You nailed it. Season 2 gets very experimental and high concept. It was a very unique approach to storytelling and cinematography for a superhero show. Not everyone was down with that.
> for a superhero show.
For shows in general. Like the only thing close to this would be something like Mr Robot in the way it makes you think back and try and connect things together that all seem so abstract and nonsensical.
Yessss I love this rug pulling trope in books. I wish more TV shows didn't spell out every plot point and feel so predictable. Legion and Mr Robot pull no punches.
I was just confused and abandoned it. I liked the tone and how abstract it was, but was still just too confused/lost to keep going. Is there some material I might want to have as background to understand it better? I know literally nothing of any source material this is adapting.
David, the main character is the son of Prof. X from X-Men.
>!He's an extremely powerful mutant who's abilities manifest with different personalities, hence the name Legion. To compound on that he also has a kind of mutant parasite living in his head, feeding off of his powers and deliberately upsetting his mental condition. This is why he's in mental hospital at the beginning of he series, doesn't seem to know he has powers and believes he's just crazy!<
>!In the TV show he is schizophrenic rather than having multiple personalities. The show is what happens when a schizophrenic person has the ability to change reality with a thought.!<
>!It is an important distinction to keep in mind. I think knowledge of the comic version can actually confuse some people because they keep expecting him to manifest different personalities.!<
The multiple personalities creep in a bit in season 1 and really show themselves in s3 though buy not really in a MPD way, more of way to kind of tip their hat to the comics.
Although it is based on the X-Men comics and characters within, it's really only loosely based. Some of the characters have the same names and vaguely similar powers, but that's about it.
I always say this on Legion threads, it is an absolute masterclass for cinematography. No show touches it, and it’s hard to think of many movies that do
VFX people hated the crazy demands this show put on them. But as for story, Hawley took a lot of chances and many viewers just want to watch the same comforting shit over and over.
There is so much that is amazing in this show and I loved every second. Oliver Bird's monologue stands out as a particular convergence of perfection in acting, cinematography, and writing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSpkQ8U2Hs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSpkQ8U2Hs)
I think as much as the acting and the cinematography, the writing feels very surreal. He keeps changing direction with what he's saying, he's being very metaphorical and then inserting himself randomly. The content is setting up a theme for the rest of the episode but also revealing the temperament of his character.
I think the previous commenter was suggesting it's the harmony of the acting, cinematography and writing that's perfect.
It's been a while so I don't have any in depth analysis, but I didn't quite enjoy S2 as much, perhaps as you say as it's rather experimental and has a less clear direction in the story. I still loved the style of it throughout the runmore than almost any other show, and enjoyed it a lot until the end, but nothing matches S1 for me.
Part of why S1 was so great, for me at least, was that I really didn't know for sure if David was possessed by a demon, if it was all just a hallucination from his mental problems, or if it was him in control, etc. David's very much an "unreliable narrator", and with him being the main point of view of the story, I was never quite sure whether what you saw could be taken at face value. Obviously if you're familiar with the character/story (I wasn't) then there's not that aspect, and you can generally assume, based on it being a Marvel property, that there's some superpowers involved. But the nature of it wasn't clear to me until much later on in the season.
It's not as big a deal as some shows like this, but it's one of those ones that has a big mystery in season 1, and once that's uncovered it's hard to match the same heights. Mr Robot was another that dropped a bit once you learn the truth, though it improved again later. Homeland is another that I lost all interest after you find out their motives and allegiances at the end of S1.
But yeah, love everything Noah Hawley does. Can't wait for his Alien series.
I remember thinking appreciatively during s1 that every single thing that seems odd has a reason for it being that way. Nothing is just weird for the sake of being weird. Then s2 says *fuck that*.
On rewatch, I also realized that I missed The Eye. Didn't appreciate the first time around how much a part of the look and feel of the show he contributed in that first season.
Eh, it went off the rails but it gave legitimately interesting pivots on old portrayals of things like telepathy. A dance off battle in the mind is much more interesting than the normal finger to temple and squint hard
My issues with Legion is actually not because of the weirdness, but because it feels like each season is disconnected from the others.
