Legion Season 3 Episode 3
We were never supposed to get Charles Xavier on Legion. When the show was developed, FX and Fox made it quite clear that though a passing reference may be made to David’s famous mutant father, the character was unlikely to appear on screen. In Fox’s eyes, having Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy appear as Professor X on the FX series would only further muddle the already complicated X-Men timeline, and Noah Hawley’s wigged out vision for his series didn’t quite align with their prized X-Men franchise cash cow, so having another actor portray one of the principal leads of their series wouldn’t be preferable either. With the Fox-Disney merger, all of those hang-ups and worries would disappear. Fox’s X-Men franchise took a bow with the disappointing, under-performing Dark Phoenix, and without having to shepherd the mighty mutant IP for another round of films, Fox allowed Noah Hawley to play with one of their prized toys, this time casting Game of Thrones alum Harry Lloyd as the powerful telepath. It’s a wonderful development for the series, as the introduction of Charles Xavier and his lover Gabrielle Haller leads to one of the series’ finest hours. Per Hawley’s style, Charles and Gabrielle’s origins aren’t cut and copied from comic book lore to the screen, but core elements of their backstory remain in place. Charles meets Gabrielle, a Holocaust survivor, in a mental institution, instantly mirroring the meet cute of David and Syd in Season 1. For a show that has delighted in masking what era the events take place in, this is the first solid conformation that the late 60s/70s aesthetic of David’s world isn’t just a stylistic choice. Anyway, Charles uses his ability to help the near catatonic Gabrielle (played by Mr. Robot’s Stephanie Corneliussen) clear out the debilitating trauma she experienced. Charles knows that his powers are intrusive and can be easily abused, highlighted in a brilliant, unsettling black and white scuffle in a foxhole during Charles’ apparent time as a soldier, so he makes it clear that he only uses his powers to help. Toward the episode’s end, David is able to make himself visible during one of the Shadow King’s disturbing tricks on Gabrielle, but Charles returns just in the nick of time to interject and dispel David from the past. However, in the aftermath, Gabrielle is returned to her catatonia as the Shadow King takes advantage of a distracted Charles and swoops into David. It’s still unclear how time travel exactly works in this story, so it’s possible that David’s interactions with his mother from the future are and always have been partly to blame for David’s essential possession. Another interesting wrinkle is the presence of the World’s Angriest Boy doll. I took it to be a physical representation of the trauma or mental health issues that people pass down to their children, but it could also represent that the memories or past that we are witnessing have already been distorted by the Shadow King. Regardless, after David is driven out of the past, he’s desperate to return, but Switch is too drained to help him. She loses another tooth, which seems to be a consequence for using her time traveling abilities. There’s no telling how David will react to Switch not being able to help him in the way that he envisioned. We’re left with the lingering, fantastically creepy image of Amahal rocking baby David on his knee.
