The 6 Best And 6 Worst Episodes Of Legion

Noah Hawley's "Legion," a psychologically-minded take on superhero horror, offers viewers a nightmare-fueled exploration of toxic masculinity, delusion, and the devastating consequences of poorly-treated (and misdiagnosed) mental illness. This is all patched together with trippy visuals, playful musical sequences, surrealist animation, eerie scores, and storylines that range from strange to gut-wrenching. Over three rich and narratively satisfying seasons, viewers get to watch David's descent into madness and villainy, as well as Syd's tumultuous journey to become the kind of hero the world really needs.

This dark, comedic, and emotionally complex gem of a show is at its best when it strikes a careful balance between the weird and the traditional while simultaneously embracing its horror elements — particularly when that horror stems from David's mind or the Shadow King himself. It's when "Legion" veers too far into all the whacky madness, or falls back onto straightforward genre fare, that it stumbles and seems to lose its way.

While "Chapter 2" of "Legion" has a solid rating of around an 8 on IMDb and helps orient viewers to the show's universe, it's a pale follow-up to a pretty explosive pilot. Whereas the playful premiere thrills with mind-bending quirkiness, haunting imagery, dark comedy, and a touch of budding romance, this next entry presents a much quieter, more straightforward, and slower-burning mystery that some might find underwhelming. 

As points in its favor, the episode contains lingering dread, glimpses of the Devil with the Yellow Eyes, and the world's creepiest storybook. It's also an important storyline in that it reiterates that David Haller always has been — and always will be — an unreliable narrator. "All of the visions of the past seem incomplete or distorted to some degree," wrote Nick Harley of Den of Geek. Essentially, viewers can't trust anything David does, says, or thinks because even he can't trust himself.

David meets the mutants who live and work at Summerland, including Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) and Ptonomy Wallace (Jeremie Harris) — a man whose abilities involve projecting himself and others into people's memories. As David settles into the facility and the relationship between him and Syd continues to blossom, the Summerland team attempts to help the troubled protagonist understand and control his powers via "memory work." Problem is, there's something evil lurking inside David's psyche. For an added layer of trauma, David begins hallucinating the recently-deceased Lenny — who might not actually be Lenny at all.

As demonstrated by the "Pine Barrens" episode of "The Sopranos," some notable shows have incredibly successful bottle stories. But while "Chapter 6" of "Legion" enjoys a solid rating of around an 8 on IMDb, it doesn't quite make the cut. At least, that's the view of Empire's James White, who gave the installment a 3 out of 5 stars, claiming, "the whole episode feels self-indulgent and dull compared to anything that has come before." The entry's basic story concept has become something of a cliché in the genre world. As a result, it's a relatively straightforward and traditional narrative.

Following their confrontation with the parasitic mutant that's latched itself to David, the Summerland team is thrust into a shared hallucination on the astral plane — and none the wiser regarding their predicament. In the illusion, they're all patients at Clockworks and under the care of Dr. Lenny Busker. Unlike the others, Syd sees through the cracks of this false reality. And her reward for her perception and growing awareness that this isn't real life? Bugs in her cherry pie. Worse, she can't seem to convince anyone else, and when she tries to tell David things aren't right, he talks of how much the routine at Clockworks helps him. How much he needs it. Meanwhile, an increasingly frustrated Lenny finds herself bored of playing doctor, but also incapable of taking full control of David.

Ready.Steady.Cut.'s Jonathan Wilson calls this episode, which presents David as a sort of mutant version of Charles Manson, "refreshingly slight," pointing to the "human" conversation between David and Syd and commenting on how David feels more dangerous than ever before. As The A.V. Club's Alex McLevy puts it, that's perhaps the "most meaningful sequence" of "Chapter 21." In fact, the IMDb ratings for this episode dip below an 8, marking it as one of the show's worst. This particular narrative wavers because it leans a little too far into all the trippy weirdness.

David uses his powers of suggestion on a jealous Lenny, and Jia-Yi walks David through her time traveling skills. Utterly dismayed when he learns he can't travel in time with her, he tells her his ultimate goal is to widen her scope, because his plan to save the world hinges on his ability to go back and change things himself. In addition, the D3/Summerland team devises a plan to re-capture Lenny by using Squirrel, a cult member they picked up during their failed raid. But viewers soon learn she's three steps ahead of them when she dons a top hat and plays the part of the Mad Hatter in her own twisted, drugged-out version of Alice in Wonderland in order to extract information, evade the attack, and make her own move: capturing Cary for David (who needs the man's skills to help enhance Jia-Yi's powers).

