This recap was originally published on ShowSnob.com. You can read it on that website by clicking here.
Our favorite destroyer of worlds is trying to outrun a death squad. All he needs is love, friends, and a time traveler. Legion is back! We’ve got the recap.
Besides some brief messages overheard on a radio, we don’t see any regular cast member of Legion for the first 15 minutes of “Chapter 20.” The episode was written by Nathaniel Halpern (Outcast) and show creator Noah Hawley (Fargo). I imagine the physical shooting script was as much of a trippy kaleidoscope as the finished product was. It’s beautifully directed by Andrew Stanton (Better Call Saul).
That’s been a hallmark of Legion throughout its first twenty episodes. The stories are complex long cons that rely heavily on visuals and actor performances. I know. That’s almost every successful show. But Legion feels like a true group effort grounded in trust. The actors and audience alike will be taken through the story in the order that makes the most sense, creates the most suspense, and evokes the most emotion. It’s rarely linear. It doesn’t conform to its own rules. And, it’s never boring.
Follow the Yellow Bus
We spend the first 15 minutes of “Chapter 20” getting to know Jia-Yi (Lauren Tsai). She’s your average teenager. Lives at home. Does well in school. Wear a lot of vibrant, yet pale, neon. Oh. And she’s a time traveler. The episode wastes no time getting that out in the open. Jia-Yi pops on her pink headphones and starts listening to chapter 13 of a guide to time traveling. We hear everything she hears, including the muted/in-cranial crunch of her cereal.
The guidelines are very Legion mixed with a bit of Avengers: Endgame. When time traveling, all past is future. Never be sentimental about the past. Never have anxiety about the future. The present is more like a feeling. That reminded me of Master Yoda in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when he tells padawan Luke Skywalker, “Always in motion, the future is.”
Of course, this means that the present is pliable. It’s constantly changing and, therefore, can be changed. So many possibilities. When asked by her uncle via television about her studies, Jia-Yi responds that she’s perfect in all subjects as always. That was an interesting choice of words. Does Jia-Yi relive classes in order to do well. She doesn’t seem like a cheater, but she does fill her meticulously assembled math notes with doodles of images we’ve seen before, like Vermillion.
Jia-Yi could be bored. Or we could be watching the end of the season in its premiere. As she walks around the city, there are obscure ads for a time traveler posted randomly. But she always finds them. While reading one, she hears a blue flower scream. It’s the same blue flower we later learn is used as a form of opium used to string people out and keep them in line.
Something for Your M.I.N.D.
Jia-Yi finds a cave that leads to a commune that has a cleaners where the cashier is constantly moved by multiplying counters and clothes racks. You are completely fine. That’s a real sentence. This is a Legion recap. The main cashier speaks in queue cards that she jazz-hand-tosses every time Jia-Yi gets a question wrong. I loved it. Bob Fosse would have been mildly amused. When all seems lost, Jia-Yi shouts the answer to the riddle of the name of the orange fish. Salmon for the win! A delightful and somewhat scary musical number follows.
After meeting an emissary who changes Jia-Yi’s name, the pregnant virgin shows the newly dubbed Switch to a room with a giant clock at 11:11. Some take this time as an opportunity to make a wish. People who have seen Us know 11:11 is a chapter and verse of Jeremiah from the Bible which reads, “Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.”
We’ll be unpacking that all season. Switch uses her power for the first time to fast forward to the entrance of America’s favorite make believe friend, Lenny Busker (Aubrey Plaza). Lenny demands a demonstration of Switch’s abilities. She will only show ‘him.’ That went a long way in defining Switch’s character. She’s young, but she can hold her own. Lenny’s dusty, pale blue eyes are accessorized by a classic sledge hammer, which they use as a staff to conjure things like couches. They’re more formidable than ever.
It’s About a Girl?
Switch is shown to a room where she meets David (Dan Stevens). Yay! I missed him so much that I temporarily forgot he became the villain of the show last season when he violated Syd (Rachel Keller) and is seen to legit destroy the world in the future. That’s backed up when David reveals that he helps people with their problems in exchange for staying on as company for a long, long while afterwards. He’s creating that blue juice that makes addicts out of his followers. It keeps them loyal and likely makes them less visible to the Collective, which now resides in a new, robotic version of Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris) who’s been built by Carry (Bill Irwin) complete with a Vermillion mustache.
The whole fixing his past for a girl thing is a major drag for Switch, but things heat up when a machine descends into the room. It concussion bombs the two before a mechanized beta blocker latches on to David’s forehead. Just then, Kerry (Amber Midthunder) shows up ready to fulfill the season two prophecy of chopping David in half. David’s arm starts photon charging, so Kerry cuts it off. This focuses David’s rage. He disintegrates the beta blocker and turns Kerry to dust. No!
As David seems to be ready to vaporize all in his way, a bullet exits through the front of his chest. He collapses dead to reveal Syd with a shot gun. She tells Switch to stay put, but she cuts a hole in time and rolls through it. We hear chapter 14 of the time travel guidelines. We learn that if you don’t go far enough back in time, you may not be able to change the desired outcome. If you go too far back, you may awaken the demon. So, Switch tries an hour previous to the attack.
With David on the ready, he makes it farther into the compound. He sees Clark (Hamish Linklater) and turns him to ash to finish off the job he started in season one. Lenny is kidnapped by Kerry, so David vaporizes her again. No! Amal Farouk (Navid Negahban), fully a member of Division 3, is the most formidable foe, but he’s bested by David. Ready to escape with Switch through a hole in time, he is again shot in the back by Syd. She seems to know Switch this time.
Do You Even Lift, Bro
Amal Farouk temporarily contains Switch in the astral plane. He calls her a cheater for using time travel. He explains his complicated history with David. Then he goes full toxic male by telling Switch that he had relations with a time traveler once. He’s heard they’re all women. Farouk waxes poetic about it. Maybe all time travelers are female because women are constantly full of regret and conscious of missed chances. Yikes. Switch ends the conversation by flipping a tea service and using it as a door out of the astral plane.
We are back in the recent past now. But, remember, it’s the future. Ptonomy is newly constructed. Clark is hellbent on killing David and Switch, if need be. Farouk warns them of the formidable time traveler and suggests that Syd stay behind this time. She’s clearly out for revenge. She also flexes cool wrist tattoos that say Me and First. But she insists on going. David is trapped. He may beg for help from the evil brought upon him, but it’s unclear if he’ll be able to escape. As we see the beginning of the raid from the Division 3 side of the story, it looks like we’re about to get round three of the same battle. But Switch has gone back four hours. This was long enough to give David time to move the entire compound, foundation and all, into the ether. For now, David has escaped.
What a great season premiere! It was completely fresh and consistently out there. But it stayed true to the story and characters. There is growth. And we get reintroduced to everyone in a natural setting of the table. I can’t wait for the next few weeks of psychedelic warfare. I can’t help wondering if Switch is literally attempting to switch the final outcome of a final conflict that we haven’t seen. That’s why we meet her listening to specific chapters in her time traveling studies. Welcome back, Legion!