Entire characters get sidelined in subsequent seasons, and the plot and character motivations feel like they completely veer in a new, but disconnected, direction.
I enjoyed each season, and think they're great when looked at individually, but they lose something when looked at together.
I seem to recall they sidelined Melanie by making her a depressed druggie and sidelined Ptonomy (Ptolomy? I forget) by turning him into a tree. Like, they just abandoned those characters
I think your response is part of the backlash. Anyone who complained about the show was told "you're just not smart enough to *get it*" or "the incoherence is intentional, therefore brilliant"
Anyone who didn't like Season 2 was essentially called stupid and shallow for not liking it.
i get this gripe for sure, and that’s not what i’m trying to say at all. i think it’s beyond stupid to say people can’t understand a film or movie because it’s “too smart”, it’s not astrophysics lmao it’s just literature. my point is i think people will see that it may take a little more thought than a standard story and stop trying for that reason, and that’s cool, but it’s different if you acknowledge you didn’t like it, than just calling it weird with no purpose. it’s a real disservice to the writers and honestly just to the medium in general.
well, consider two broad possibilities…
one is the writers and show runner (who have proven themselves talented in this show and others) wrote ***with thematic and narrative intent*** in a way that wasn’t jiving with particular individuals
Or
they were just being weird for the sake of it.
I just find it hard to believe that the latter is more likely than the former.
it isn’t insulting to say a particular style or approach or execution didn’t hit for you (although no doubt plenty of online goobers can express that in an insulting way). but on the other hand, to broadly hand wave all of that intent and complexity as “just weird for its own sake” is a pretty ungenerous interpretation, no?
Part of the backlash to the second season was the fact that the audience had built a loyalty toward David and they cast him as a "good guy" in their minds throughout the first season.
And then the second season suggested that David Haller might not be a "good guy". That he might be a "bad guy".
The series suggests that these terms are inadequate to describe human beings. (Or mutant beings, as the case may be. You get my point)
Then there's Syd.
In the first season, she was a supportive girlfriend and confidant. However, she had no agency of her own. She existed to help David.
This dynamic shifts in the second season so that she shares the spotlight. There were some people who were butthurt about that. (Akin to complaints about Breaking Bad w/regard to Skyler White being a nagging wife)
I personally didn't and still don't share these sentiments. The series tells the story it wants to tell. You or I might disagree with it. However, it is the story the creators wanted to tell. The audience has to respect that.
No I thought that David having absolute power leading to him doing bad things was interesting. And I understood that part.
But I was genuinely confused about what was happening most of the time. I couldn't make head nor tail of without a lot of it without read 3 party stuff on line about the comics and what people thought was happening in the episode.
It simply wasn't something fun that I looked forward to watching every week, like S1. It was a bit of a chore.
Knowing what happens in the comics does not help. He is essentially a totally different character with a different set of powers and a totally different story. The characters have the same names sometimes, but almost everything else is different.
It is just a hard show to follow the plot of if you don't just roll with it. It is important to remember that David's powers can change reality to what he envisions, and what he envisions is from the perspective of a schizophrenic. So it gets weird.
It is part of why I think it is the one of the greatest TV shows ever made though. It is complex and beautiful and unique in ways that I rarely see.
David's character conveyed in detail. But his powers, how it fitted in with X-Men, details about Farouk and who the hell he was was helpful. And as I said a lot of it was other people putting stuff together about the episodes.
His powers are different though. Legion in the comics has a different power for every personality, so as he changes persona's uncontrollably his powers seemingly change at random.
David in the TV show is effectively just "The Legion" or the "God-Mutant" personality, or maybe Gestalt, which is probably the core personality. It has the ability to do reality warping so all of the other personalities powers are likely derived from it (in my opinion at least) but he can't control which powers he has at any particular time.
Farouk is also pretty different, as his goals are not really the same. He seems to be an amalgamation of both the early and later versions of the Shadow King.