Rated over a 7.5 on IMDb, "Chapter 25" is essentially the "Legion" version of "The Three Little Pigs." In this take on the fairy tale, viewers see Syd growing up in a foreign land (the astral plane), with Oliver and Melanie Bird acting as her parents after Oliver stumbles upon the infant Syd while wandering the "countryside." The baby's arrival piques the interest of Jerome (the "Wolf," played by Jason Mantzoukas), who would like nothing more than to get his paws on her. While he's soon shooed away from the straw cottage by Melanie, she frets that he'll blow their house down, and suggests that they move.

As the years pass, Syd ages, and the family relocates into the city. The Wolf, for his part, continues to lurk, haunting Syd with whispers about real-life horrors like the Holocaust and warning her of sexually-transmitted illnesses. On top of that, she begins dreaming of reality. Turns out, Melanie and Oliver have been raising her to be the kind of hero the world needs. The one who just might be able to save it.

Den of Geeks' Nick Harley considered the episode almost "too cute," lamenting that "everything is cloaked in a coat of whimsy so thick that it feels suffocating." Though this entry backs off on the horror in favor of leaning a little too far into the weird, it does feature a rap battle between Jemaine Clement and Jason Mantzoukas. And that makes it worth watching.

The eighth episode of the show's sophomore season hovers around a 7.5 rating on IMDb. Critic Russ Fischer called it "a grab-bag of ideas arranged into something that looks like an episode." The A.V Club's Alex McLevy viewed it more favorably, ranking it a B, but also acknowledged that the John Hamm voice-overs had gotten stale.

A lot happens here — arguably to the narrative's detriment. The Summerland team races against Farouk, trying to locate the Shadow King's body before he can. As Oliver, Farouk turns Melanie into his puppet. Future Syd attempts to convince David to help — rather than destroy — the Shadow King, because the parasitic mutant will be pivotal in saving the world, but David's still reeling from the murder of Amy. A physically dead but mentally alive Ptonomy uncovers Admiral Fukyama's origin story — and the location of Farouk's body. On top of that, Syd confides in Clark, receiving perhaps the worst advice regarding her fracturing relationship, and David recruits a vulnerable and newly-alive Lenny to his cause.

Syd and Clark's bleak and haunting conversation, in which he basically tells her she must preserve her relationship, lest David destroy the world, serves as one of the moments that solidifies David's true narrative trajectory. "The pressure that puts on Syd, to endure being with a man for the sake of his feelings at the sake of her own, is dehumanizing, unfair and poignantly uncomfortable in the #MeToo era and while teenage boys are currently mowing down classmates who didn't reciprocate their feelings," wrote Den of Geeks' Nick Harley.

Though The A.V. Club's Alex McLevy rated this a B+, claiming "it provides much-overdue insight into Melanie Bird's actions" and compelling social commentary regarding all these destructive men, Vulture's Oliver Sava gave the entry a dismal 2 out of 5 stars.

Barely surpassing a 7 rating on IMDb, and ranking at the very bottom of the show's sorted list, "Chapter 17" pivots from the season's main arc to trace the events that led to Melanie knocking Clark out before he could complete his part of David's plan. Mourning her husband once more — and to a degree, herself — viewers see Melanie self-medicating with hallucinogenic Vapor while spiraling into an existential crisis. That is, until the sudden appearance of Oliver disrupts her apathetic, depression-fueled wallowing. Unfortunately, it's not actually Oliver. It's the Shadow King. Worse, Farouk gets straight to work on manipulating her fragile state by leveraging her love for Oliver.

Meanwhile, Cary and Kerry have a heart-to-heart, and Lenny, thrilled to be in the real, physical world again, returns to old habits as the piece of Amy who's still alive inside of Lenny asks for her body back. While not successful on that front, Amy does at least convince Lenny to get her act together long enough to enact their part of the mission — which involves picking up a giant weapon from a sketchy parking lot and being transported to the desert.