FX's Legion - Episode 2.05 "Chapter 13"
An uneasy reunion leads to a shocking truth.
Legion has always aspired to stun and surprise its audience. It is always trying to present its story in a new way that forces us to think about some big philosophical questions about our own reality. Yes, it's still fundamentally a personal story about David Haller as he attempts to save the world from destruction. All of this is told through the context of a superhero story. But it's always so keenly aware of the various ways in which the characters can challenge what is real and what is not. In the first season, it was clear that Farouk was the devil inside David's head causing so many problems for him. After he was removed, David could be his own man for the first time in his life. Here, he even talks about being able to experience silence for the first time now that Farouk is no longer around continuing his perspective of the world. That's such a minor and subtle line in the grand scope of this hour. But it's so crucial for the audience's understanding of David. He's a guy who has never fit in with the rest of the world. Even when he was surrounded by a group of people who were also gifted with powers, he was always a mystery who could overpower them at a moment's notice. Now, many of his friends don't know if they can completely trust him with this mission. David's only true motivation is listening to the advice sent to him by a future version of his girlfriend. She comes from a reality that he would destroy should he actually listen to her warning. It's so completely twisted because it's clear that all of these various elements are conspiring against each other in order to provoke thought and alter one's reality. In "Chapter 13," the show boils everything down to just one mystery. It has one thing on its mind - similar to last week's solo outing into Syd's head. Here, it's just trying to answer the grand mystery of how Lenny has been brought back to life?It's an important question to ask. Early on, it was crucial to question if Lenny even still existed or if she was completely operating as the new face of Farouk? The last handful of episodes have shown just how desperate she is to get back to reality and escape this mental prison that Farouk has her trapped in. She can still be presented as a terrifying presence who can torment the other characters at a moment's notice. But here, she takes on such a different position within the show. She is just the latest victim of Farouk. She was taken against her will and forced to be his public face for all of his villainous missions. She has been the face people saw right before they were killed. That's so traumatizing. Lenny just wants to get back to enjoying drugs with her friends. She doesn't see herself as a bad person. Yes, she has been arrested over a dozen times. But she doesn't see herself on the same level as Farouk who is just so casually comfortable with taking people's lives. She's horrified by that while also desperate to get her fix. But the world around her isn't accommodating to those demands because they have so many questions about how she could really be alive again. She died in the very first episode of the series. It seemed as if David had killed her. And now, she's living again. Everyone wants to know where she got this new body. It's important that this question is asked and answered in the span of one episode. It doesn't have the weight to merit it being stretched out any longer than that. And yet, that's the sole focus of this hour as well. The grand reveal does allow for the audience to sympathize with the personal loss it has for David while not being quite an effective gut punch because the characters involved are still rather thin.
That has remained a huge criticism of the show that seems a little more glaring in the second season. It's always a battle between style and substance. The show is always able to present things in the most peculiar and unexpected way. The production design of the interrogation room Lenny is in for the entire episode is absolutely mesmerizing. It makes it seem like the laws of gravity have been twisted around to make Division 3 feel like this all powerful entity. It's a trick meant to unnerve the person being interrogated for information. Clark and Ptonomy go into the room to talk with Lenny before David does. David doesn't even appear in this episode until it is already halfway over. It's fascinating to see Clark and Ptonomy's approaches to getting the truth out of Lenny. Clark is a skilled interrogator who knows exactly how to trick his target into giving him the information he requires. Ptonomy has always just been able to journey into the minds of others to pull their secrets out of them. But here, both fail because Lenny just wants to talk with David. They question whether or not they can actually trust her. She has been working for Farouk for so long now. She was an unwilling participant in all of that. But she is still an accomplice to so many crimes. Right now, she simply just wants to be with her best friend from the asylum again. It's comfortable and simple to just go back to what that relationship was like before all of this craziness began. But it's impossible to do so because David demands answers just as badly as everyone else. He can see that Lenny really is just a pawn in this game that he is currently playing with Farouk. He sent her back to David mostly to prove just how twisted and destructive this war will continue to be despite them working on the same side. It shows that Farouk is only loyal to himself.
