Legion: Lessons in Time Travel

Legion | Season 3 | Episode 1 : “Chapter 20”
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For a quick read, go to Review. For a complete summary, go to Recap.

KBear Recap [Read  time: 5-7 min]

 

“Is this a cult?” “Yes.” Switch and Lenny

An antique television shows a test pattern, Please Stand By. It dissolves into Bedtime is Here. A young Asian women is listening to a Walkman. We will later find out that she is Switch (Lauren Tsai). Lessons in Time Travel: Chapter 13. The voice on the cassette (Ming Lo) says, “All Past is Future. When Going Back in Time, Remember –The Present is Not Just a Date. It’s a Feeling. Feel No Shame about the Past. No Anxiety about the Future. Every Negative can be Changed to a Positive. Once You Know How.” After exercising she goes to breakfast, a butler wheels in a television. I’m going to assume that the person on the TV is her father who is also eating breakfast. He asks her some perfunctory questions on how she slept and her studies and the TV is wheeled back out. As she’s walking down the street with her pink headphones on she sees a flyer posted on a pole. It says, “Are You Indivisible; The Basket is Watching; Don’t Trust the Mustache; Find the Pregnant Virgin.” A blue flower is lying on the sidewalk. After she leaves class she finds another flyer posted on another pole. It is asking for a time traveler. It also warns about the Basket and says seek the Orange Fish. It tells her to listen to 89.1 on the radio.

Switch tunes into 89.1 and hears Lenny Busker (Aubrey Plaza). Lenny [on radio]: “Why is it blue? It’s always blue. Are you looking for him my lovelies? Cause he’s looking for you. Did you hear his message? No? If you have the skill, you can go back and listen again.” Switch goes back in time to hear David Haller (Dan Stevens) tell her to follow the yellow bus. The next day she sees a double decker red bus with a lot of young women on it. When the bus passes her, on the back she sees Yellow Bus written on it. She chases the bus to an alley. Down the alley she sees a door with a pregnant virgin symbol. She enters into what looks like a clothing store. She sees a women at a counter, but soon the counter and racks of clothes start moving out of her reach. She fights her way to the counter. The woman at the counter holds up signs in Chinese asking what Switch wants. Switch doesn’t know what to say at first and the woman at the counter threatens to leave. Finally Switch says she’s looking for the orange fish, the person she is looking for is called Salmon. The woman at the counter starts singing and is joined by others in the store. They are singing “Something for Your M.I.N.D.” [The actual group Superorganism is singing their song on the show.] Switch climbs through a transparent tube through the city into the countryside. She arrives outside a cabin, everyone inside is smoking from hookahs. There are tubes of blue liquid flowing throughout, and nearly everyone there is a young woman. [There’s also a giant pig in the corner. It’s a weird, trippy, psychedelic place.]

A pregnant woman comes to greet her. It is Salmon (Vanessa Dubasso). [We met her last season in Chapter 17, she was the blond Lenny hooked up with and later announced she was carrying Lenny’s child. They called her Janine back then. I’m not sure if Salmon is her name now, but I’ll change it if they call her something else later.] Salmon: “You’re just in time. We’ve been waiting for you.” Switch: “For me?” Salmon: “For everyone. But especially you.” Switch: “What is this place?” Salmon: “I’m not sure. My queen brought me here, she of the frosted breakfast flakes. We’re gonna have a baby.” Switch [pointing to blue liquids in tubes]: “What is that?” Salmon: Peace. Love.  He makes it, in here.” Pointing to her head. Salmon introduces her to Squirrel (Wally Rudolph). [There was a Squirrel in Chapter 17, but this is a different actor, so I’m not sure this is supposed to be the same character.] She tells Switch that he is the alchemist. Squirrel: “Greetings Earthlings. [Turning to Switch] Like your vibe. Very two days from now.” Switch [introducing herself]: “Jia-yi.” Squirrel: “No. That’s not it. We shall call you…Switch. And Switch will be your name.” Salmon takes her to a room to wait for her queen. Before she leaves Switch asks, “Are you really a virgin?” Salmon: “Penis-free, 25 years.” Hours pass and finally Lenny arrives, escorted by two women. After Lenny hits on her and asks if she likes to ‘switch’; Switch tells her she likes boys. Switch asks, “Is this a cult?” Lenny quickly answers, “Yes.” Lenny asks why she is there, Switch tells her they asked for her, a time traveler. Lenny is interested, she wants to see her do it, but Switch tells Lenny she’ll only show ‘him’ her abilities.

