One of the big critical triumphs of last year, and without a doubt the best of the current superhero tv crop, the Noah Hawley-developed Legion was an exercise in conjuring a superhero based narrative without the confines of what typically marks the genre.
It was, frankly, the most surreal thing to hit televisions last year until David Lynch came roaring back with the sublime Twin Peaks: The Return. But even playing a bit of second fiddle to the master of the outre is no small potatoes, as Legion still produced a benchmark of quality in the superhero tv landscape that really no other series has come close to touching. It is in, essence, the “peak TV comic-book show”. And since its finale, which ended with an enticing duo being united, and David being dragged off to parts unknown, there’s been very little news regarding season 2, beyond a few casting announcements here and there (Said Taghmaoui joined the show as an iteration of the Shadow King, and then left in November, replaced by Navid Negahban).
Today at the Legion presentation at this year’s TCA’s, Hawley announced that the series will return this April (no firm date given as of yet), a few months past last year’s February start date, but what’s a little extra wait for a show this good?
Additionally, Hawley revealed that Season 2 will take place one year after the events of last season, stating per /Film:
“It’s a couple of things,” Hawley said. “If the first year was the story of an insane man in a sane world, then I was interested in looking at David now being the sane man in an insane world. We’ve established he doesn’t have schizophrenia and he has these abilities. There is this time jump, for him to come back and suddenly the world is a very different place. I was interested this year in looking at a mass psychology. Mental illness can also be cultural in a way so those issues were interesting to me. We’re also exploring with Dan, he’s on a journey here in which in the language of this world, you have heroes and villains. It’s not determined yet where he’s going to end up. A lot of that’s going to have to do with what’s holding him on the good path, this love story with Rachel and his experience with Farouk. That’s really interesting to explore I hope”
Additionally, Aubrey Plaza’s Lenny will figure prominently into the new season, particularly as she tries to determine her own sense of self after acting as a vessel for The Shadow King, as the actress noted at the presentation:
“I think traumatic is the right word,” Plaza said. “It’s really scary to play a character that you don’t know who she is. You’re being used as a vessel, in the first season. Lenny almost becomes like David in a sense. She doesn’t know what’s real or who she is. For season two, it’s like my the power I thought I had has been totally taken away from me. I’m totally stripped down. Now we have to dig deeper and see who she really is.”
But most importantly, what about that David’s famous comic book hair?
“Oh, it creeps ever higher I will say,” Stevens said. “There’s always moments where we’re working towards it. You’ve really got to earn hair like that I think.”
The 2018 television season is already packed with a number of returns that I can’t wait for, but this may very well have crawled up to number 1 already. April, come faster please.
