Legion Review

Nothing else in this genre looks like it. Hawley and his designers work in mid century modern interiors, silent film title cards, a full Bollywood dance break and an extended sequence staged as a chalkboard lecture, and the second season's opening, in which a plague of chattering teeth spreads through a city, is as unsettling as television gets. Dan Stevens gives a genuinely unstable performance, and Aubrey Plaza, released from deadpan duty, is a revelation as a parasite wearing a friend's face.

Jemaine Clement narrating from inside an ice cube is the kind of swing most shows never take. The cost is coherence, and it is a real cost. The middle season is so committed to obfuscation that it withholds basic information for hours at a time and then reveals the show has been arguing something else entirely, which turns its central relationship into an assault the writing addresses awkwardly and late. The final season, about time travel and the possibility of forgiveness, is beautiful and inert. Astonishing to look at, exhausting to follow.