Chapter 19

This season may have been uneven, but it ended on a bang.

What I like is that it ties everything together and clarifies most questions I may have had over the season. What they do with David is shocking, compelling, and makes sense in retrospect.

Again this show looks great. The opening fight is one of the most impressive things they've pulled off.

Epic finale truly deserving of this season! Just cannot wait for next season. Well done to the whole team at #Legion

Legion is a game changer, never have I seen a show test so many boundaries in the space of 19 episodes. We as an audience are in uncharted territory. David as a character is not dead, if you assume that everything you just witnessed in the final 50 minutes of season 2 is 100 percent true, then you have clearly missed the previous 18 episodes. The show is designed to test our simple minds, if you want to watch something with a consistent and predictable plot then 'The Flash' is sitting right there. Can't wait for what season 3 has in store.

I don't know where to begin. Maybe with a quote that I came across recently in an unrelated movie review Richard Brody wrote for the New Yorker:

"No genre comes to the world accursed, and the superhero movie is no less a fertile ground for cinematic imagination than the political thriller, the romantic comedy, the Western, [...] or the war movie."

If you substitute "TV show" for "movie", the first two seasons of Legion have certainly proved Mr. Brody right. I mean, talk about cinematic imagination! While I have to admit that some episodes of the rather slow-burning second season put my patience to the test, I've never seen such a boundary-breaking TV drama that draws its visual inspiration from so many sources, playfully explores vastly different artistic styles, and challenges our perception of reality in a way that almost puts Rashomon to shame.

Not only did the season two finale surpass my wildest expectations in terms of plot, visual effects, and the fantastic musical score. It also brought to show back to what originally drew me into it, namely the unique and eerily accurate depiction of delusional mental disorders. During the early episodes, David exhibited countless symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (unlike his comic book counterpart, who suffers from DID). When Melanie Bird assured him that his alleged mental illness symptoms stemmed from his suppressed mutant abilities, she did it so convincingly that both David and the audience, or at least I, wanted to believe her. Now I realize that the writers had her crack an egg that hatched a delusion.

There was also David's dark passenger, to borrow an analogy from Dexter, who made a perfect scapegoat for his ongoing mental issues. After Farouk had finally departed from David's mind, one might have thought that David was completely cured. I know that I did, and I was almost disappointed since the show had so brilliantly captured what it's like to be unable to trust one's own mind. The new, seemingly sane David Haller was a little too perfect, a little too much of a regular mutant superhero, to be real. Now it turns out that he wasn't. And in hindsight, there were so many signs and symptoms during this season that this information hardly constitutes a spoiler.

Think of David's trouble focusing, which was most obvious in his conversations with others. He often paused and searched for words, had difficulties pursuing a train of thought and stringing coherent sentences together, and sometimes left a sentence unfinished. His vocabulary became increasingly simplistic and limited. At the time, these maddeningly dragging, unfocused conversations seemed like a play for time by the writers, an attempt to stretch out an overly thin plot. What we were really witnessing though was a schizophrenic David off his meds exhibiting so-called negative symptoms.

In case you're unfamiliar with schizophrenia-type disorders, periods of negative symptoms occur in between manic, psychotic or delusional episodes. The suffering individual may appear relatively normal, but his thoughts are disorganized, he has trouble concentrating, his speech appears impoverished, he is often irritable and moody; in short, he acts like David did during most of this plodding, confusing, and seemingly disorganized season. But as the individual approaches a manic state, he becomes increasingly energized. His thoughts begin to race and he is full of purpose. He may hear voices and have lively conversations with himself.

He might have delusions of grandeur and develop an urgent sense of mission. He may become convinced that someone is his enemy, the source of all his problems, and experience sudden outbursts of exhilarating RAGE and aggression when he confronts this person. As the psychotic episode progresses, the individual may become increasingly suspicious of everyone in his life, if not to say paranoid. All his friends, relatives and neighbors might conspire against him, especially those who seem concerned for his health and suggest medical treatment. Nobody can be trusted except for the voices in his own head. Does this sound like anyone we know?

I should probably add the caveat that physically violent behavior during the angry outbursts mentioned above is exceedingly rare. Nevertheless, David's face as he tortured Oliver captured the true face of psychotic mania. No wonder he seemed like a frighteningly different person to Syd, who first met David when he was still medicated, stayed by his side throughout his withdrawal psychosis (or his internal battle against Farouk, depending on which competing truth one chooses to believe), and began to suspect that something was still wrong with him during his following negative symptom stage.

Her feelings of estrangement from David increased during the onset of his manic episode. When she finally saw the full picture, she knew that the unmedicated David was not the person with whom she fell in love. Her effort to break away from him, followed by an attempt to get him the help that he so obviously needs, seemingly confirmed his worst suspicions and completely pushed him over the edge into a state of paranoid delusion. I believe this may be the truth of the mind. What the finale showed us instead was the truth of the heart. Pick whichever truth you like best. To me, it seems clear that a lot of this show is allegorical rather than literally true. But like all great works of art, Legion allows for different interpretations.

I don't like at all what happened the entire season. Some episodes were unbearable. But this one was better than all. I'm waiting for next season now. Some episodes were too much psychedelic.