Time (or at least the plot) comes to a standstill as David confronts the devastating revelation of the origins of Lenny’s new body. In an infinite multiverse, how many different versions can there be of the same person and the life they lead?

So, last time out right before the credits rolled, we found out exactly where Lenny had got that new body of hers from that was confusing everyone so much, and fair to say that it was not a revelation for which David (or I) was prepared. The question remains as to why the Shadow King would do what he did, but certainly if the writers were going for impact, then they nailed it on right there.

But if last week’s episode was bizarre, this is on a whole other scale. Eschewing any sort of linear progression at all, Legion instead chooses to focus its fourteenth chapter on a visual, hour-long representation of the infinite multiverse theory – i.e. the idea that for every decision that a person takes, their life branches off in a new direction, and all the different decisions that could be taken are their own separately branched universes with their own subtly (or not so subtly) different realties created by the varying outcomes.

In a show like Legion, it comes as no surprise to find this sort of philosophical introspection – indeed most episodes have some element of this which pops up to break the narrative flow for a few minutes before we crack on with the story. The difference here is that there is no story, or rather that there are fragments of several different stories in the brief glimpses we are granted of various different ‘branches’ that David’s life could/did/might have taken.

His sister is present in some, but not in others. In all of them, David is very different, though familiar aspects of him remain in each, so that it’s not just his features and voice to which we as the audience can relate. It’s an unsettling, jarring experience because you find yourself waiting for this to be over, for the episode ‘proper’ to begin, and yet it simply carries on regardless.

But what it does do, overall, is deal with the sort of emotional impact of a loss on the scale of what David suffered in a very personal, real way. When we lose someone, it does feel as if the whole world stops. We become oddly detached from a world that spins on around us, unable to fathom why people are smiling and birds are singing when our world has so singularly crashed down around us. This is that pain and trauma writ large in a unique way, making us feel that sense of disconnect, that uncomfortable longing, that feeling that the moment in which we are in might stretch on for a lifetime or longer. It may just be the weirdest and best episode of the show to date.

Verdict: Continues to be the most ground-breaking show in a crowded genre, and by quite some substantial distance. This episode hurts to watch, but in all the best ways. 10/10

Greg D. Smith