Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched Legion's Season 1 finale.
Capping off one of the most interesting and exciting debut seasons of any TV show ever, FX's Legion pummeled audiences with another battle of the minds for tonight's Season 1 finale, as David faced the Shadow King head-on and head-in, but he didn't exactly win. Though our central hero and the others lived through it all, the deadly Amahl Farouk is now on the lam inside of Oliver's mind, and David is...well, we're not quite sure where David is, as the episode's surprise post-credits scene introduced a strange vessel that totally abducted him. What the hell was that about?
The quickest and easiest bet to make is that some other threat has arrived and taken David captive. And in his physical form, too, rather than just his brain, the way that Shadow King did. After all, what better way to really stick it to the protagonist than to slip him right into another harrowing arc so soon after he finally exiled the beast that's been holding him hostage since childhood. And there are lots of villains from the comics that could do this sort of thing.
I mean, Legion already has its own set of mysterious folks in Division 3 that are trying to get David in some sort of controllable environment, and Melanie's attempts to quell things just weren't working. Right before the shit hit the fan after Syd put her lips to David's, "The Equinox" was ordered to go into play. Is The Equinox shaped like a Magic 8 Ball and capable of sucking people into its illogical interior?
It's a definite possibility, but I have another idea. What if it's not a bad guy taking David at all, but a good guy? A very particular good guy.
Villains usually like to make more of a scene -- see: Corpse-Face Lenny -- and there wasn't any fanfare at all involved with the mystery drone appearing and scanning David before zapping him up and slowly hovering away. Seems like just the kind of deliberate move that one Charles Xavier would make if he were to show up in David's life after all this time to take him back (for one reason or another). The ball itself is reminiscent of Professor X's signature Cerebro/Cerebra technology, and it seems to have found him based on some form of telekinesis. Did you happen to notice the person walking through the background behind David and Syd? It was someone wearing a long red jacket, and Legion fans know that red comes up when David's powers are flowing. What if red is a family color? (Or maybe that was just an extra.)
Legion would be making a lot of fans happy if Professor X were responsible, as well as making a lot of sense within the story. Shadow King is now on the road and heading south, presumably in an effort to find Xavier for having defeated him in the distant past. And the whole reason David was given up for adoption in the first place was to protect him from the mind-haunting villain. Now that Farouk is gone, Professor X can once again enter David's life, and with great purpose. And Patrick Stewart is more than ready to do it.
Creator Noah Hawley has hinted in the past that we would likely see Legion bringing Professor X into the story in some way, but likely not in Season 1. So could it be that this flying doohickey is a surrogate for the most powerful mindbender in the X-Men universe? Or is this really just whatever the hell Equinox is? Or -- stay with me here -- what if Equinox is a plan specifically meant to bring David to Professor X? Season 2 had better have some X-answers.
Legion is now completely finished with Season 1, which sadly had only eight episodes instead of a million. Thankfully, we're definitely getting Season 2 from FX, which will premiere at some point in 2018. That's a long time to wait, but until then, you can head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide to see what else is on the way.
