Posted in: Legion, Review, TV | Tagged: fx, legion, Legion season 2, Legion season 2 episode 8, Legion season 2 episode 8 "Chapter 16", marvel

Let's Talk About Legion Season 2 Episode 8, "Chapter 16"

Published Wed, 23 May 2018 16:50:14 -0500

by Mary Anne Butler

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We keep saying it but Legion remains a high point of episodic television. It's trippy, very psychedelic, and strangely addictive.

The story of mutants and mental powers being told in the rich visceral era the original Chris Claremont X-Men stories were placed in was a genius move, and one that sets the show apart on FX from any of the other comic book based properties.

If you didn't see last week's episode "Chapter 15", you can catch up here.

Season 2 episode 8 "Chapter 16" has another simple synopsis (seriously, sensing a theme here):

"The path forward is revealed."

Things that happened in Legion s2e8: (we live update as the show airs)

The episode begins with a flash of a desert, with the phrase "To create fear, hold up a mirror", a Mi-Go monk adage
David and Syd are sitting on a set of steps together, and she asks him how they'll find Farouk's body with the Monk being dead
Syd asks about FutureSyd, if she'd know, and David tells her he's 'ended things' with FutureSyd
Ptonomy is watching this convo from his place inside the binary room (sure looks like the inside of Fukuyama's basket)
Oh hey, it IS Fukuyama's basket.
Fukuyama shows Ptonomy a view from his past- a young man in college being recruited for his mutant abilities
Turns out Ptonomy went through the exact same surgery that Fukuyama did, and the old woman in the rocking chair we saw flashes of was there at Ptonomy's bedside
The Monk is in the binary room too, and Ptonomy reaches out for him
One of The Vermillion visits David in the restaurant, and tells him she's actually Ptonomy
Ptonomy starts to tell David that he knows where to find Farouk's body, but he's struggling for control of The Vermillion's voicebox
A heavenly choir is singing while Farouk-in-Oliver's body drives, he arrives at Chez d Rest, and visits the old woman from Ptonomy's memory
She knows where his body is, and he's after the information
She agrees to tell him, if he gives her "The Endless"
David goes back into the tank, and sees the location of where Farouk's body is.
He's debating with himself as to whom he should tell while "Comanche Moon" by The Black Angels plays
Lenny is still snapping her way through madness
David goes to visit her, asks if there is anything left of his sister within Lenny
She asks if she's really "here", we know she's losing whatever ounce of sanity she had left
David meets Loudermilk and Clark in the hall, and taps them on the forehead to control them
He leaves a note for Syd, and goes to "find the monster"
Syd has a meeting with Clark, and she talks to him about David, about their romance and relationship
Melanie is sitting just outside the room listening to the conversation, no telling how that's going to play out later
While David is out trying to find Farouk's body, he releases Lenny from her cell and she escapes on a motorcycle
Syd finds David, and she strikes him, calling him an asshole and reminding him that she's on his side
Turns out the monks continually reshape the desert to throw Farouk off the trail
These side stories are like a modern-day Esops' Fables, and I love them
A lightning storm hits the desert, Syd and David travel through it and encounter an abandoned camp site
Inside the tent, they find skelletons- it's them.
"You better have a plan," Syd tells David
Clark wakes up from a dream and remembers that David influenced him, and it starts a chain reaction of David trying to reach Melanie
Oh hey it's NOT David reaching her, it's actually Oliver, so that Farouk can use her