'Legion' recap: "Chapter 4"
Cameron Lee ‘20 / Emertainment Monthly Contributor
Spoiler Alert: This recap contains spoilers for Chapter 4 of Legion
“Well that was a strange episode”, is the only thing to say after this week’s episode of Legion. It’s the only show airing right now that legitimately feels like a spiritual successor to ‘Twin Peaks’; and it’s also an X-Men show.
We start the episode with Oliver Bird (Jemaine Clement), the husband of Dr. Melanie Bird (Jean Smart), addressing the audience about the nature of storytelling and the stories parents tell their children. Oliver is stuck in a freezing room in what we later find out is the astral plane which is a realm of the mind- or, in other words, a place that telepaths like David (Dan Stevens) can access. But back to Oliver’s lengthy monologue; it sets the tone perfectly for all the mayhem and craziness that we are about to witnesses.
Last week’s episode ended with David not waking up from the sedative; we now know that David got stuck in the astral plane. David spots Oliver in the greenish, trippy astral plane wearing an old-school diving suit. They have a long conversation that sounds like something Morpheus would say to Neo in ‘The Matrix’. David then gets talked into leaving the astral plane by himself by the ghost of Lenny (Aubrey Plaza).
Meanwhile, we learn that Kerry Loudermilk (Amber Midthunder) has lived inside Cary Loudermilk’s (Bill Irwin) body. They share the same body and Kerry ages a lot slower due to only leaving his body to protect him or if there’s something interesting going on. It’s an interesting revelation, and adds a lot to the episode’s standout scene- but we’ll talk about that later. Syd (Rachel Keller) and Memory Man (I know in the last recap I made this same joke, but it’s actually a lot easier to call him ‘Memory Man’ then his real name, Ptonomy) go and visit David’s old college girlfriend, Philly (Ellie Araiza), at her office.
You remember Philly: she’s the one who made David have the slow-mo meltdown in the kitchen in the pilot episode. Memory Man (Jeremie Harris) and Syd pretend they’re married and looking for a house. Syd distracts Philly so that Memory Man can access her memories of the kitchen accident. He finds that Lenny is not actually a woman, but a man (that’s odd).
The duo, now joined by Kerry, goes to David’s old psychologist, Dr. Poole (Scott Lawrence), who now lives in a lighthouse following David’s attack on him, when David snuck into his office to steal drugs. But it turns out that Dr. Poole is just a decoy, as the government ambushes the trio and Dr. Poole is revealed to be the Eye. What follows is the best sequence of the episode; as gunfire bursts through all the windows in super slow motion, our trio makes their way to the top floor. At the same time, in the astral plane, Oliver puts on a record (“Undiscovered First” by Feist) and starts to dance in slow motion. Back in reality, Kerry takes one for the team and dives out the window to fight the soldiers.
Simultaneously, Cary- who is cleaning up his lab at the sanctuary and who is mentally connected to Kerry- starts to do some crazy gymnastics as Kerry makes short work of soldiers. Unfortunately, Kerry is quickly surrounded by even more soldiers and beaten into submission which also makes Cary blackout. Luckily, during the scuffle with the Eye, Syd manages to swap bodies with him. The Eye- now Syd- orders the soldiers to load all the mutants up in a truck. David teleports in front of the truck and causes it to crash. David attacks the Eye not knowing it’s Syd, as the Eye- now in Syd’s body- tries to escape the area, only to be stopped by Syd (still in the Eye’s body).
The Eye tries to tell David that he’s Syd, but just as David begins to understand his mistake, the Eye and Syd switch back to their original bodies. The Eye pulls out a gun and shoots at the couple but is stopped by Kerry, who takes a bullet for the team and falls down, bleeding out. The Eye escapes, our team tries to save Kerry’s life, and Cary slams to the ground unconscious.
Did you get all of that, or was there too much going on? It was one hell of a ride this week and we’re only halfway through the season. This is going to get even weirder!