Legion – S1E6 – Chapter Six

Previously on Legion, “Chapter Five”

While still visually beautiful, “Chapter Six” left a lot to be desired. The mutant parasite attached to David has created a false reality in which everyone in David’s childhood home at the end of last week’s episode now resides at Clockworks. Lenny is the therapist, of course, using her sessions to pick at their most painful scabs.

Melanie is a former psychiatrist now stuck in denial that her dead husband will some day return; Ptonomy’s power of memory causes him to remember every minute detail of the day his mother died in front of him when he was a boy; and Cary and Kerry have attachment (to each other) issues. The only one who realizes that something isn’t quite right is Syd, perhaps due to her connection to David. Remember, only she saw the tears in his recollections during the memory work a few episodes ago.

While Lenny seems to genuinely enjoy playing with them like they’re residents of her very own dollhouse, it’s also hard work to keep it going – especially with Syd constantly questioning and insisting that something isn’t quite right. She relieves her own stress by sneaking off to the other rooms in David’s mind where she can literally kick up her heels and be herself, taking pleasure in all the pain David has suffered.

Perhaps because most of it felt like very little story progression, this didn’t work for me as a whole. Indeed, for me, the best parts were towards the end when Lenny reveals that David’s biological father tried to hide David from her/it. And while she’s had fun with David’s power, and thought creating this new Clockworks reality with his friends would keep him docile with her in control, she’s certainly willing to pack David’s mind away and just use his body indefinitely.

By episode’s end, there’s promise that “Chapter Seven” (the penultimate episode of the season) will see an end to this and put us back in the true reality where I understand what’s going on about 75% of the time. Oliver appears to be breaking free from the astral plane, Melanie is trying to move David and Syd out of the path of The Eye’s bullets, and Cary is doing something in a diving suit. Just read that sentence over again. This show is a trip.

X Files

So, The Eye was a late bloomer as a child and teased. Explains his ruthless behavior as an adult – he’s just a bully continuing the cycle. His scenes tormenting Kerry were so hard to watch, but that was the point. They were creepily effective.

Interesting that in this version of Clockworks, Amy is the nurse who basically harasses David and tells him how unloved and unwanted he is. Clearly a way for Lenny to keep David isolated.