Does it count as seeing the future if you time travel?

Legion continues its surreal way through the second season in Chapter 10. It begins with an odd conversation on a merry go round between David, Oliver, and Lenny, debating the nature of reality and memory. That conversation gets a bit wide-ranging, and then comes to a deal between David and the Shadow King about finding the King’s body.

The scene shifts to a field that, to me, looks a lot like the one from the credit for Bad Robot productions. Oliver goes to a booth set up in the middle of nowhere and seemingly talks to himself, or at least, another himself. This is followed by a large convoy of Division 3 assets. David is arguing with some of the Admiral’s bodies about the plan of killing Oliver’s body when they find him in hopes of killing the Shadow King. Because that’s worked so well in the past. The group ends up at the booth we just saw, but it’s abandoned and empty except for a music box that triggers some kind of flashback for Syd.

This was apparently all a distraction so Oliver and Lenny could attack Division 3 headquarters with a combination of deadly mental powers and musical number. No, really. Cary talks to the not-manifested Kerry about the pod that kidnapped David last season. Oliver keeps creeping around, going past Melanie in her dark room. Cary finally sees Oliver and tries to talk to him, asking if he’s in there still. The talk doesn’t go anywhere, so he turns Kerry lose to fight. Cary gets dragged away to be confronted by Lenny, who I’m getting more and more curious about the nature of. Kerry tries to go after Oliver, but she’s way out of her league. The others finally get back and find that Cary and Kerry are having some unique problems.

After more weird visuals (which is redundant on this show), Melanie wakes up from a dream or memory of Oliver. She tells the team that Oliver/Farouk is looking for a monk. Because why not? The Admiral tells them a special order of monks was wiped out before David’s time, and those monks supposedly have Farouk’s body. The Admiral also accuses David of lying, which pisses off Syd and Melanie. Melanie suggests that the Admiral not alienate the only one who might be able to kill the monster they’re hunting.

David apparently develops a new power as he reads the death of the various guards from Oliver’s attack. The Admiral spies on him via security monitors. Kerry is dealing with some complications from her new problem, and snapping at David when he checks in on her. He asks her for a favor that she’s really not feeling up to, but things are important enough that they push ahead anyway.

David’s plan sort of works, and he manages to contact Syd in her future. Syd is confused at seeing him there, and drops a lot of hints that don’t sound great for David’s future. He’s worried about what’s been happening in his time on her advice. By some weird logic, his telepathy won’t work on her because it’s the future, and I don’t quite get that, but then, it’s not worth applying logic to a lot of this. The future sounds kind of ugly, but apparently not because of Farouk, who David gets a major spoiler about in passing. They make arrangements to meet up again at some point, which is also a bit weird in my book.

After the commercial, there’s another weird musing on the nature of reality and man being the only animal that goes mad. David gets pushed into a meeting with Agent Clark, who definitely is not in David’s fan club. They spar about David’s motivations, and Clark’s possibly skewed perceptions. It all boils down to them not trusting each other. Of course, Clark might be right, since the next thing David does is reach out to Farouk.

David ends up in the field we’ve seen a few times, back at the fortune teller booth. He and Farouk talk about their place in reality. Farouk taunts David and they end up in a weird kind of fight on the mental plane. Farouk makes a few demands of David and they strike a sort of deal. After David leaves, Farouk and Lenny have a weird conversation, and it seems she’s really not getting the deal she hoped for. Farouk pushes Lenny to think bigger, or at least differently.

Cary and Kerry manage a temporary fix to their problem, in part using an old kids’ show theme. They talk about how to fix this, and we get a glimpse of Kerry’s perspective, as well as seeing things are taking a bit of a toll on her. Melanie talks to David, telling him about how Summerland came to be founded, and her own dreams, or lack thereof. David, in turn, fills her in about the strange conversation he had with Farouk. She reverses her season one position about David’s abilities, and gives him advice about what he and Syd should do. She’s definitely had a major attitude shift since we first met her.

Uncertain now, David goes to talk to Syd. He finds her up on the roof, practicing with her powers. He tries to have a serious conversation with her, but asks her to stop her power’s effect as he’s very distracted. He tells her about her future self, which gets confusing when dealing with powers and time travel, among other things. She tells him about the music box we saw earlier in the episode, and then tells him her take on the odd situation. The episode ends with a hint about where the missing monk is hiding, and it’s closer than you’d think.

What I liked: The writing is clever most of the time. The hint at other threats coming was a welcome break from the Shadow King being the source of all evil. Farouk and Lenny’s conversation was an interesting peek at his viewpoint. David’s confusion about his situation makes perfect sense. It was interesting seeing action junkie Kerry’s outlook on normal life.

What I didn’t: At times, it seems like the show is being weird just to be weird, like with the attack on Division 3. I get it, but I don’t like Melanie’s new dark perspective. They make things so surreal at times, it really impedes the flow of the story.

I’ll give this a 3 out of 5. I wonder whether some of what they hinted at is coming or not.