LEGION is a unique drama about a young man named David Haller who is discovering that his mental illness is a result of his mutant powers. David’s powers are becoming unstable and dangerous due to the manipulation of the Shadow King. With the help of David’s new friends, he is able to successfully rid himself of the Shadow King. However, the Shadow King is still at large, and that isn’t the only problem David has.
LEGION is based on the character of the same name from Marvel’s X-Men comic books. The show’s cast, including creator and showrunner Noah Hawley, John Cameron, Jeph Loeb, Lauren Shuler Donner, Amber Midthunder, Bill Irwin, Jeremie Harris, Rachel Keller, Jean Smart and Aubrey Plaza, were able to come together to discuss the show at SDCC.
During the panel we learned a few things, including that Season 2 will premiere in early 2018. It will consist of 10 episodes, while Season 1 only had eight. No information was provided about the cliffhanger we saw at the end of Season 1, when David was sucked into a small ball and kidnapped, the fans were left with questions dying to be answered. However, all that the cast could say was, “He went on a little ride in that little ball. That will obviously take him some place, and he’ll have to get his way back to the others."
Hawley was able to tell us that Sydney and David’s relationship will be explored more in Season 2. He called the romance between the two characters “an epic love story” and teased how they are going to explore their relationship and how it will actually work.
A huge part of the first season was flashbacks that depicted David’s past life. When Hawley was asked about flashbacks in the next season, he had this to say, “We know his story pretty well now, but we don't know everybody's story really well now, so I think there are other people we may see where they came from and how it brought them to this moment."
For fans familiar with David and his comic book counterpart, they were thrilled to learn that Professor X was mentioned in the first season. Since the cast can’t tell us if Professor X could make an appearance, a fan decided to ask that if Professor X were to make an appearance, would he be the Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy version of the character? Hawley responded with, "I don't know yet what that would be. It depends on who would do it. If we reach that part of the story, is it funnier if it's the young or the old one? It could be great if you're older than your dad."
During Season 1, a recurring conflict was how David could not trust himself or rely on his stability. Now that David is rid of the Shadow King, the cast was asked if David would be more stable. Hawley said this might lead to bad decisions, "Now he has to face up to the fact that without that thing in him, he's like everybody else, he has good ideas and impulses, bad ideas and impulses. It might be interesting to see his hubris: 'I'm a hero, so everything I do is heroic.'"
Speaking of the Shadow King, it was announced that actor Saïd Taghmaoui will be the face of the iconic villain. Luckily, Plaza’s character, Lenny, will not disappear but instead work with Taghmaoui and play two different faces of the Shadow King. During the last season, Oliver Bird was last seen riding with Plaza'a Shadow King. Hawley says we will learn a lot more about Oliver and will see more of him than we did in Season 1.
Overall, we didn’t learn too much about Season 2 of LEGION, but we definitely now have a lot to look forward to. I’d much rather have small teases than huge plot points and I will be watching Season 2 with much excitement.
Written by James Philbrick, LEGION Beat Writer -- Click here to read James' posts
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