We Get A Second Season Of Legion – Start Planning A Re-Watch Now

 
That was the most widely visible response from Legion fans on social media–that they’ll be re-watching the season soon, but maybe not until after the final two episodes which could alter the way we think and feel about the show’s trajectory. The show works in a way that makes you wonder if you’ve missed small details, or just failed to connect sudden flashes of imagery with other flashes of imagery that occur even episodes later. In other words, it operates in the way that comics sometimes operate, and that is an interesting win.

The FX show has been renewed for a second season, announced by FX, and there seems to be a lot of support at FX of the show, which was created by Noah Hawley, who was also responsible for the critically acclaimed show Fargo, returning for a third season to FX in April.
Legion is an unsual show and viewers have had unusual reactions to it–the “resistant” narrative that has to be built by the viewer of the composite scenes, and the “unreliable narrator” have been issues. It’s not a show you can explain easily to others who have not seen it, but it’s deeply psychological, and the conflict between the X-Men in the show and government agencies is significant, but also kind of side-lined in favor of the psychological narrative. The biggest praise has been reserved for the art design, costuming, and special effects in the show which do present a reality unlike any other we have seen, particularly on a TV show. Ambitious, intentionally a bit awkward, but fully possessed of its own narrative vision, the show has been a milestone for TV in general, and superhero TV even more so.

Since we don’t know the outcome of events this season yet, it’s hard to guess what a second season would be like. The penultimate and final episodes (Chapters 7 and 8) will presumably resolve whether David Haller’s “parasite” entity which renders him even more powerful than he would already be (as Charles Xavier’s son) will be exorcised and what the end result would be if David and co. tried to do so. Or even if the team of X-Men as we know them will survive this big encounter with the Yellow-Eyed Devil.
But, if Noah Hawley believes in a second season as much as he believed in this one, we can be sure it will be visually opulent, quite surprising, and probably just as demanding and rewarding an experience all over again.

The re-watch is inevitable, though. There are probably narratives lurking that will influence next season–we just haven’t pieced them all together yet.