FX’s new series “Legion” reminds me of that Joseph Heller quote: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” In the case of David Haller, just because he’s a tremendously powerful telepathic telekinetic mutant doesn’t mean he’s not crazy.
That’s both the hook and theme of the “Legion,” based on a Marvel comics character but produced like a cerebral art house version of a superhero series, thrumming with precision and emotion where the genre usually calls for shock and awe, and assembled with an entrancing period aesthetic (it seems to be set in the early 1970s, but that could just be a side-effect of David’s fragile mental state) and stunning, occasionally horrifying visual effects.
The man behind “Legion” is Noah Hawley, the auteur responsible for FX’s “Fargo” anthology, and both shows are wonderfully weird but in very different ways.
The far more straightforward “Fargo” is deeply concerned with morality and populated by plain-spoken folks rooted in place and rules by conventionality. In “Legion,” Hawley takes on identity and individuality, and in doing so deftly manipulates perception and plays with memory so that viewers are almost as disoriented as David, whose lifelong hallucinations and violent outbursts have led to an extended stay at the (delightfully named) Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital.
Played by Dan Stevens, thin and haunted and unrecognizable as the former Matthew Crawley of “Downton Abbey,” David has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He passes time in a narcotic haze with his chatty pal Lenny (Aubrey Plaza of “Parks and Recreation”) until the day that he meets and falls in love with a new patient named Syd (Rachel Keller of “Fargo” season two), a soul so sensitive she can’t bear to be touched. Or at least that’s what David thinks at first.
Enter a secret government agency that employs a super-creepy dude called the Eye (Mackenzie Grey) to track David and to assess his troubling gifts, but he’s foiled, at least temporarily, by Melanie Bird (Jean Smart, another “Fargo” alum), who acts as a sort of mutant whisperer and who runs a proto-Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted.
Melanie and Syd need to convince David that what he considers his mental illness has always been his unharnessed mutant powers: “What if your problems aren’t in your head? What if they aren’t problems?” Is mental illness just an extreme form of individuality? They dive into David’s mind to reinterpret his memories, but aren’t prepared for what they find there, and neither are we.
In the comics world, David is the Charles Xavier’s son, but the Marvel galaxy feels far, far away from “Legion.” While there may be Easter eggs for X-Men fans, “Legion” exists — thrives — in its own (astral) plane.
Grade: A
The 8-episode “Legion” premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. on FX.
Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy or like her on Facebook. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook, and check out Remote Possibilities, the TV podcast from Vicki Hyman and co-host Erin Medley on iTunes, Stitcher or Spreaker, or listen below or here.
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