough to set them free

if i dropped out on this midway thru last season can i jump back in this season and not be totally lost? i love zouks and i'd give this show (a show i liked a lot in the first season) another shot to watch him in it.

Zouks is only in episode 6, which is totally self-Fontaine’s, so you could always just watch that

*self-contained, not self-Fontaine’s,

I loved this season! The ending was surprisingly sweet, and some of the visuals were really beautiful: The stop-motion bits, the creepy-as-fuck time demons. I loved the ending for the poor toothless time-traveler, and I felt like the more out-there stuff was more purposeful than in season 2. I plan to re-watch this once they put it out in HDR.

I need to rewatch it in a more focused manner but the good episodes were up with the best of the series and I feel like the ending was as good as we could get.

It didn’t quite hit it on the nose but as a tale of people who were damaged, as everyone is, it became a tale of extraordinary people striving for a better conclusion

We finally got around to finishing this, watched most of the last 6-7 episodes over a week or so. I think I was a little let down by the way that some of season 2 seemed to be cut up into digression episodes - though that said, the one of these in season 3 was excellent - the promise of Jermaine rap battle led us onwards, and by that time we were hooked.

I did like the use of Pink Floyd's 'Mother' to indicate this is a very cliche son-mother thing, it happens.

There's a lot of actors I'll be looking out for because of this - Rachel Keller, Amber Midthunder, Bill Irwin (though holy shit, I just found out the's the other guy who isn't Robin Williams in the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" video), I don't think I'd even seen Dan Stevens before - but man, Hamish Linklater is definitely the catch.

(Should I watch The New Adventures of Old Christine?)

Recently finished season 2 after initially bailing awhile ago, and this show finally clicked for me (and my partner), although I apparently have the exact opposite opinion of most people in this thread. Season 1 had too much dream logic and pointless psychedelia and I can't remember many details, but season 2 felt way more focused and purposeful (except for that whole thing with the black oily idea monster that crawled inside people's heads, although that worked thematically). My partner actually joined in after I was a few episodes into it and ended up rewatching almost the whole season, and a lot of little things in the early season really hold up once you know where it's headed.

Just started season 3 and I'll allow them one music video/musical scene per season, there better not be any more, lol. Also a little skeptical of Farouk just being one of the team now, but maybe they have plans to contain him once David is dead/captured, and I assume he also still wants to kill all non-mutants after that gets taken care of.

Just started season 3 and I'll allow them one music video/musical scene per season, there better not be any more, lol

*noah hawley nervously taps feet and looks around*

Haha. Also, sorry but Rachel Keller is often kind of bad in this?

the character is very flat, but imo that’s kind of what she’s given to work with

True, she has all the worst lines, but she doesn't do much with them compared to everyone else and it sticks out imo (at least in s2).

still love her performance in season 1