Legion season 2, episode 2 recap: Looking for Farouk
In this week’s episode of Legion, David continues looking for Farouk aka the Shadow King and more questions arise.
“We all die eventually, the real tragedy is forgetting to live.”
David is off helping the Shadow King find his body, which means he’s helping Oliver and Lenny. One moment he’s with them and the next he’s with Syd and Ptonomy. David finds out that mustached androids are called Vermillion and knowing that they’re androids doesn’t make it any less weird. As usual, Legion wants things to make as little sense as possible for everyone.
Other than just taking the form of Lenny and Oliver, the Shadow King knows how to cause some disruption. Oliver gets to Kerry and Lenny gets to Cary and that’s when things start to really go awry. When Kerry tries to go back into Cary, he goes into her instead and his arm is sticking out of her.
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Through Oliver, the Shadow King also killed guards when he first got into the building, but spared the kids. He also took the form of the Angry Boy at one point, so there’s a running theme of the Shadow King having some sort of connection to children.
Melanie gets involved more in this episode by meeting with the Vermillion and Fukuyama. It doesn’t get them any closer to finding the Shadow King, but it is good to see her back in action. However, we still haven’t seen too much of her and her leadership is something that’s missing from the group dynamic right now.
Putting Kerry at the helm didn’t take away any of Cary’s knowledge and that allows David to go back into the tank and try to get ahead of the Shadow King. He attempted to throw them off their game, but it didn’t end up working. David takes a trip to the future, which they show in a glitchy format. Syd is missing an arm and David is dead at that point in time. Syd even sounds robotic, which certainly gives the scene a futuristic vibe.
Legion is full of interesting creative choices and the cinematography stands out. There was a shot where Oliver is standing outside the room full of people with chattering teeth and as the camera moves, Oliver is shown briefly as Farouk.
The show also graces us with some wonderful infographics on ticks and bloodhounds. During that portion of the show, Legion informs us that humans are the only ones who go mad. It’s hard to even begin to dispute that statement.
Earlier in the episode, Oliver was at a fortune teller stand in the middle of a field. David finds himself there after his conversation with Clark. His meeting is with Farouk as himself instead of as Oliver. He calls David the creator of reality and that right there confirms that we have no idea just how far David’s powers go. Next thing you know the two are wrestling, then Farouk pulls out a sword and it’s all as wacky as you’d expect it to me.
Lenny is in the field with Farouk and in the real world she’s dead. She wants to leave, but she has no body to return to. Farouk unzips the field and him and Lenny are left in just a white space. Aubrey Plaza excels in the role of Lenny and we get to see that here. She’s just the right amount of anxious as Lenny in this moment and really sells how much she wants to get out without overdoing it.
By the end of the episode, Cary and Kerry are separated again. Kerry hasn’t been outside of Cary for very long before and her hair started turning white already. This is an interesting development because we have no idea how bad the consequences of the two staying apart will be.
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To close out the episode, Syd and David have a chat after she changes herself back to normal from trading places with a cat. This felt like a brief escape for Syd. In that moment, she didn’t have to be worried about everything going on. She could just chill out as a cat and have a bit of a reset. After that, we’re left with a cliffhanger where there’s one man in the room of people with chattering teeth who doesn’t fit in. He’s the only one who can move around.
One episode of Legion never answers all the questions that arise in other episodes and this one is no exception. Things feel like they’re starting to come together, but that doesn’t mean they actually will. If there’s anything I’ve learned about Legion, it’s to question everything and believe little of what you actually see until you’re given a reason to believe it.
Legion airs on FX at 10pm EST on Tuesdays. Be sure to tune in!