Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

LEGION Recap: 1x08

WELLNTRULY IS CAUGHT UP ON LEGION ASK ME ANYTHING

Except not to calculate the volume of love I have for this show BECAUSE WE WILL BE HERE ALL DAY

Season 1, ‘Chapter 8’

Ch. 8 begins unlike any of the previous episodes, and I’m not even talking about how the show that hasn’t had a credits sequence this whole time suddenly OPENS with one — like we’re zoomed up superclose on an old TV screen playing the mod-y green and purple rectangles that usually end the episodes, like an abstract on an abstract, (frick), scored with this JAUNTY CREEPY HARPSICHORD?

But the harpsichord takes us right to the difference I actually mean: Ch. 8 starts off like an episode of Hannibal.

Though they’re mentioned in the same sentence a lot, I actually don’t find Legion to be that similar to Hannibal usually! I feel they have more overlaps than they do similarities, if that makes sense? Sure on paper they share a number of themes and features, things like “radically sensory form of storytelling” and “interest in psychology/psychiatry” and “unstable male lead provides predictably unstable vantage point on proceedings.” But in manner — in tone, in sense of humor — they’re totally different colors.

Which is what makes the first sequence of Ch. 8 stand out so much, because here I suddenly see Noah Hawley’s #confirmed love for Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal in a major way. On a broad level, pulling us out of the story that was going on to go tell a separate, contained story about someone else — in this case, LINKLATER, oh heck yeah — that is very Hannibal. Wholly somewhere else for an extended period of time, an isolated time dripping mood poem, oh SO Hannibal.

And when it comes to the details, get a peep of THIS:

Aesthetic hospital room, check
Morbid obsession with disfigurement, check
Absurdly grand home, check
Richly patterned pajamas, check
Homosexuals, a-check

Because ohho yes, here’s what this sequence reveals straight away, pun intended: OUR INTERROGATOR FROM THE PILOT HAS A LOVING HUSBAND AND SON. LEGION. THAT LAST IS ITALICIZED FOR EMPHASIS BUT YOU CAN’T TELL BECAUSE OF TITLING CONVENTIONS.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

platoapproved replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x07

i knew you would love this one in particular

tod-und-schwerkraft replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x07

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO RECAP THIS EPISODE & ITS SILENT FILM INTERLUDES! (Time to go read it!)

hanfangrahamk replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x07

Amazing. So much to love. And your recap makes me want to rewatch!

I’M SO HAPPY TO BE IN THIS LEGIONNAIRES SOCIETY

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

memory-for-trifles asked:

Jeff Russo's nickname for the Bolero piece is "Fauxlero", I just wanted to make sure you knew that beautiful piece of trivia.

Oh my god

Russsoooooooo!!! 

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

ehonauta replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x07

Ok, that’s it. I’m in. Where can I watch this program?

YES YES WELCOME TO LEGION, MY DAYMARE DREAM PROGRAM!! 

Watching it: If you or someone who likes you has a cable log-in, you can stream the complete 8-episode first season on FX’s website for (checks) 10 more days. It is also on Hulu for possibly longer?? I do not have Hulu so this is a guess. It is also available for à la carte purchase off iTunes and Amazon Prime, etc.

And this is just a blanket statement for just, everyone: IF YOU LIKE SOMETHING FOR PETE’S SAKE WATCH IT LEGALLY SO THAT THEY CAN AFFORD TO MAKE MORE OF IT, YOU SELF-DEFEATING BUTT-CHILDREN.

Okay I’ve said my piece.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

spaceoperetta replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x07

also OH MOY GOD I DIDN’T KNOW THAT RE: BOLERO THAT’S AMAZING

I WAS LIKE A FUCKING MINIONS GIF WHEN THAT SONG STARTED

NICHE NEURO-NERD CONTENT I AM LIVING

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

LEGION Recap: 1x07

Legion, which has been only escalating the surreal musical interludes that turn me into a pinwheel in a high wind, has in this latest episode rolled out a six (SIX) minute long literal silent film sequence set to a remix of Ravel’s Boléro, and just, respectfully, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Advance notice: this recap is going to contain me getting very intently excited about neurology, as well as multiple links to articles about cocktail ice.

In fact yes, this X-Men program is probably my perfect television show.

And this, one of my favorite TV episodes of all time. 

OF ALL TIME. 

Season 1, ‘Chapter 7’

We’re returned into the middle of it, gliding along one of the empty hospital corridors of David’s mind as it fucking bends like a sinking ship.

Oh my god am I about to yell Inception again over this DREAM BREAKING DOWN?

