Legion Season 2 Premiered Last Night And The Critics Are Thoroughly Impressed (As They Should Be)
(Vulture) – FX’s psychedelic science-fiction thriller Legion is the most brazenly inventive series on TV — so determined to surprise, confound, and dazzle at every moment that you tend to lose track of what, exactly, is happening, what it means, and how much progress, if any, the plot has made since the last cool trick they pulled.
The guiding principle here is that you shouldn’t immediately trust what you see. A big percentage of Legion is told through the perceptions of its characters (David Haller especially), and while everything that happens has some kind of emotional or narrative weight, it’s safe to assume that none of it should be taken too literally. Sometimes you’re looking at things that verifiably happened, more or less, as presented to the viewer. Other times you’re seeing somebody’s subjective, coded, or distorted perception of an event in the past (or future) — or an encounter that’s playing out in a metaphysical dimension known as the Astral Plane.
Showrunner Noah Hawley reportedly signed on to the production on the condition that he could construct a fiction that seemed unreliably narrated, in the manner of a novel where you either know going in that you can’t trust what you see, or figure it out in due course. From the looks of the first four episodes of season two, which chases the escaped and still-menacing Farouk through time and space, the makers of Legion have doubled down on style.
They say everyone’s a critic and whew boy are they right! But here we have one of the few times I’m actually a fan of that fact folks. I’ve been singing the praises of Legion since it premiered last year and it honestly felt like I was yelling into a vaccum. But the summary above shows me that the times, they are a changing. For the better.
Weirdly NO ONE I knew watched Legion last year, let alone had interest in it. I mean even my comic book friends were indifferent to checking it out. I saw ZERO big publications with episode coverage. It made no sense to me, especially since it was one of the most inventive and original TV shows I’d ever watched.
But that was then… Now Season 2 already has the critic hypnosis ON LOCK:
Sadly I wasn’t able to tune in last night so I’ll be a day late recapping the fun this week… BUT LOOK AT THOSE HEADLINES BABY!
Safe to say there will be slightly more awareness for Season 2? Either way moving forward I’ll have a recap + aimless questions for each episode, that will most likely not get answered until the season finale anyway. But it’s a helluva show to ponder on my friends! My main Legionnaire confidant Dangee confirmed last night that it is indeed ACTUALLY GOOD (again), so we are going full steam ahead for the next 9 weeks.
Check out the video above for a brief BRIEF summary of Legion Season 1 and let me know below or on Twitter @DevlinBarstool if you want a more in depth season recap too. Aubrey Plaza is already on record saying you DON’T have to have seen S1 to jump into this new one, which is fucking crazy with how much already happened to these characters.
But it also makes complete sense, because there’s no doubt that Noah Hawley will have some radically unforeseen tricks up his sleeve for everyone involved…
(Variety) – Adding to “Legion’s” cheeky sense of humor and general trippy experience, Aubrey Plaza’s Lenny continues to be one of David’s main foils. Plaza said that new viewers to the show could jump into the second season without seeing the first. “It’s almost like performance art–it’s an experience,” Plaza said. “You could just dive in and enjoy the ride.”
On the red carpet, Hawley agreed that viewers who are new to “Legion” could “jump in with both feet.” “There’s a reset for Season 2,” Hawley said. “There’s a time jump and everything is explained as much as anything is explained in the show. There’s a clear goal in the show: It’s a race between these two characters for the same goal. Because it’s ‘Legion,’ not everyone takes off in the same direction.”
So strap the fuck in my friends. We are getting SO weird with psychedelic mutants this spring. And really who better than Aubrey Plaza to lead the charge? Once again I cannot stress enough how goddamn dynamic she is in Season 1. But I’ll ruin everything if I say another word. And the Shadow King wouldn’t like that.
Not.
One.
BIT.
PS Speaking of words… am I an ASMR fan now? My first experience was watching this Aubrey interview on Friday and somehow I watched the entire 36 minutes. Informative stuff for sure and some great Parks & Rec anecdotes but most importantly, how and WHY is ASMR so entrancing?
All hail the Queen my darlings.