Marvel of the mind

If superhero films had high-school cliques, FX’s anti-superhero show Legion would be the eccentric rebel—the weirdly dressed but cool kid who dishes out quirky quips and philosophical insights while popping neon-pink bubble gum.

To watch this widely anticipated new show (at least the first available episode, which premiered Feb. 8) is to take a wacky ride into the heavily medicated mind of David Heller (Dan Stevens). David is a disturbed, earnest young man who’s been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has lived in a psychiatric institution since his last nervous breakdown. His only friend, Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), is a twitchy chatterbox who nibbles Twizzlers while staring at other dribbling patients. If that isn’t trippy enough, David possesses strange powers—he can fling things (and human bodies) around with his mind and create other terrifying havoc—which he doesn’t understand or know how to control. In one incident when he loses his cool, chaos breaks loose: He unintentionally kills someone, escapes the institution, and attracts the attention of mysterious agencies. Meanwhile, he’s madly in love with a fellow patient (Rachel Keller) who shuns all physical touch, but also wonders if he’s making everything up: After all, he’s mentally ill … or is he?

This show being an X-Men spinoff, the answer should be obvious, but Legion keeps viewers guessing: What’s real, and what’s not? That’s part of showrunner Noah Hawley’s mad-filmmaker brilliance: He uses a nonlinear narrative to disorient viewers’ sense of time and realism, then further disturbs the senses with hyperkinetic choreography, bizarre aesthetics, and mood-altering colors.

Legion, which has some swear words in its first episode, is not for everyone: Some may complain it dishes out more question marks than entertainment. But for Marvel fans who want fewer skyscraper explosions and more psychological puzzles, Legion could be a refreshing break from the mainstream superhero assembly line.