David Haller Chapter 19 Division 3 Threatening Him Again

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could exist skillful. Information technology could exist bad. Information technology volition always exist interesting. You lot can read the archives hither . The episode of the calendar week for June x through sixteen is "Affiliate nineteen," the finale of the second season of FX's Legion.

Legion's flavour 2 finale had the worst of both worlds. Its long-planned reveal, staged as a twist, was and then heavily foreshadowed that it was easy to predict, but it also happened and so perfunctorily that it felt like the show had thrown it together at the last infinitesimal.

This might, honestly, sum upwards much of the FX superhero drama'due south second season, which was e'er doing interesting things but rarely institute ways to make them connect. Legion did many of the things a TV evidence must practice in its second season to succeed — from spending lots of time with the supporting characters to developing some degree of skepticism most its protagonist's journeying — only every fourth dimension it felt like it was settling into a groove, information technology would jet off on a new fantastical adventure that dragged it off into some other realm entirely.

This isn't a problem, not exactly. At its best, Legion embodies the spirit of a comic by someone like Warren Ellis or even Alan Moore, someone who uses the course to examine deeper questions of homo psychology and philosophy, often point blank. (It's the best way to explain why flavour two of Legion kept pausing the action to take Jon Hamm'southward narrator lecture the audience on the nature of consciousness.) Equally a collection of crazy things that happen, Legion remains unparalleled.

But the second season finale revealed how badly the series wanted to be a story nigh the roots of toxic masculinity, a evidence that would confront its central audience with their own failings and inability to police nerd culture'southward behavior when information technology comes to the women within or most information technology. And the separate betwixt its "crazy things keep happening!" storytelling approach and a desire to consider the roots of toxic masculinity might be broad plenty to swallow the bear witness whole. Spoilers, of course, follow.

The 2nd season finale pulls the rug out from under the audience — but it'south non clear how much intention it has to simply put that rug right back

"Chapter 19" focuses on what happens when its hero, David Haller (Dan Stevens), finally does battle with the villainous Shadow King (Navid Negahban, in a delightfully odd performance). The 2 meet in the desert and fight after a short musical number. They battle via animated avatars, one of the show'southward frequent nods to its main character's roots in Marvel Ten-Men comics.

Eventually, the fight is interrupted (via means that would make the bear witness sound too weird to exist — suffice to say they involve a tuning fork), and David's girlfriend, Syd (Rachel Keller), pulls a gun on her lover, revealing that she knows a future version of herself is trying to preserve the life of the Shadow Rex, because his help will eventually be needed to stop a future version of David from catastrophe the world, a thread the entire season has been playing with. Later a lot of sturm und drang, David wipes Syd's mind of this detail set of memories. The 2 render home. They have sex.

He'southward robbed her of her agency, of course. She never would have had sex activity with him if her memories had remained intact. To keep his relationship, David removed his lover's autonomy. And to its credit, the show knows this. Information technology doesn't excuse David'southward beliefs, and it has Syd put said behavior in very clear terms: He drugged her and then had sex with her. He raped her.

The sequence that works all-time in the episode is when David tries, desperately, to deny to others and himself that he'southward a rapist. "I am a good person! I deserve dear!" he chants over and over to himself, an idea the finale earlier dismissed every bit "a delusion." And that's because he isn't a good person. He broke one of the cardinal rules of morality in what he did with Syd, and he certainly doesn't deserve her dear any more.

Syd (Rachel Keller, left) doesn't know how to stop David.

FX

The finale leaves room for him to be redeemed, but via medication and handling, not some grand act of romantic self-sacrifice. His life might be over-the-top and exciting, only if David wants to be a good person again, the route back will exist mundane and a trivial tiresome, especially for someone who spent years in a psychiatric ward and fears going dorsum. And fifty-fifty if he gets back to karma neutral, he'll still have a black mark on his soul.

Instead of following that road, David escapes with the similarly damaged Lenny (Aubrey Plaza). The two jet off into nothingness, and it's articulate that season three will shift its focus to Syd as the series' hero, trying to track downwards her ex earlier he tin can finish the world.

Information technology's a weird, superheroic spin on our era of women using their voices to cease toxic and terrible men, and if I thought for two seconds the show would know how to do that, I'd be manner more excited for whatever's about to happen next.

Legion is probably also enamored of its weirdness to tell as rich and emotionally complicated of a story equally it wants to

At every plough of Legion, the series has had ample opportunities to question David or develop a skepticism about what he's doing or what he stands for. And at every turn of Legion, the series has nipped that questioning in the bud.

Very early in the run, for instance, it posited Jean Smart'southward Melanie, the caput of a mysterious division looking into the rising of mutants with superpowers on Globe, equally a kind of authorisation effigy who might be able to help David harness his raw power (which is apparently considerable, even as the serial struggles to depict information technology half the time). But surprisingly swiftly it undercut whatever authorisation Melanie had, until she spent much of flavour two pining for her long-lost married man. (The 2, reunited in the finale, mostly appeared in a weird flash-forward that seemed designed to write them out of the show.)

Melanie and Oliver share a little quiet fourth dimension.

FX

This basic pattern — the bear witness starts to question David, then reveals that no, he is right! — has persisted throughout both seasons of the show. And in this interview with Amusement Weekly, showrunner and creator Noah Hawley seems interested less in the thought of David's villainy than in him as a sort of supervillain Walter White. This may seem a footling distinction, to be sure, but I retrieve Hawley'southward remarks are telling. Legion ultimately won't be interested in David's dark actions because of how they affect other people, I fear, but because of how they make him seem like a cooler, more complex, more badass character.

Breaking Bad succeeded because Vince Gilligan might accept liked Walter, but he was too intensely skeptical of him; I don't know that Legion has ever possessed enough skepticism of David as a character, a superhero, or a plot mechanism to really pull off what it wants to do. And that's even reflected in how the testify reveals his villainy — not through the eyes of Syd, but through the eyes of David, who experiences it every bit a twist. To really become the total weight of that moment, Syd would take had to be front and center throughout, only I'm not convinced Legion understands her every bit anything other than David's great love.

I would dearest to be wrong most this! A dissection of toxic masculinity existing within a superhero series is a compelling way to smuggle some thoughts about the world nosotros live in today into a genre context that makes them easier to approach than something more than straightforward. And in the flawed merely fascinating 3rd season of Fargo, Hawley was able to practise some of the aforementioned with the idea of capitalism as a global force gnawing away at the earth, which had become broken and incorrect.

Then, yes, Hawley can dissect broken systems when he wants to. And at that place is room for Legion's hereafter to talk about something big and important in a way that not only better grounds the show but makes sense of its many thin supporting characters. (If it could make Syd more than a series of plot functions, that would be lovely.) But, boy, flavor ii of Legion did not give me a lot of hope.

Legion is available on Hulu and FX's streaming services . Flavour three will most likely arrive in 2019.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/6/17/17469148/legion-season-2-finale-recap-chapter-19-david-villain