With David’s sister Amy held prisoner and being tortured by Division 3, the need to discover and embrace the full range of his powers becomes ever more pressing. But how far can Melanie and the others push down that rabbit hole safely? And what is it that David’s mind is closing off?

Week by week, this series feels more and more like a psychodrama that just happens to be set in a world in which people with superpowers exist. The deconstruction of David’s character is being done slowly, peeling away layer by layer, with the character himself apparently as much a passenger on this journey as the viewer.

Again, the narrative jumps between multiple times and viewpoints, not just because of Ptonomy and Melanie’s shepherding of David through his memories as they seek to unlock the parts still mysterious to even David himself, but also via flashbacks, dream sequences and a recurrence of conversing with the still very dead Lenny.

The cleverness lies in the fact that as more gets revealed, more questions arise. Is Lenny merely a manifestation of David’s fractured, guilty mind or is he actually talking to the dead? Who is the Yellow Eyed Man and what is his link (if any) to the nightmarish figure of the World’s Angriest Boy in the World? And just exactly how many powers does David have and how powerful might he become?

Set against these tantalising questions are more practical considerations such as how he might concentrate on these things knowing that his sister is at the less than tender mercies of Division 3, and how he is supposed to overcome his mortal shame at his past as an eternal junkie, thief and general wastrel as he takes people he barely knows, as well as the woman he loves, through the morass of his worst and darkest memories.

There’s a genuine sense of claustrophobia and fear in the way that the more nightmarish scenes play out, and the sense that every small detail in every scene, no matter how trivial, will become of vital importance at some point. When David says, in a vulnerable moment between himself and Syd, that everyone keeps saying he isn’t really insane’, the unspoken question is obvious – what if his powers aren’t an alternative to his being mentally unstable, but merely another facet of who he is?

For a show that knows exactly how to put on an impressive set piece when it needs to, it’s telling that one of the most powerful moments in the episode is a simple hug. But that’s Legion all over – a light touch to the craft that renders every small interaction and detail important in the wider canvass of the story it tells.

Verdict: Honestly this is an increasingly difficult show to objectively review. It’s dense and packed and directed with passion, clarity and concision. Who knew that comic book TV could be this different and this good? 9/10

Greg D. Smith