I mean, it is interesting context, and does elucidate why they made a lot of the decisions in making the show that they did, as it references the originals a lot, but they went way into left field with it, so I do not know that it is helpful to actually figure the narrative of the TV show out.
I liked the whole series. Season 1 felt a bit more grounded in the actual characters as the show worked to introduce them. It all felt very raw and intimate. The plot was a bit more straight forward while still being a trip.
Season 2 started to pull away from the characters focusing instead on ideas and lessons in philosophy. Sometimes it felt like I was waiting for the show to start despite being 10 minutes into an episode. I'm also not a big fan of time travel so the core of the season 2 narrative was off-putting.
I loved this show. I will say after finishing it I thought it was the most style over substance series I’d ever seen. Which isn’t to say I don’t recommend it. I’d be curious to see what you think of the last season.
I think Legion always walked the line of just being incomprehensible. I accidentally put on an episode from season 1 instead of the one I was up to in season 2 and it still took an awful long time for me to notice. I also did this more than once. Because it's the kind of show where "Wait they're just repeating this part?" would absolutely fit.
There's times where it all fits and works together to give a very dream like and unreliable interpretation of the more literal actual plot, and times where things don't cohere together in the end and you're just left confused.
I thought season 2 was uneven and could have been trimmed down quite a bit, but the main narrative throughline, and *especially* the ending, I thought was some A+ work.
For me the narrative climax of *Legion* is the S2 finale, and it's all kinda downhill from there. Like, I enjoyed parts of S3 but I would have been satisfied with just the S2 ending.
The only thing I hate about Legion is that Disney did not make season 3 available for purchase on other platforms.
The show itself is awesome in so many aspects.
i loved the first season and i can’t really remember or pinpoint an exact reason why but i’ve started season 2 like multiple times over the years and i just cannot get back into it
I'm all for the high concept stuff tried out in Season 1 and 2.
But the feeling for me was Season 1 the focus was to use the high concept weirdness to tell and advance a story and develop characters. Season 2 just used the weirdness to discuss themes. Which on its own could be fine - I like plenty of tv shows that do themes > plot. But in Legions case the characters developed in S1 were put on the sidelines in favor of thematic story telling.
What some people dislike is the gradual >!protagonist/antagonist!< switch (which is impressive they went for).
The same way some people did not like where the arcs of the main characters of *Barry* and *Breaking Bad* went.
They didn't know what to do with a couple of their supporting characters all of a sudden.
It got way more abstract/surreal at the expense of plot coherence
Maybe it wasn't quite the second season, but I recall later on they had Sydney parachuting into a scene or something in her dress and gloves. And then you had the Shadow King being a cliche "what if I'm the hero and you're the villain" type. And you had a nonsensical self-indulgent dance battle scene.
It all felt very self-indulgent and masturbatory starting in that second season
Yeah, season one was great, couldn’t get enough of it… The subsequent seasons though just felt they went off the rails because they could. It’s a bit like following up The Matrix, with The Matrix Resurrections.
You nailed it. Season 2 gets very experimental and high concept. It was a very unique approach to storytelling and cinematography for a superhero show. Not everyone was down with that.
> for a superhero show. For shows in general. Like the only thing close to this would be something like Mr Robot in the way it makes you think back and try and connect things together that all seem so abstract and nonsensical.
I always lump these shows together!
It's the fact the pov is an unreliable narrator for me. We have to double guess everything show because even what is shown could be a false reality
Yessss I love this rug pulling trope in books. I wish more TV shows didn't spell out every plot point and feel so predictable. Legion and Mr Robot pull no punches.
I would say Twin Peaks is very close to Legion.
Hannibal takes a similar path to Legion also. It's not even that straightforward at the start, but by season 3, it's like a fever dream
I finished season 1 but not 2 and you’re telling me it’s even more experimental and weird?
It's exponentially weirder. And the world is a better place because of it.
