'Legion' Recap: "Chapter 3"

Cameron Lee ‘20 / Emertainment Monthly contributor

Spoiler Alert: This recap contains spoilers for episode 3 of Legion

We pick up from the end of last week as David had discovered that his sister was captured by the secret government agency that had been chasing him. Naturally, all he wants to do is to rescue his sister, but Syd (Rachel Keller) had prevented him from leaving. Dr. Bird (Jean Smart) tells David that his mind is blocking key memories and, in a way, is trying to protect him. Since they are running out of time, Dr. Bird feels it’s best to speed the process along.
They go into David’s mind to the kitchen explosion and we get a better understanding of what happened. David was apparently vaping with our favorite side character, Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), when his girlfriend walked in with a cake- which our two stoners rudely ate with their hands. We saw in the pilot what happened next, but this time David sees the Devil with Yellow Eyes. No one else can see it except for David. David blocks Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris) from changing the memory to protect them from the beast. David begins to freak out and they are transported to a room in the facility.
David and Sydney continue to have the best chemistry on the show. We get to learn more about Syd’s backstory and how she name-checked every body she found herself in. They’re the heart of the show, and the sign’s indicate that this relationship will only get stronger as the season progresses. David undergoes more tests in the lab; the doctor asks if he will “maybe not break anything this time” referring to the MRI David broke last episode. David responds to him in a deadpan kind of way, saying,  “I’m not going to promise that”. They start the test, but things get out of hand quickly as David starts to levitate off the table and the whole control room goes haywire. Syd runs in to find David being consumed by a ray of light.
Syd jumps in with David and they get transported to where David’s sister is being interrogated (how convenient). Syd and David are invisible to everyone in the room except for the Eye, a mutant who works for the government- I bet you can never guess what his powers are. A man named Walter- who we later learn is Dr. Bird’s husband- is telling David’s sister about David’s abilities. The Eye eventually sees David and Syd, which surprises the two of them, and they vanish to a nearby lake outside the compound.

Dr. Bird is desperate to find a way to make progress with David; she suggests they try putting David under sedation. Syd volunteers to go with Dr. Bird and ‘Memory Man’ (I know the character’s name is Ptonomy, but “Memory Man” is so much easier to say and remember). They all go under sedation and transport into David’s mind. While they don’t have David around, they do get a mental projection of a childhood version of David, which Syd gets to hug as her powers don’t work in other people’s minds, (aww how cute, and sort of creepy). They enter David’s room to find his father reading the same creepy children’s book as last time. But Syd sees something only David would be able to see: a creepy, real-life version of the Angriest Boy which looks like something from a horror movie.
Syd makes a breaks for it with baby David and gets separated from the group. She runs away from the monster and wakes herself up from the dream. She then wakes up ‘Memory Man’ who tries to wake up Dr. Bird. Dr. Bird- still in the mental projection- is investigating the book when the book suddenly slams on her, crushing her fingers and causing her to wake up in shock. Everyone is awake except for David who appears to be stuck in his dreams and can’t be waken up (uh oh)… And then we cut to the credits (damn it)!
Hopefully we start to get some answers soon, but we’re at the will of the show- and more specifically the show-runner, Noah Hawley- and judging by the unpredictability that Hawley’s other show, Fargo, displayed throughout its first two amazing seasons, we’ll be in for something nontraditional with probably very few answers; but that’s okay as it’s been a wild ride so far and it’s sure to get even crazier as we enter the back half of the season which we are fast approaching.

Episode Grade: B+