With most of the team freed from their individual psychic mazes, David must now attempt to free the love of his life. But can David decipher the maze that is Syd’s core desire?
Legion – “Chapter 12”, Season 2, Episode 04
Airdate: April 24th, 2018
Director: Ellen Kuras
Writer: Noah Hawley (creator)
Based on the Marvel Comics Created by: Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz
What You Should Know:
Last week it was revealed that the last remaining Mi-Go monk was the source of the psychic plague, a plague that he brought and spread through Division 3. The nature of the plague is to trap the afflicted within a maze in their own mind based around the notion of a core desire that prevents them from trying to escape. With the monk now dead and most of the team free, David attempts to free Syd from her maze.
What You’ll Find Out:
First off and most crucial, about midway through the episode we learn that Syd is not trapped in a maze. In an intermezzo scene, we discover that upon the death of the Mi-Go monk, everybody afflicted by his plague was freed. So what David believes is a maze is in actuality a test designed by Syd for David to solve.
In the first iteration of the test, David follows Syd from the moment of her birth, a baby who rejects the touch of her mother, through childhood and adolescence, searching for the answers to the riddle of Syd. Each iteration, David presents Syd with an incorrect answer and is implored to try again. Among the life moments, we see a child Syd pleased by the embrace of her mother through a pillow. We see a baby Syd cry when touched. We see a teenage Syd let go in the mosh pit of a punk show. We see an adolescent Syd bullied by girls at school. We see Syd’s first kiss and the manifestation of her powers, in which she changes place with the boy and beats on three mean girls with a lacrosse stick, and then lets the boy take the fall. We see Syd cut herself with the dullest scissors. We see Syd awaken in an asylum strapped to a bed with her mother at her side. We see Syd swap places with her mother and have sex in a shower with her mother’s boyfriend (as described last season). We see Syd peer over a worn-out book, watching her mother write. We see Syd watch a couple in a museum making out. We see Syd love her mother loving art. We see Syd practice kissing in her mirror. We see, ultimately, Syd, and all the myriad moments that construct her persona, from the trivial to the traumatic and every bit in-between.
The solution to the riddle of Syd is not that she is lonely or longing. It is not that she is afraid that she cannot be loved. It is not that she has done awful things. The solution to the riddle of Syd is that all of that damage, all of her pain, all of the suffering that the battle we call life has laid at her doorstep is the reason that Syd is strong, rather than weak. What she desperately wants David to see is that strength is not actualized out of love—love is fragile and anemic. Strength exists where broken pieces are put back together, reforged, and reformed. If the future they face ends in an apocalypse, love will not save them. Instead, they will save love.
Upon answering the riddle correctly, Syd and David wake up, only to find chaos in Division 3. As they forge ahead to investigate, armed soldiers enter with a prisoner. Lenny is back.
What Just Happened?
Little in the way of explanation is necessary for this expertly crafted episode. For the first time in perhaps two seasons, the message presented in Legion was not hidden in some form of cryptogram or psychological discussion but instead laid bare for the viewer. While I don’t necessarily agree with the philosophical stance presented by Syd, being a believer in the power of love myself, I cannot argue that it was extremely well presented with extreme grace of form and language.
The appearance of Lenny, however, strikes me as exceptionally interesting and cryptic. Assuming that Farouk used his reality-shaping powers (they have not explicitly stated that he has these powers, but I think it can be inferred that the scope of his abilities far exceeds that of your run-of-the-mill psychic) to create a physical vessel for Lenny, what prevents him from doing the same for himself? How does the release of Lenny mean in the grand scheme of Farouk’s plan? Will we ever meet a Lenny that is not the result of an overwriting of her personality with the persona of Benny?
Rating: 10/10
Final Thought: The effort put into this series by the entire team is astounding from week to week. Yet with all that effort, they couldn’t find a punk song to play during the most pit scene?
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