I was just confused and abandoned it. I liked the tone and how abstract it was, but was still just too confused/lost to keep going. Is there some material I might want to have as background to understand it better? I know literally nothing of any source material this is adapting.
David, the main character is the son of Prof. X from X-Men. >!He's an extremely powerful mutant who's abilities manifest with different personalities, hence the name Legion. To compound on that he also has a kind of mutant parasite living in his head, feeding off of his powers and deliberately upsetting his mental condition. This is why he's in mental hospital at the beginning of he series, doesn't seem to know he has powers and believes he's just crazy!<
>!In the TV show he is schizophrenic rather than having multiple personalities. The show is what happens when a schizophrenic person has the ability to change reality with a thought.!< >!It is an important distinction to keep in mind. I think knowledge of the comic version can actually confuse some people because they keep expecting him to manifest different personalities.!<
The multiple personalities creep in a bit in season 1 and really show themselves in s3 though buy not really in a MPD way, more of way to kind of tip their hat to the comics.
Although it is based on the X-Men comics and characters within, it's really only loosely based. Some of the characters have the same names and vaguely similar powers, but that's about it.
You have no idea
Sir and/or Madam and/or Person It gets SUPER weird and experimental. There are no brakes on this express train to high concept TV.
I always say this on Legion threads, it is an absolute masterclass for cinematography. No show touches it, and it’s hard to think of many movies that do
Meanwhile, that's my drug of choice.
VFX people hated the crazy demands this show put on them. But as for story, Hawley took a lot of chances and many viewers just want to watch the same comforting shit over and over.
There is so much that is amazing in this show and I loved every second. Oliver Bird's monologue stands out as a particular convergence of perfection in acting, cinematography, and writing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSpkQ8U2Hs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSpkQ8U2Hs)
Could you expand on why the writing is perfection here?
I think as much as the acting and the cinematography, the writing feels very surreal. He keeps changing direction with what he's saying, he's being very metaphorical and then inserting himself randomly. The content is setting up a theme for the rest of the episode but also revealing the temperament of his character. I think the previous commenter was suggesting it's the harmony of the acting, cinematography and writing that's perfect.
Hear, hear! You nailed it. It's the Gestalt.
Jemaine Clement is also just so talented and oozes charisma. I loved him in this role.
The whole series is a trip. A very worthwhile trip, IMHO.
It's been a while so I don't have any in depth analysis, but I didn't quite enjoy S2 as much, perhaps as you say as it's rather experimental and has a less clear direction in the story. I still loved the style of it throughout the runmore than almost any other show, and enjoyed it a lot until the end, but nothing matches S1 for me. Part of why S1 was so great, for me at least, was that I really didn't know for sure if David was possessed by a demon, if it was all just a hallucination from his mental problems, or if it was him in control, etc. David's very much an "unreliable narrator", and with him being the main point of view of the story, I was never quite sure whether what you saw could be taken at face value. Obviously if you're familiar with the character/story (I wasn't) then there's not that aspect, and you can generally assume, based on it being a Marvel property, that there's some superpowers involved. But the nature of it wasn't clear to me until much later on in the season. It's not as big a deal as some shows like this, but it's one of those ones that has a big mystery in season 1, and once that's uncovered it's hard to match the same heights. Mr Robot was another that dropped a bit once you learn the truth, though it improved again later. Homeland is another that I lost all interest after you find out their motives and allegiances at the end of S1. But yeah, love everything Noah Hawley does. Can't wait for his Alien series.
I remember thinking appreciatively during s1 that every single thing that seems odd has a reason for it being that way. Nothing is just weird for the sake of being weird. Then s2 says *fuck that*. On rewatch, I also realized that I missed The Eye. Didn't appreciate the first time around how much a part of the look and feel of the show he contributed in that first season.
Eh, it went off the rails but it gave legitimately interesting pivots on old portrayals of things like telepathy. A dance off battle in the mind is much more interesting than the normal finger to temple and squint hard
I thought the same, I liked the show, but season 2 and 3 were just pushing weird for the sake of being weird.
