3) It’s Really, Really Strange
Last November’s Doctor Strange was touted as the most psychedelic superhero story you’d ever seen, what with its bizarre visuals and literal world-bending. That Marvel movie is nothing compared to Legion, however, which feels like an hour-long fever dream.
As we already mentioned, David’s skittish mind and frequent hallucinations is reflected in the format of the episode, as we skip around from scene to scene and back in forward in time and in and out of reality. Legion doesn’t like to spoon-feed the audience – though there are a couple of info-dump moments – and mostly it’s up to the viewer to work out what’s happening for themselves.
That’s not to say that Legion is a taxing, self-serious show, as it doesn’t forget to entertain along the way. Towards the end of the pilot, David hallucinates a full-on choreographed Bollywood-style musical number where the inmates of the mental asylum get up and dance. It’s as crazy as it sounds, but perfectly sums up Legion‘s anything-goes mentality.
[zergpaid]2) A Layered Depiction Of Mental Health
Often, mental illness is treated in distinctly black and white terms in films and TV. Take M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, for example, with James MacAvoy as the creepy villain suffering from dissociative personality disorder. It’s refreshing, then, that Legion depicts mental health in more layered terms.
In particular, it explores the typical X-Men theme of being an outsider through the lens of mental health. Due to his telepathy and telekinesis, David has been labelled as mentally unwell by society and has been locked away in an asylum. This has then changed his entire view of himself as he’s come to deny his own abilities and repress who he really is. As Syd tells him in the pilot episode: “the voices – that’s what makes you, you.”
Throughout the series, we expect to see David accept his abilities and realize that he isn’t broken or crazy he’s just different – just as many people with mental health issues do in the real world.