After a stellar debut, what does Legion have in store for us in Chapter 2?
At the end of the first episode of Legion, David Haller entered a whole new world. He was rescued by Sydney, with the help of mutants Ptonomy and Kerry and their leader, psychiatrist Melanie Bird. This episode, aptly titled “Chapter 2,” will follow David as he leaves whatever government facility he was being held in and enters the outside world.
However large this world turns out to be, it will represent a huge change of pace for David. He had been a resident of the Clockworks Mental Hospital for six years and become accustomed to its pace and it’s environment and somewhat dependent on the drugs provided.
We don’t know at this point exactly where Melanie and her gang of mutants come from, but she did provide some explanation for why they decided to break David out of whatever government facility he was being held in: they need his help in the war. In this episode he begins training to learn to control his powers and use them at will. Watch a promo for this weeks episode in full HERE.
The war between mutants and humans is not a new idea to anyone familiar with the X-Men universe, either the comics or the films. However, given the ambiguity of the timeline in Legion, we cannot be sure what war she is talking about. Then again, because this is set in a parallel universe and not directly connected to the larger franchise (yet), this war may be completely different that the conflicts in those timelines.
Anyway, at this point David doesn’t even know his powers are real, and it unclear if ‘Legion’ (David’s superhero name in the comics) will even exist. On the show it has been established that David was hospitalized for paranoid schizophrenia, whereas in the comics he has dissociative identity disorder, so the ‘Legion’ of personalities that gave him that name may not exist.
However, the official synopsis does reveal that he should at least begin learning about his powers this week. It reads:
"‘David reflects on his past with the help of his new friends.’"
So we should get to see David integrating himself to a certain degree into Sydney’s group of friends/companions. It is clear that he doesn’t suddenly become stable though, because of the continued presence of Lenny in his mind. Remember she was the friend from Clockworks that got killed when Sydney’s consciousness was in David’s body, so she only exists in his mind.
Legion Chapter 2 airs Wednesday, 2/15 at 10 pm on FX