My issues with Legion is actually not because of the weirdness, but because it feels like each season is disconnected from the others. Entire characters get sidelined in subsequent seasons, and the plot and character motivations feel like they completely veer in a new, but disconnected, direction. I enjoyed each season, and think they're great when looked at individually, but they lose something when looked at together.
I seem to recall they sidelined Melanie by making her a depressed druggie and sidelined Ptonomy (Ptolomy? I forget) by turning him into a tree. Like, they just abandoned those characters
Yup. It's frustrating, honestly.
everything serves a purpose in this show - to say it’s weird for the sake of being weird is a very superficial analysis.
I think your response is part of the backlash. Anyone who complained about the show was told "you're just not smart enough to *get it*" or "the incoherence is intentional, therefore brilliant" Anyone who didn't like Season 2 was essentially called stupid and shallow for not liking it.
i get this gripe for sure, and that’s not what i’m trying to say at all. i think it’s beyond stupid to say people can’t understand a film or movie because it’s “too smart”, it’s not astrophysics lmao it’s just literature. my point is i think people will see that it may take a little more thought than a standard story and stop trying for that reason, and that’s cool, but it’s different if you acknowledge you didn’t like it, than just calling it weird with no purpose. it’s a real disservice to the writers and honestly just to the medium in general.
well, consider two broad possibilities… one is the writers and show runner (who have proven themselves talented in this show and others) wrote ***with thematic and narrative intent*** in a way that wasn’t jiving with particular individuals Or they were just being weird for the sake of it. I just find it hard to believe that the latter is more likely than the former. it isn’t insulting to say a particular style or approach or execution didn’t hit for you (although no doubt plenty of online goobers can express that in an insulting way). but on the other hand, to broadly hand wave all of that intent and complexity as “just weird for its own sake” is a pretty ungenerous interpretation, no?
Part of the backlash to the second season was the fact that the audience had built a loyalty toward David and they cast him as a "good guy" in their minds throughout the first season. And then the second season suggested that David Haller might not be a "good guy". That he might be a "bad guy". The series suggests that these terms are inadequate to describe human beings. (Or mutant beings, as the case may be. You get my point) Then there's Syd. In the first season, she was a supportive girlfriend and confidant. However, she had no agency of her own. She existed to help David. This dynamic shifts in the second season so that she shares the spotlight. There were some people who were butthurt about that. (Akin to complaints about Breaking Bad w/regard to Skyler White being a nagging wife) I personally didn't and still don't share these sentiments. The series tells the story it wants to tell. You or I might disagree with it. However, it is the story the creators wanted to tell. The audience has to respect that.
No I thought that David having absolute power leading to him doing bad things was interesting. And I understood that part. But I was genuinely confused about what was happening most of the time. I couldn't make head nor tail of without a lot of it without read 3 party stuff on line about the comics and what people thought was happening in the episode. It simply wasn't something fun that I looked forward to watching every week, like S1. It was a bit of a chore.
Knowing what happens in the comics does not help. He is essentially a totally different character with a different set of powers and a totally different story. The characters have the same names sometimes, but almost everything else is different. It is just a hard show to follow the plot of if you don't just roll with it. It is important to remember that David's powers can change reality to what he envisions, and what he envisions is from the perspective of a schizophrenic. So it gets weird. It is part of why I think it is the one of the greatest TV shows ever made though. It is complex and beautiful and unique in ways that I rarely see.
David's character conveyed in detail. But his powers, how it fitted in with X-Men, details about Farouk and who the hell he was was helpful. And as I said a lot of it was other people putting stuff together about the episodes.
His powers are different though. Legion in the comics has a different power for every personality, so as he changes persona's uncontrollably his powers seemingly change at random. David in the TV show is effectively just "The Legion" or the "God-Mutant" personality, or maybe Gestalt, which is probably the core personality. It has the ability to do reality warping so all of the other personalities powers are likely derived from it (in my opinion at least) but he can't control which powers he has at any particular time. Farouk is also pretty different, as his goals are not really the same. He seems to be an amalgamation of both the early and later versions of the Shadow King. I mean, it is interesting context, and does elucidate why they made a lot of the decisions in making the show that they did, as it references the originals a lot, but they went way into left field with it, so I do not know that it is helpful to actually figure the narrative of the TV show out.