Well I can tell you something that’s certainly breaking down: Kerry’s composure. Our strange, scrappy Kerry is absolutely terrified out of her wits, trying to escape from The Eye in this flickering warren of remembered hallways left behind in David’s head. Walter follows her, whistling, unbothered, while phantom figures surge up in threatening swarms and then recede again, the halls all going dark, electrics popping in rains of sparks. Which is just exactly the right kind of breakage here — not crumbling, not flooding, but this jolty electrical snapping. Oh flip it’s like misfiring synapses, ah that’s why!! GOOD THEMATIC ALIGNMENT.

Anyway, this scene is UNREAL TERRIFYING. The sound mixing keeping Kerry’s frightened whimpers so clear and present! The agonizing slo-mo! The Lost-y whispering! A maniacal crowd of phosphorous-pale figures suddenly cranes in too fast over the camera and no joke I gripped a blanket in a spasm of terror — so as much as I’m still mystified by how how scared and panicked Kerry has been here compared to how she is on the outside, I think I get it, yes.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[oiseaudete]

it’s weird seeing very specific motifs from hannibal cropping up in AG

(actually, Hannibal as a show makes 10000% more sense if it takes place in the AG universe…)

paging @wellntruly, i guess

[wellntruly]

[internet pager goes off] ….HI

Unfortunately friends I still have not watched a real TV minute of American Godz, but I did see this gifset and chuckle “oh Bryan!”

I’m still planning on sitting down with this show someday and probably chuckling “oh Bryan” a lot, but that day will probably be in… oof, a few months?

Actually while I’ve got you all here, some Wellntruly TV Watching housekeeping:

1. So doing more than one show at a time has been UNDESIRABLE and I see why I had never done it!

2. I’m still just a handful of episodes into the last season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and am every day sadly bewildered that I’m not watching the next episode like I so dearly want to, but it’s going to have to wait for another couple weeks.

3. Because: I’ve been watching Legion on FX’s website with my parents’ cable log-in, and the series is going to EXPIRE from their streaming service in 12 days, so I gotta focus on finishing that one up.

4. Minus pining for DS9, mainlining Legion is not at ALL a hardship, as for the first time since declaring Twin Peaks my heart’s own true TV show just under four years ago, I’ve had to rethink some things.

5. FUCKING HELL THOUGH BECAUSE TWIN PEAKS IS COMING BACK TO ME THIS GODDAMN(FINE) WEEKEND, AND SO LIKE, WELL.

6. I feel personally wronged by Peak TV right now, tbh.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

platoapproved replied to your post: LEGION Recap: 1x06

I LOVE THIS

I LOVE THIS!

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

LEGION Recap: 1x06

IT’S A BOTTLE EPISODE. Or, well it’s not strictly a bottle episode, as the definition has gone since it was first a “ship-in-a-bottle episode” on Star Trek. But while this one does have new sets, the use of the old ones, and the reason for why, feels like such a smart, grinning embrace of ~that bottle episode conceptual fun~ that maybe, maybe, this episode has just redefined the term into something more bottled than ever.

Regardless. Like the best bottle episodes, going contained just blows everything wiiiiiide opennn. Smart, and I’m grinning.

In addition to what this episode is doing As Television, there is heaps to unpack in this one in re: its depiction of mental illness and treatment. Which is why I have called on my bff Jen, Legion fan and irl therapist. Jen is in the third year of her PhD program in psychology, and is just out there treating patients and doing research on best practices and generally being a wealth of practical, compassionate psychological insight.

“I knew I was going to adore this episode as soon as I watched the last scene in Ch. 5,” Jen writes. After my request for CONSULT, she happily rewatched Ch. 6 “after spending all day working on an assessment report for my clinic (for like, added thematic immersion).” Her ensuing almost-doctor’s notes will appear throughout this recap, and I’m sure you will appreciate them as much as I DO.

Season 1, ‘Chapter 6’

Hey so WHAT IF everyone we’ve met at Dr. Bird’s Midcentury Commune For Magical Misfits were in fact other patients at Clockworks. What might their thoughts and behaviors look like if mutations were taken out of the equation?

HERE WE’LL SHOW YOU:

Melanie is fixated on the death of her husband, so much so that she has created a fantasy that he’s just frozen in a diving suit, and will come back some day. “But you see it, right?” Therapist Lenny asks, “How you’re the one who’s frozen?”

Ptonomy was powerfully impacted by the death of his mother, and can recall the entire scene in photo-perfect detail. “I like to think I’m a time-traveler,” he says. “I go back, back, back. But all I can do is…watch.”

Cary and Kerry have completely attached themselves to each other, to the point of believing they are mystically connected, even the same person. “Who’s it hurting?” Cary asks. “That’s what I want to know,” Kerry adds.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[therewillbeddl]

I’m not alone anymore. How do you feel about beat poetry?