Intellectually, it's easy to understand why it's a gut punch during the reveal that Lenny's new body is actually David's sister, Amy. Oliver and Farouk have tracked her down in the middle of the desert. They are able to quickly get rid of her guards and her husband before using the device they stole from Division 3 to effectively kill Amy and return Lenny in her place. It's such a gruel and horrifying sequence. The direction really does frame it as the most terrifying and suspense-filled story possible. It all happens very slowly. Amy and Ben are simply talking about the unusual feelings that they are having right now. They notice that the guards are gone. Then, Ben just vanishes because he's likely obliterated into thin air. Then, Oliver makes his presence all-consuming to Amy. She recognizes him and knows him to be dangerous. But it's much more terrifying to watch as he injects her with this concoction that then reanimates her as Lenny. It's unclear if it's both of their personalities now residing in the same person or if it's just Lenny in there. Her eyes keep changing colors which reveals that Lenny doesn't belong in this body at all. Moreover, Amy shares a dream where she sees herself as one of the Vermillion. That's a twist that will probably pay off at some point considering Lenny is now the one who resides in that physical body. This hour continues to paint some ominous teases on the fringes of the story about this conflict being much more deadly and destructive than David, Oliver or Farouk are expecting. The minds of their friends are slowly being infected. It may include Admiral Fukuyama in some way because he remains such a cryptic character. But it mostly highlights that things are never going to be as simple as David and Oliver vowing to kill Farouk for what he has done to them in order to reclaim his own body.
In practice though, it's really difficult to see the loss of Amy as monumental and life-changing as David does. Katie Aselton is a phenomenal actress. I've appreciated her in a number of other shows. But here, the first season just didn't know what to do with her. Amy was the symbol of hope and sanity for David. She was always the aspiration for how to live a normal life if he could just get better with his illness. She always presented as the one genuinely happy thing from his childhood. And yet, the show has mostly outgrown David's desire to be a normal person. He has accepted that he is a powerful mutant who has the abilities to stop the world from destruction. That's now taken over everything in his life. He is willing to risk it all just because of something future Syd tells him to do. But now, he's inevitably going to go against that advice because Farouk steals his sister away from him. He kills her just to return to him the face that tormented him throughout the first season. Again, it's twisted and easy to understand why David takes it so personally. It will fuel his actions through the remainder of this conflict. And yet, Amy was such a thin character last season who didn't really serve a function in the show at large. This is Aselton's first appearance in the second season as well. Amy returns just to be immediately killed off. Yes, it is a genuine surprise to see her in that house just before Oliver and Farouk make their attack. It's the epic conclusion to this grand puzzle box mystery that defines this entire episode of television. But it's also a case of the show killing off a character who has at least made a couple of appearances before even though her loss won't fundamentally change the show in the slightest moving forward. It's just a way to increase the stakes for the season for David without really making Amy a full and genuine character.
Some more thoughts:
- "Chapter 13" was written by Noah Hawley & Nathaniel Halpern and directed by Tim Mielants.
- Oliver hasn't been living in reality for a long time. He's now in a world that extends far beyond his ice cube of last season. And yet, he's still just barely waking up to his personal affections for this world. As such, he is able to deliver a monologue about the pointlessness of worrying over the morality of one's actions knowing that life and death may not be as big a deal as everyone says right before coldly delivering a threat to Farouk.
- Oliver continues to see glimpses of Melanie which basically proves that he is continuing to fight his way through Farouk's hold of him. He also claims to have discovered Farouk's weak spot and will use that to kill him in the future. That should be a fascinating reveal too. The only clue he is willing to provide is that one plus one does not always equal two. It's a riddle that seems easy but is bound to get more complex.
- The Narrator's thought experiment this week isn't as memorable as it has been over the course of the season. It's presenting the pattern that shapes people into believing things are adding up into a conspiracy instead of purely coincidental. But it mostly boils down to this is the way that the world has conditioned us to think out of survival. So in the end, this is just something we're going to have to live with because it's how we're taught.
- Ptonomy is unable to use his powers on Lenny. That's a scary prospect because it means he is severely compromised. Whatever crawled into his ear is slowly infecting more and more of him. It presents him with a twisted vision of Fukuyama where his basket is illuminated and there's a vicious bird creature underneath. But that's mostly just to unnerve the audience as well because we have no idea what's going on.
- Aubrey Plaza brings so much fantastic physicality to her performance on this show. That has been abundantly clear since the very beginning. She is capable of being so intimidating one moment and then completely afraid and desperate in the next. Her slinking out of the hole in the desert only to lay motionless on a horse is absolutely haunting and chilling to watch.
