Legion 2.05 "Chapter 13" - Review:
Directed by Tim Mielants & Written by Noah Hawley & Nathaniel Halpern
Never one for convention, Legion decides to open the episode's recap of what happened previously in the show with the words "apparently on Legion", suggesting that nothing is what it seems and offering a hint that this episode may be more than it appears. But then, this is Legion - so this is something that you should clearly be aware of by now. Nothing on this show is ever what it appears to be. This time in the director's chair steps Tim Mielants - responsible for multiple episodes of Peaky Blinders Season 3, and AMC's The Terror.
The return of Lenny at the end of Chapter 12 presented an interesting dilemma. How was it possible that she could have returned with seemingly her own mind and memories intact and have escaped from The Shadow King at the same time? Everyone is determined to know the answers behind her return, as it can't really be as simple as she just wants to help them. It never is with the Shadow King, after all.
Chapter 13 was a slow-paced episode that gave Aubrey Plaza time to shine as Lenny as we learned more about her past when she was alive and how she was finding her new body. It may only be the second of May as I'm writing this review, with this episode having aired on the first of the month - but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be nominating Aubrey Plaza for performer of the month based on how good she was in this episode. She gave us some Emmy-worthy performances in Season One, and now we get more opportunities to show how good she can be. It's hard to think that the role of Lenny was according to her, originally written for a man - as she's just really come in and made the character her own.
Most of the episode was spent watching Lenny interact with different characters inside Division 3, Clark, Ptonomy and David each visited her in turn as they attempted to find out if she was hiding anything in a sequence that reminded me a lot of Akira Kurosawa's legendary masterpiece Rashomon. Normally, monologuing about characters' pasts is something that would feel dull and boring, but here, Legion not only uses the upside-down nature of the interrogation room to throw Lenny and the audience off-balance, but also allow Plaza to do what she does best, revealing more about her past as a junkie where she was introduced to alcohol from an early, pre-teen age by her grandmother that she was named after. She escalates her story the longer Clark spends interrogating her despite being initially reluctant to reveal anything apart from to David, and despite telling Clark that she's done bad things in the past, she doesn't view herself as someone who is downright evil as Farouk and is not under her control. Clark is able to take a sample of her blood during the middle of the interrogation.
Ptonomy was next to interrogate Lenny as his mind-powers would have given the edge over any normal person. But Lenny is no normal person - thanks to whatever Farouk has done to her, and he gets a disturbing look into his own mind instead after the revelation that somehow, Lenny's eyes have changed, they're now blue rather than brown, which they always have been up until the point where she arrived at Division 3. Ptonomy ends up witnessing Lenny's memories as told to Clark in person, drinking Vodka out of a can of Soda, but the other memories that he struggles to contain send him insane, and he gets a vision of Admiral Fukuyama, looking decidedly nightmarish and incredibly unsettling. The two memories proved too much for Ptonomy to overcome, which presents us with the third and final interrogator of Lenny - the one who she wanted to speak to in the first place, David.
It's also interesting that this week, the narrator helps inform us more about patterns and where we got them from, using an example of spotting Jesus on toast, sharing contrasting thoughts from the optimist and the pessimist. But most importantly, the narrator tells us that the human mind will reject anything that doesn't form a pattern.
Chapter 13 also spends a lot of time with both Farouk and Oliver who have retrieved Lenny's corpse and now, have tracked down a submarine-shaped donut food cart. Much like the rest of Legion - the show continues to give us some excellent song choices, with the Velvet Underground & Nico's excellent Heroin being used to showcase Oliver and Farouk driving in a Bentley Continental. Use any Velvet Underground in an episode and there's no way that I'm not going to like the episode in question - and that was no exception to the rule here.
Oliver is quick to tell Farouk and give him a warning that he plans to kill him. Obviously he isn't going to reveal to Farouk what his plans are, but he's quick to offer up clue - 1 plus 1 apparently does not equal 2. How that fits into his plan remains to be seen. This conversation was one of the most important moments of this episode as we get an insight into Farouk's thoughts and views, with both Navid Negahban and Jemaine Clement more than capable of holding their own together.
Both Farouk and Oliver end up finding out where Amy is living with her husband in protective custody, and it isn't long before Amy's husband is turned to ash by Farouk. Farouk then uses the device that contains Lenny's body to give her a new life, transforming Amy into the new Lenny, something that now sets David on a one-track mind to go after Farouk. It's an interesting end to the episode that isn't quite the most action-packed hour of Legion ever, but at the same time, it's not the most intricate character-study either that we had in Chapter 12. As always with Legion, it's its own, unique beast that finds ways to keep us entertained throughout.
What did you think of Chapter 13? Let me know in the comments section below and be sure to stay tuned for next week's episode, Chapter 14 airing next Tuesday on FX.