“I’m the Magic Man.” David Haller

Switch is taken to David’s place. He comes out and introduces himself in a friendly manner. Switch: “What is this place?” David: “People have their pain. Their hearts are sad. Their minds are tired. I help them.” Switch: “How?” David: “I’m the Magic Man. All I ask is that they stay and keep me company after. Take care of the house. Love each other. I need that.” David tells her his life story, summarizing the past two seasons. She tries to hide her skepticism. To show what he can do, David asks her to think of her bedroom in detail, soon they materialize in her room. He explains he just made it look like they were there. Switch: “You read my mind?” David: “No secrets. That’s one of our rules.” Switch: “How about trust?” David: “I tried that, and it’s better to read people’s minds.” He asks how she is doing, Switch says fine, David asks again, she says fine with less conviction. He’s touched a nerve. David: “How are you?” She finally opens up, “My dad collects robots. Robotto. There’s a room in our apartment. Some are life size. Some toys. Sometimes at night I go in there. I stand very still and pretend I’m a robot too.” She seems a little relieved to get that out. Switch: “Why do you need a time traveler?” David shows her an image of Syd.  Switch: “So it’s a girl thing? You want to go back in time and…what? Get your girlfriend back?” David: “I thought about it. Doing everything again, making different choices, but…it won’t work.”

While they were talking, Division 3 quietly slips into their compound. They use a hook to snatch Squirrel. [His teacup comically swirls in the air before it drops.] A device is lowered into the room Switch and David are in. Kerry Loudermilk (Amber Midthunder) is lowered into the room, she throws a device on David’s head that temporarily blocks his power. He raises his hand to access his power but Kerry uses a katana to chop his arm off. He’s still able to access his power and stop the Division 3 troops’ bullets. Soon he vaporizes them and Kerry. Before he can really get going, Syd Barrett (Rachel Keller) blows him away with a shotgun. Switch is able to escape through time.

Her time chamber has large signs with minutes and hours on them. She turns her Walkman back on. Lessons in Time Travel, Chapter 14. The voice on the cassette begins, “When Choosing a Moment of Return, Remember—If You Land Too Close to the Event You Desire to Change, You May Not be Able to Produce a Different Outcome. Many Factors Create Life’s Episodes. Factors that can’t be Altered within a Finite Period. At the Same Time – We do Not Want to Go Back Too Far. For the Further We Go, the More We Risk Waking – The Demons.” Switch is walking amongst the signs trying to decide how far back in time to go. She goes back one hour. She hears David talking to one of his selves. He is confused when she tells him he was attacked and killed earlier. David assures her he would have heard them coming, she tells him he didn’t before. He teleports them to another room, Lenny and his disciples are fighting Division 3 troops. A soldier grabs Switch, David saves her. He vaporizes Kerry again. Before they can escape, he is distracted when Amahl Farouk (Navid Negahban) walks in. Syd blasts him away again. Switch escapes again, but Farouk notices her.

Switch doesn’t appear in her time chamber, but in a flowery meadow. Farouk appears and tells her, “You’re cheating. Be calm. You are safe. A time traveler. C’est magnifique.” She asks him where she is. Farouk: “The realms of time and space…collide here in the plane. [He’s taken her to the astral plane.] Now…the first time I see you, I think, ‘Interesting’. But the second time… You’re helping him, no?” She denies it and says she has to go. Farouk: “What does he have that you need? Maybe we can make a different arrangement.” Switch [in Mandarin]: “Mr. Amahl Farouk. The reason is simple. He is a man. And you are a robot.” She quickly escapes through time.

