Back for its second episode, “Legends” delivered some tense moments and an episode that sets up what looks to be a longer-running FBI plot, as well as continued to develop the characters and show insight into Martin Odum’s state of mind. The gap between the development of the pilot and the second episode showed with a slight shift in tone in Odum’s character and the start of building a new FBI-case storyline with more layers that what we saw in the pilot.
Whereas Sean Bean’s Odum in the pilot is clearly unraveling under the pressure of his job and having to adapt to one legend after another, his character in Chemistry seemed a little more collected and guarded. While the confusion is still there (Odum signs himself into the FBI building as Lincoln Dittmann, the name of his most recent alias), Odum is quick to cover – telling a psychiatrist in a job-mandated psych evaluation that it was a joke, without pausing to blink. He deflects during this evaluation, showing that he’s an expert casual liar, and makes light of the session afterward when Yates asks him how the session went, with the quip, “Feeling much better now.”
But while Odum is more outwardly composed – which could be attributed to the fact that in the pilot, Odum was just emerging from six months in deep cover and there was more confusion – Odum’s fractured mental state is conveyed through flashbacks during his eval session that are broken into blending screen shots, as Odum is heard to tell the psychiatrist that he keeps the different parts of his life, his family and his job, separate from each other.
We see the start of more character development in the other FBI team members. Crystal, who was a tough shell in the pilot, shows some vulnerability as she shakes with nervousness before going undercover with the Chechen mob. She’s clearly emotionally affected after the mission goes bad and her coworker, Troy, is killed. Yates takes on the role of compassionate listener as he probes Odum to talk about his confrontation with the hooded man (Robert McCombs), and how McCombs told Odum that the person he believed he was was just a legend.
Yates tells Odum not to tell anyone else about what McCombs said. While the apparent reason is that he doesn’t want to fuel any more concerns in the FBI about Odum’s sanity, as I’m watching this (being suspicious as this is a show with a conspiracy), I’m wondering if it could mean that Yates is trying to hide something. I was also looking for double-meaning in Yates’ comment, “what a goddamn mess,” after Troy was killed (thinking this was a second week in a row someone on his team got killed), and partially suspicious of Crystal’s reaction of fear going into the job, wondering if it’s a clue that there’s more going on with her than we know. I’m overthinking this, I know, but that's the fun of watching a show with conspiracies.
Also, we meet Agent Tony Rice, an FBI agent working in a different division who is looking into the death of McCombs. Odum sets off his suspicions when he visits Rice for information, and is later caught in a big omission when Rice discovers that Odum was with McCombs on the subway platform when he died. Rice, like Odum, does what he wants and disobeys his supervisor’s directive by ordering a tail put on Odum. With the danger involved in Odum’s undercover work, and Odum’s mindset that someone’s usually out to get him, this can’t end well. Morris Chestnut (Rice) makes a nice addition to the cast, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this storyline progresses.
As for the FBI case (I’m going to stop calling it the case of the week for now, because this current storyline has a longer span than a week), I felt like it slowly built as the episode continued. As we end the episode, the kidnapped man, Russian chemist Alexander Nevelsky, or Richard Hubbard, is now developing a chemical bomb that the team believes will be launched in Los Angeles. Odum gets a nice Jack Bauer moment in the case, as he plays his own version of Russian Roulette with a reluctant criminal informant’s body parts, to get him to talk. The show ends with Odum preparing to adopt the legend of Dante Orbach, or “Lord of War,” an English playboy death merchant who the team believes is the best legend to quickly get close to a chemical weapon. It’s an intriguing legend, and Yates seems to be talking in part to the fans as he says, “Sit back and watch. It’s his show now.”
What did you think? Is the show what you had expected? Do you have any theories yet on where the storyline of Odum’s indentity is heading?
