Legion: Season 1/ Episode 4 “Chapter 4” – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

Legion decides to, in chapter 4, bring on a air of mystery. Present the type of reveals you can’t be confident but with that they get the gears in your head turning.

Episode Focus: Where Is David and What Is Suppressing His Memories? (David, Syd, Ptonomy and Kerry)

Syd and Ptonomy, with their muscle Kerry, search for Philly (Ellie Araiza), David’s ex, in order to go into her memories to fill in the gaps of things that happened. Through her, Ptonomy discovers Dr. Poole is alive so they go to visit him. However, it seems Division Three was using Dr. Poole to set up a trap. One which almost succeeds but then David comes out of his coma and teleports to their location.

Leading to the topic of where in the world was David? Well, he was in the astral plane. The place where Oliver, Melanie’s husband, has been trapped since the 70s and seems to live a comfortable, but lonely, existence. But being that he is weird, and dated, David doesn’t spend much time with him. He leaves and then encounters Lenny. Someone who we are told, by Oliver, is like a parasite. In fact, Lenny has so deeply interwoven herself into David’s brain that he forget she is a he, how much of a fiend and drug pusher she is, and that perhaps she might not be real. Needless to say, it is complicated.

Commentary

I wonder if every few episodes the tone is going to shift like this? For between Syd’s voice over and the very weird stuff Oliver was talking about, I almost thought I was watching the wrong show. But, in a way, not really being firmly sure what this show will do is what makes it attractive.

However, I must not that the whole Benny/Lenny thing has me so lost and confused. Benny, in David’s memories, somehow became a girl. One which looks nothing like Benny at all, even when she is fiending for drugs. Yet, with Oliver noting that the blob, which seemingly is Benny/Lenny being a parasite, maybe it adapted? It knows David can’t say no or be unkind to women, so it changed David’s memories. For imagine a guy acting as Aubrey Plaza does in the role. With her, it is cute, quirky, but with a guy, especially one who looks like Benny, it is creepy, unnerving, and almost repulsive.

But what really is getting me a bit lost and confused is we see Lenny possibly emerging from David after he returns to the real world. Leading me to wonder if David is so powerful that he can bring stuff from inside his head into the real world. If not stuff from the astral plane, in general, into the real world. Meaning, he could bring Oliver back to reality.

Subplot 1: Kerry & Cary (Kerry, Syd, and Cary)

Kerry and Cary have always been an odd duo. Like something which, if this was a comedy, would become a running gag. However, this episode explains that Cary’s mutation is that he and Kerry share a body. Which isn’t really explained in a way which makes sense, for they can be two totally different places at one, but it seems Kerry can become one with Cary. It is a bit more complicated than it needs to be overall, but considering how Kerry gets shot after fighting off Division Three and trying to help Syd and Ptonomy after they are captured, it seems the complex relationship need not be talked about. For it seems Kerry is soon to be dead.

Commentary

I really wanted to see more of Kerry. She is a girl who can kick ass, seems to be a person of color, and made it so Ptonomy wasn’t a token character. Yet, the first episode she opens up, the one she isn’t just wandering about, mostly silent, she gets shot and likely killed. What kind of nonsense is that?

Things to Note | Question(s) Left Unanswered

1. How exactly did Oliver end up in the astral plane? Also, does he have any powers?
2. Amy is in a cell next to Dr. Kissinger.
3. Strangely, Philly’s earring had the same ladder design as can be seen in the astral plane. Pushing the idea that perhaps Syd and Ptonomy may not be in reality. Though the whole episode is wrapped up in leaving you questioning everything. Heck, it could be why Ptonomy said the quote collected below.

Collected Quote(s)

Most people’s memories are unreliable. The things we see, that people say, they change over time. Your past is an illusion.