David struggles to free Syd from her Mental Maze, some difference in this one compared to the others leaving him groping for answers in an unfamiliar land.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Legion is that it breaks an awful lot of the tropes of comic book television and not only gets away with doing so, but actually is all the stronger for it. Where most shows pepper their pseudo-scientific goings on with the eye candy of action in the greatest amounts their budgets allow, Legion is content to spend whole scenes (and in this case whole episodes) doing relatively little, but in exquisite detail.

Syd is stuck in her Mind Maze, just like Ptonomy and Melanie, and so, as with them, David has jumped into her mind with her to try to retrieve her. There’s just one small issue – Syd’s ‘core desire’ doesn’t seem to be as easily revealed as the others, and David is confronted with much more of a puzzle to work out.

By way of this, we get to see a lot of flashbacks to Syd’s early life, from her actual birth right up until her teenage years. We are afforded a glimpse into what seems to have been a fairly loving supportive home environment with her mother, contrasted with a miserable time being bullied at school. It all helps to build a slightly richer image of Syd the person, who she is and why she is the way she is.

Gradually, over the course of the episode, we (and David) also learn some darker details and deeper truths. These are things about Syd that we wouldn’t necessarily have guessed, and they absolutely have a bearing on how we view the character. Suffice it to say, the episode itself serves as a detailed and comprehensive deconstruction of a character in order to lead to a truth about them. It’s the sort of thing another show might devote ten, maybe fifteen minutes to at a push. Here, it’s pretty much the entirety of the episode.

The rest gives us a brief glimpse into what’s happening in the outside world. The death of the monk last time out seems to have triggered some changes, and this may cause further complications for David’s mission moving forwards. The ending brings us another complication to add to that pile, though whether this one will help or hinder, remains to be seen.

Rachel Keller and Dan Stevens do a fair bit of the dramatic lifting here, helped by the performances of the actresses playing younger versions of Syd. It’s an odd episode, even by the standards of the show, and it’s certainly not one that packs much in the way of action or plot progression from a quantitative point of view, but qualitatively, it’s as fascinating and mesmerizing as ever.

Verdict: A little slow even by the standards of the show, if you are a fan you will be mesmerized. If you aren’t, then this certainly won’t convert you. Wonderfully dense and utterly insane all in one. 8/10

Greg D. Smith