2.10.2017

Television: Legion, "Chapter 1"

David Haller has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and institutionalized. He seems fairly well adjusted to that. Until the day Syd Barrett arrives as another mental patient. She doesn't like to be touched but agrees to be David's girlfriend anyway. Then, on the day she's meant to be released, David impulsively kisses her . . . and everything goes to hell.

I won't go into the play-by-play; you can use a Wikipedia recap for that, or better yet, watch it yourself. I will say—coming from someone who is so done with Marvel this and DC that and superhero s*** in general—I really, REALLY liked Legion.

Okay, yeah, unreliable narrators are so done to death now, but in this case you don't feel like it's David trying to put something over on you. He really doesn't know who or what is real or not. You navigate the show inside his own confusion. And it is confusing at times (lots of times), but intriguing too.

Likewise, it's paced well, and stylistically it looks amazing.

The one drawback: the music drew too much attention to itself for my taste. Was distracting at times, and felt very Stranger Things. Like, I literally wondered if the composer had been told to make the music sound like Stranger Things. (Also: waffles.) I will tip my hat to the soundtrack used here, but when the original score is this invasive, something is wrong. Still, that's a minor beef.

I'm entering this with little to no knowledge of the universe upon which Legion teeters, so comics fans may have a different take. But coming in cold, I just was really engaged. Noah Hawley has made another good one.

3 comments:

Christine Rains said...

I hadn't heard a thing about this show until today, and so many folks are loving it. I must give it a watch!

Christine Rains said...

I finally watched it and I'm liking it. It's odd, sometimes difficult to watch like Memento, but it's good.

M said...

Memento is the comparison I've heard most often about the show. I've never seen that movie, so...