“Revenge is not a job.” Amahl Farouk 

Farouk goes to a large propeller airship that houses Division 3, [or this branch looking for David]. Cary Loudermilk (Bill Irwin) is working on constructing an android that will house the Division 3 mainframe. Kerry is hungry and wants him to hurry up. He puts a face on the android, and it’s the face of Ptonomy Wallace (Jeremie Harris), who’s mind had become connected to the mainframe last season. Kerry: “Can we eat now?” Cary: “In a moment. I still need to test his reflexes—” Kerry [Punches Ptonomy in the face]: “Slow.” Farouk joins Clark DeBussy (Hamish Linklater) and his husband Daniel Behr-DeBussy (Keir O’Donnell) who also works for Division 3 and tells Clark his bosses are worried they are spending too much money on David. Clark reminds him that David is going to destroy the world. Farouk tells Clark and Daniel that David has a time traveler now. He ponders, “How do you surprise someone who can go back in time and warn himself?”  Daniel asks Clark, “Why don’t we have a time traveler?” Clark has an ‘easy’ solution to the problem, kill her too. Farouk smiles at these fools.

One of the Vermillion announces that they have found David. They try to calculate what their success rate will be. Farouk finds Syd to tell her they’ve found David. Farouk: “You don’t have to go.” Syd: “I’m going.” Farouk: “Why not stay back? Let us take care of things.” Syd: “He’s not my first boyfriend. He’s not even the first boy to take advantage. There’s a job to do.” Farouk: “Revenge is not a job.” Syd: “It’s not that.” Farouk: “You’re a bad liar. All that love, it doesn’t just disappear. Love must be turned into another emotion, of equal intensity. That is the law of the universe.”  Syd thinks that a bunch of B.S. Farouk reminds her that he is over 2,000 years old, he’s wise. She’s still going with them. Cary gives the troops brainwave blockers that he made so that David will not be able to detect them when they arrive. [That is how they were able to sneak up on a powerful psychic like David, twice.] They make it back down to the ground and use the hook on Squirrel again. Suddenly there is a huge flash. There is a huge crater in the ground, David has teleported his compound. Switch was able to warn him again.

Promo for next week and season.

KBear Review [Read time: 1-3 minutes]

We are introduced to a new character, Switch. She is a time traveler. David now runs a cult, with Lenny being his right-hand. His cult is mostly made up of attractive young women [the best kind]. He is producing a blue drug from his psychic powers, which keeps his cult in a drugged out state. They remind you of the Manson family. I’m sure this won’t end badly. He is actively recruiting a time traveler and Switch shows up. She has a distant father more interested in robots than her. This makes her someone a cult can recruit. He gives her his life story. He doesn’t quite tell her what he needs her for, but it isn’t to try to get back with Syd. It’s probably to change his life so he won’t end up destroying the world. Even though David is killed twice in this episode by Syd, Switch goes back in time to warn him. Farouk notices this and tries to recruit her for their side. She is already attached to David and doesn’t trust Farouk. [Why does everyone in Division 3 seem to trust him so much after all the horrible things he did, it better be mind control, or they are all idiots if not.]

This is the show’s third and final season. I was disappointed how season 2 ended. I didn’t mind David turning bad, but I had some problems with how they got him there. Last season wasn’t as good as Season 1, but by no means was it bad. It was just Season 1 was excellent and Season 2 was more erratic. They let down several of the supporting characters, and sometimes the show got bogged down in its own weirdness. I don’t know how this season is going to end up, but at least it started off strongly. The show is always going to be weird, but how they use the weirdness determines if you’ll like the show. This episode was trippy, but it wasn’t off putting. The newcomer Switch, played by Lauren Tsai was a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t ensnared in all the drama the other characters were in last season, so looking through her eyes, we could enjoy this strange world anew. She played well off of Dan Stevens. We spent most of our time with Switch, but it was time well spent.

The music was psychedelic, beginning with Superorganism’s Something For Your M.I.N.D. It was funny having the actual group do their song on the show.  

The show goes back to the Rolling Stones with 2,000 Light Years From Home when she arrives at David’s cult. The music fit the atmosphere of this trippy place.  

The episode ended with a slowed down version of Fly Like An Eagle from the Steve Miller Band.  

Anthony (Kbear!) Nichols | Editor-in-Chief
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