NOTE: Full spoilers for this episode of, “Legion”, including the true identity of the Devil with Yellow Eyes and a major character death, are present in this review
Things are looking pretty bad for the Summerland mutants, as David and Syd are about to be riddled with bullets, and the mysterious mental parasite continues to have everyone trapped in a mental projection resembling David’s former mental institution. With the first season of Legion nearing its end though, this week’s yet again excellent episode, “Chapter 7”, finally started offering more concrete answers about the show’s and David’s backstory, on top of finally unmasking the mysterious ‘Devil with Yellow Eyes’ at long last!
The monster’s identity comes out as Cary first meets Oliver in his abode within the Astral Plane, which also explains how Cary was inspired to lure Melanie to the frozen scene of imminent death at the end of last week’s episode. Oliver helps Cary come to the realization of what, or who, is truly tormenting David around the same time too. Yes, as many Marvel/X-Men fans already predicted, David’s ‘monster’ in the guise of Lenny is indeed Amahl Farouk, a.k.a. Marvel Comics villain, Shadow King, which finally gives Legion another definitive connection to X-Men lore aside from David and his mysterious origins!
On top of allowing Cary and Melanie to start figuring out a way to save David and Syd, Oliver also creates some glasses for Cary to give to the other Summerland mutants, starting with Syd, which can allow them to see through Shadow King’s illusions. Syd and Kerry manage to keep moving on, though are nonetheless pursued by The Eye, who continues to remain particularly fixated on Kerry. This leads into a squeamishly glorious scene later, as Shadow King watches Syd and Kerry continue to move about the illusion, and doesn’t take too kindly to The Eye intervening in the process of eliminating them!
Before that though, we check in with David, who is still isolated in a dark corner of his mind, trapped and banging on a mental coffin in total darkness. Fortunately, David’s powers create a rational personality with a humourous British accent, which allows David to transport himself into a classroom and reason out his situation. This pretty blatantly serves as a benefit to the audience as much as David, helping to clean up any confusion for those who aren’t well-versed in X-Men comics lore, especially where David is concerned in the printed panels.
Essentially, this scene allows David to vocally put together that Shadow King was an enemy of his father, no doubt a powerful psychic mutant himself, with Shadow King battling and losing to David’s father on the Astral Plane. A weakened Shadow King nonetheless latched on to the newborn David though, which is part of the reason why he was adopted out to the Haller family. We also separately hear from Amy, after Shadow King decides to interrogate her himself, that David was brought to the Haller house by a mysterious man, with a flash of a very noteworthy wheelchair confirming what Marvel/X-Men fans would have already known, and uninitiated viewers will be happy to find out; David is the son of X-Men leader, Professor Charles Xavier!
With the realization that he can overpower Shadow King’s illusions, David gets to work using his mental prowess to shatter the hospital fantasy, unknowingly threatening the time limit of Cary, Oliver and Melanie, who are still trying to figure out how to save David and Syd from the Astral Plane. Cary manages to put a device on David that functions to isolate the Shadow King and neutralize him though, just as Oliver uses his command of the Astral Plane to help position everyone to the desired effect, right before they’re forced out of the Astral Plane by David’s powers. Melanie also goes downstairs to see that the real Rudy is dying in the basement, and that the impostor firing a machine gun is actually The Eye in disguise! Viewers may have already put this together, but if you’re sick of The Eye’s shenanigans, then Shadow King had one big trick up his sleeve to sort him out! This all played out in the awesome stylings of a twisted silent film to boot, continuing to flex the high points of Legion’s demented, unpredictable style to fantastic effect!
You see, when Shadow King corners Syd and Kerry, right before Cary is able to neutralize him with his device, Shadow King decides that he’s sick of The Eye, and brutally destroys him by picking him up and imploding him with telekinesis. This has The Eye violently hemorrhaging in the real world and dying, which takes care of the machine gun problem to a point, though that doesn’t fix the bullets! Fortunately, Cary’s quick reaction allows David to get lucid long enough to use his powers to catch the bullets in mid-air, saving the lives of himself and Syd, and finally allowing the Summerland crew, plus Amy, to return to their headquarters!
This would have probably been a decent place to end Season One, now that Amy is with her brother again, Summerland is living to fight another day (mostly), and Oliver is even back in the real world at last to boot! With Season Two of Legion already confirmed though, and one episode left in the Season One order, you know that the threats to David and Summerland are certainly not finished! Predictably then, Division Three comes to raid Summerland at the end of the episode, complete with Hamish Linklater’s unnamed interrogator having miraculously survived the massive electrocution that David utilized to escape his captors in the show’s very first episode! The interrogator is heavily disfigured, and is very eager to even the score with David, though as the Shadow King appears to crack the mental coffin that he’s now stuck in, this ‘victory’ for Division Three might end up being a massacre in next week’s season finale!
Legion continues to rocket toward a very exciting season climax with outstanding momentum this week, especially now that uninitiated viewers can finally be filled in on several more of the forces that are driving the show. Finally, we know for sure that David’s monster is indeed Shadow King, opening the door for loads of exciting developments with both David’s lineage and the Astral Plane, and we also get hard proof that David’s father is Professor X, if you weren’t previously aware. The Professor X connection is no doubt something being intentionally withheld until Season Two, but in the meantime, even with The Eye now being dead, Division Three is clearly still a huge problem for Summerland. Considering that the Shadow King is about to get loose again though, they’ll probably wish that they’d stayed at home soon!