I’ve never heard of Legion until the show was announced way back when. Looking him up you can see his rather important lineage to the X-Men universe. With the knowledge that he is the son of Charles Xavier, I’ve gone into Legion with little expectations. The last month or so they advertised this short season like it was the second coming.

Two episodes in, Legion feels like it’s in the X-Men world (it shares a certain production design aesthetic) but feels very unique. David is an incredibly powerful telepath but doesn’t really know. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic. He sees and hears things all the time and has no control over it. Sometimes people have gotten hurt. He’s been in and out of mental institutions for at least a decade and he considers himself with no silver lining: lost, depressed, sick, crazy. His sister, Amy, is probably his only tether to happiness.

In one facility he meets another patient Syd and their relationship changes everything. It leads to a road of enlightenment and danger where he comes to turn that he isn’t sick, he has powers. The voices and the visions are real. With a haunted childhood and an adulthood of doctors, isolation, and medication David has a lot to work through as he’s hunted once he goes into hiding with Syd and an organization of like-minded individuals committed to helping him.

The pilot is packed with info and characters to take in. Getting to know David is tough (as it should be) and it’s a constant question of what is real and who is a friend. Aubrey Plaza as his not so good of an influence friend Shannon is the fastest highlight to come for. The  end of the pilot puts it’s full X-Men brand shoes on for you to check out.

I’ve found episode 2 to be really impressive. Shocking, actually. With the introduction of David done, we go into (literally) his head for the dirt. Presenting his past the way they do gives the direct line to discover who this guy is. What made him this bundle of nervous power. I dig the supporting characters (especially Wallace) and every scene felt important. Whatever that fat man/demon thing is is super disturbing. The ultimate boogyman of what that creature is, where it’s from, what it wants and holy animal, is it real, has me hooked.

Major shout out to the crew on this show. It starts on the page and comes to life in some amazing direction and editing. There are too many incredible moments to mention but basically anytime Wallace and Dr. Bird are working with David is nuts. Whatever the budget is for this show, every dime is seen on screen. Seamless visual effects to display morphing time, space, and locations. They visually jump around in David’s memories so much that it shouldn’t work but it does. The sense of being in the narrative perspective of the main character, even when he isn’t “there”, is masterful work. Everything with the MRI machine is brilliant. The lighting cues, the blocking, the incredible editing. This episode needs to be put up for awards.

I can only hope that after seeing this that the best is yet to come.