The game-changing series gets a succinct and gorgeous tribute.
If you missed Noah Hawley’s Legion on FX, you missed one of the greatest television series to come along since, well, Noah Hawley’s Fargo. Not only is Legion an inventive take on the Marvel Comics’ character it’s based on, it’s also a new kind of “superhero” story, one that places fragile humanity ahead of indestructible superhumanity, one that delves into the cursed psyche of the genetically blessed, one that emphasizes how not all heroes are born heroic, and one that reveals the power — great or small — derived from mastering our personal flaws.
Besides being a fascinating narrative game of Chutes and Ladders played on a Moebius Strip between two mirrors, and in addition to featuring career-altering performances from Dan Stevens (Beauty and the Beast), Rachel Keller (Fargo), Bill Irwin (Interstellar), Jean Smart (Designing Women) and Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Rec) — who is “Alex DeLarge,” “Hannibal Lecter,” “Darth”-fucking-“Vader” good here — Legion is also, for my money at least, the most visually dynamic drama currently on television, one that successfully manages to capture multiple realms of being — physical, metaphysical, and mental — in distinct yet complementary ways. I for one never found myself marveling at the “effects” of Legion, rather at the splendor of its universe in total, which is a credit, I think, to how the visuals integrated themselves into the storyline, and how they created the real environment of the series: the intangible, invisible mysteries of a mind in distress.
If you missed Legion, I implore you with all my meager credentials to leave here now and remedy that.
But if you have seen Legion, then like me you’re going to enjoy the hell out of the following tribute video from editor Adrian Conlon. Normally I don’t post tribute videos, as they don’t tend to offer any particular insight or delve into interesting techniques, but when a show is as captivating and masterful, both narratively and visually, as Legion is, really any chance I get to put some of it in front of your eyes, I’m going to.
Legion is currently available On Demand and over at FX’s website. It’s also available for pre-order at an awesomely-low price on DVD and Blu-Ray over at Amazon.