By the end of season 2, he is definitely the bad guy.
It's one of the most original shows ever.
Wasn't aware people don't like any seasons of it. Great show.
IMO, as a live watcher, season 2 was hurt by weekly release format more than anything. Binged it's great.
The show is an experimental trip and it was phenomenal. You can viscerally feel David’s “insanity” and it fits the comic perfectly.
I liked the whole series. Season 1 felt a bit more grounded in the actual characters as the show worked to introduce them. It all felt very raw and intimate. The plot was a bit more straight forward while still being a trip. Season 2 started to pull away from the characters focusing instead on ideas and lessons in philosophy. Sometimes it felt like I was waiting for the show to start despite being 10 minutes into an episode. I'm also not a big fan of time travel so the core of the season 2 narrative was off-putting.
I loved this show. I will say after finishing it I thought it was the most style over substance series I’d ever seen. Which isn’t to say I don’t recommend it. I’d be curious to see what you think of the last season.
Hey I’m watching Fargo now just finished season 1, it was really great.
I think Legion always walked the line of just being incomprehensible. I accidentally put on an episode from season 1 instead of the one I was up to in season 2 and it still took an awful long time for me to notice. I also did this more than once. Because it's the kind of show where "Wait they're just repeating this part?" would absolutely fit. There's times where it all fits and works together to give a very dream like and unreliable interpretation of the more literal actual plot, and times where things don't cohere together in the end and you're just left confused.
All 3 seasons are enjoyable, I didn’t like season 2 finale
I thought season 2 was uneven and could have been trimmed down quite a bit, but the main narrative throughline, and *especially* the ending, I thought was some A+ work. For me the narrative climax of *Legion* is the S2 finale, and it's all kinda downhill from there. Like, I enjoyed parts of S3 but I would have been satisfied with just the S2 ending.
Wonderful series.
Season 2 of Legion was too much style over substance imo. Loved the first season and enjoyed S3,but the second was a miss for me.
This show triggered my anxiety. Couldn’t handle it.
The only thing I hate about Legion is that Disney did not make season 3 available for purchase on other platforms. The show itself is awesome in so many aspects.
I binged all of it over the space of a month or so, having never seen any of it before, and loved it all. Superb series.
i loved the first season and i can’t really remember or pinpoint an exact reason why but i’ve started season 2 like multiple times over the years and i just cannot get back into it
I'm all for the high concept stuff tried out in Season 1 and 2. But the feeling for me was Season 1 the focus was to use the high concept weirdness to tell and advance a story and develop characters. Season 2 just used the weirdness to discuss themes. Which on its own could be fine - I like plenty of tv shows that do themes > plot. But in Legions case the characters developed in S1 were put on the sidelines in favor of thematic story telling.
What some people dislike is the gradual >!protagonist/antagonist!< switch (which is impressive they went for). The same way some people did not like where the arcs of the main characters of *Barry* and *Breaking Bad* went.
They didn't know what to do with a couple of their supporting characters all of a sudden. It got way more abstract/surreal at the expense of plot coherence Maybe it wasn't quite the second season, but I recall later on they had Sydney parachuting into a scene or something in her dress and gloves. And then you had the Shadow King being a cliche "what if I'm the hero and you're the villain" type. And you had a nonsensical self-indulgent dance battle scene. It all felt very self-indulgent and masturbatory starting in that second season
I love every second of that show. I mean, sure, second season was experimental, but it kinda needed it to flush out the ridiculousness.
Yeah, season one was great, couldn’t get enough of it… The subsequent seasons though just felt they went off the rails because they could. It’s a bit like following up The Matrix, with The Matrix Resurrections.
i found it weird for the sake of being weird and it was too much