"Consider the consequences of your actions. Not all Temporal interactions go as planned.", Chapter 20's time traveling lesson warns on this week's episode of Legion.
In the meantime Clark interrogates Squirrel (one of David's followers viewers were introduced in the last episode) trying to figure out where David moved to. Squirrel doesn't divulge very much before completely breaking down into a shaky stutter. Clark proceeds to plan b, dropping Squirrel from the Division 3 plane with nothing but a semi-faulty parachutist and a tracking devise, hoping he'll lead them back David, although later they decide that even catching Lenny would suffice.
This pushes David into a much angrier headspace, as he leaves Syd to return to his place of residence, but all of the blue vapor drug turns to red, as viewers follow a sequence of of the spaces his followers occupy. His followers too seemingly more aggressive and agitated with the simple color change.
While all of this is going on, David somehow manages to kidnap Cary. The two briefly speak before David explains that he needs Cary to help him build some kind of devise that would enhance Switch's time traveling abilities. To help ensure his plan works, he gives Cary the drug that now seems to be turned back to blue. The audience gets a pretty trippy introspected treat, as Cary seems to accept David's proposal by proxy, as he imagines himself looking at Kerry in the mirror and then she steps out and the two begin to dance, until Kerry demands she leads. Cary, used to giving Kerry her way, agrees, as Kerry then morphs into David! Cary then proceeds to help Switch build something in the Clock Room.
Syd also has another conversation with Amahl Farouk, who continues to encourage violence, as she wrestles with the dilemma of how to deal with David having a time traveler and being able to "undo" everything, but this leads to a question that she surprisingly hadn't thought to ask before, 'How does David end world?'This episode was another absolute treat, despite that David is being pushed further and further onto the side villainy, but if your like me and still think Amahl is still mostly responsible for David's situation (ie: that mouse that went and whispered into Syd's ear, manipulating Melanie who in turn, manipulated Syd), you surely would have noticed his "Christmas Piano Music" scene taking place in his private astral plane, possibly pointing to the joy of just how easy it all really is to alienate David with Syd, Division 3/Clark, and Cary & Kerry still not really asking for the evidence to prove David's potential future end of the world destruction scenario. (Hey, Syd, have you ever thought that treating David like he's villain is why he becomes one and ends the world?)
What's also curious is how the Christmas theme snuck into the episode beyond this scene with Lenny, "Ho Ho Ho-ing" at Squirrel when she finds him or even the 'Charlie Brown' song at the beginning of the episode might correlate through watching Charlie Brown TV specials during Holiday seasons. And if anything, it might all be a reference to Charles Dickson's A Christmas Carol that features the grumpy Scrooge meeting the Ghosts of Time (Past, Present, Future), leading him to finally change himself into a better and more loving person. (Dan Steven's also recently played Charles Dickens in a film about Dickens coming to create The Christmas Carol titled, The Mans Invented Christmas).The Angriest Boy in the World Vaporizer is another interesting item to turn up. Does this mean that David was always the angriest boy or is it that Farouk just made such a deep impression on David's mind that perhaps David is not wrong in wanting to change that event of Farouk taking over his mind from happening or does is mean that Farouk is still more literally attached? It's all still pretty unclear, but if anything is for certain, we can expect David's time traveling schemes with or without him are not go as planned and the consequences might be worse, before they can be better.
Stay Observations:
Is the Clock Room a Pocket Universe? When Cary goes and snaps his fingers, he hears the sounds of his snaps going round and round. Sometimes this indicates that universe one is in is very small, so perhaps parts of David's place of residence is a pocket universe or networks of pocket universes?
Not too sure what the point of Lenny's territorial hostility towards Switch was for. In some ways it felt like a lead into where David ultimately goes, as before he talks to Syd, he does try and make Lenny "happy" again, noticing her lack of compliance., which maybe says something either about Lenny or the drug's time limitations, but I suppose it could also be foreshadowing some kind of betrayal, but I'm not convinced that Switch will switch teams, unless she either sees something really bad from David's past or future that alarms her or her own past is changed as an unforeseen consequence of time travel! Syd now asking about how David ends the world, could prompt a plot to kidnap Switch and try and find out!
Cary's scene trying to escape one of David's followers was pretty hilarious, but also just really well choreographed.
This is really more food for thought, but one other thing I found curious was Syd's interactions with David. She made a point to tell him that she thinks he has never really seen her.
As I have mentioned before, I kind of feel like Syd is more a problem character than David. And what I mean by "problem" is two fold in that what we have seen of her past shows a hypocrite. She delighted in what she did to her mother and basically told David that survival is an excuse to cause pain, and that's ok because that's how one saves love, but yet she can't find any sort of compassion for David or doesn't think she needs to find more definitive proof of well, anything, and because she never takes responsibility for her own actions (or lack there of). Syd doesn't seem to have to answer to anyone and she has done a great job at trying to avoid that "future-self' by fixating on wrongness David.
Syd almost comes off like a muse at times. A character whose whole demeanor and personality is very "elusive" (like a cat or a "slippery minx", as some would say) and reminding me of all of those John Hamm monologues in that maybe, she is delusion; just an idea.
But more so we get more feminine-outlooks fractured through Melanie, who is a great great talker, unlike Syd (and Syd is even sporting some Melanie-like bangs now). Even though Farouk manipulated her last season, it doesn't mean there weren't some interesting points she made about women waiting for their man to come home and not really having adventures of their own, or being allowed to be their own heroes. Kerry then kind of just pushes for the mindless primitive notion of such an idea. She rarely asks Cary about what he thinks and feels, it's often Cary that has tried to nurture and shelter her, but he often fails, as fighting and killing tend to consume her whole existence, --and she is able to get away with it, because she literally hides in Cary and no one is asking him to confront that!What I'm trying to say is that maybe all of those other female characters point to the fact that we don't really know who Sydney is and maybe even Sydney doesn't either and that's actually what will be behind Legion's ending. It's not just about David and what he did or didn't do or even the battles with The Shadow King and/or the history with David's father that no doubt will surely be exposed, but more over -- who is Sydney Barret and when is she finally going to materialize into the world? And who will she be when she gets there?
Maybe this is story about a Future-Syd that just wanted someone to see her and maybe that someone isn't just David, but her past self. Maybe this is also a story about a girl trying save herself by finally finding herself!
So what did you think of Legion Chapter 21? Any theories or plot points you want to discuss? Sound off in the comments belew!!!
