‘Legion’ of mutants will thrill, frustrate Marvel fans
FX's new drama “Legion” is a trippy retro surprise that should come with a warning: Viewing may lead to headaches.
Dan Stevens — light years away from “Downton Abbey” — stars as mental hospital patient David Haller.
For fans of Marvel Comics, that name means something. David is a “New Mutants” character who suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and each one of his personas has a different power — telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, for example.
Comic book spoiler: David actually is the son of X-Men leader Charles Xavier. In that respect, his mental powers are no surprise.
In this loose adaptation from “Fargo” genius Noah Hawley, David is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic living at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital with his best pal Lenny (Aubrey Plaza, “Parks and Recreation”) and resigned to a constant dose of medication to keep the voices in his head at bay.
The occasional nightmare demolishes everything in his room, for reasons David can't — or won't — explain.
Life gets a tick brighter when new patient Syd (Rachel Keller, “Fargo”) checks in. David is smitten, and surprisingly, she agrees to be his girlfriend — with one serious caveat: They can never touch. For a good reason, it turns out, and Syd ultimately will remind you of another X-Men character.
A group of bad people known as Division 13 close in on David and Syd. Offering support and sanctuary is Dr. Melanie Bird (Jean Smart, “Fargo”), who informs David he's not ill, he's perhaps the most gifted mutant to ever live.
For David, who has lived his life with the shame of being different, that kind of affirmation is almost too much to bear. With Division 13 determined to either exploit or exterminate David, Melanie makes the decision to speed up David's “memory work,” which entails exploring his traumatic memories to help him uncork and control his powers.
Here “Legion” excels and frustrates. The flashbacks are a maze of treacherous memories, one bleeding into the other.
As a child, David was force-fed the story of “The World's Angriest Boy in the World” (a book seemingly determined to encourage serial killers), and it seems as if the lead character is lurking about.
Much will be made of the show's look, which seems cribbed from “Mad Men” castoffs and costume homages to “Space: 1999.”
“Legion” errs by underestimating its audience. By the third episode, fans will be making diagnoses and predictions that any one of Melanie's psychic eggheads should be making. I have my own suspicions about the gnome-like nightmare that keeps popping up to terrorize David, and it's an even more obscure Marvel character. Memory might be unreliable, but rerunning the same scene with little variation is a cue for channel-flipping.
For its own good, “Legion” needs to get out of its head.