SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
These episodes never end how or where I think they will. They always seem to end just as things are ramping up and despite being almost an hour long, they feel so much shorter.
I don’t know why I didn’t expect it or recognise it at the end of the last episode, but David was taken over by the Devil With The Yellow Eyes last week. In this week’s episode, it was at one point voluntary; in David’s conversation with “Lenny” when he was in the White Room with Syd, they came to the agreement that the Devil With The Yellow Eyes was supposed to use David’s body – and by extension his/their powers – to save Amy.
Which it did. And in spectacular fashion that the aftermath hinted at and that we got a glimpse of when Melanie and her companion were looking over Division 3’s security footage. The glee with which the Devil With The Yellow Eyes killed everyone it came across was surprising, because I’ve only really thought about it in terms of it’s real appearance. When we see it in that form it’s always very menacing and scary, but when it’s Lenny it’s fun and energetic. Seeing it act that way whilst inhabiting David’s body was quite something and it seemed to have that kind of demeanour later when it went attack to Syd in the White Room (where, unlike most of its appearances, it didn’t have a swirling black cloud of evil around it).
I knew something was off with David from the first; the very beginning of the episode. The way he held himself, they way he looked and talked. It was nothing like the David we’d known before. He was different; a bit too confident and definitely too in control of his powers to have created the White Room. It was that moment specifically which made me start to think that the Devil With The Yellow Eyes had taken over. Looking back, he was acting a lot like “Lenny.”
I did reserve room for the possibility that he was acting that way because his journey to the astral plane had somehow granted him the ability to fully control his powers and that’s why he was so self assured. But I didn’t think that was very likely.
Despite having the feeling that it was the Devil With The Yellow Eyes that Syd was interacting with and not David, I did find it rather cute that he’d created a space for them to truly be together as a couple. I was so happy they finally got laid! But the whole thing is tainted by the fact that it wasn’t David. But poor Syd now has to know in the back of her mind that that very hideous thing is what she had sex with. A part of me wonders if it counts since it wasn’t David.
I feel like Syd had to have noticed that something was off with “David.” In her conversation with Melanie after she discovered he was gone, she came off as awfully defensive.
The other half of the arrangement that David made with the Devil With The Yellow Eyes is that it would return to Summerland once it had rescued Amy. But of course, we all knew that was never going to happen. It took her to their childhood home instead and clearly has not relinquished control of David’s body.
The scene in which it manifested itself in it’s various forms was trippy and scary and confirmed that it was, in fact, Benny and King as well. Most intriguing to me, in a couple of ways, is that it asked Amy who it was. Either it’s asking who it – the Devil With The Yellow Eyes – is or it’s asking who David is. I think it could be either one or both, but the possibility that it’s questioning it’s identity is interesting; why doesn’t it know who it is and does that mean it has no memory of when or how it became a part of David? I’d like to see where that goes and what the answer is.
If it’s heading in that direction, it’s kind of setting up for the Devil With The Yellow Eyes to have an origin story of it’s own. We saw David’s in the opening sequence of the first episode, so I don’t think we’ll be revisiting that. I expect that in the coming episodes we’ll get to learn more about the Devil With The Yellow Eyes and its relationship with David than about David himself.
The end of the episode got a bit Inception like with David seemingly creating another world, which looks to be Clockworks, within the world of the White Room. It’s not exactly clear if Syd is aware of that, but I think that she is. We’ll see.
Random thoughts:
- Oh, so he knew it was her husband.
- They got laid!
- Interesting first time story, Syd.
- Wallace is so tired of David.
- About Kerry’s nail spiked bat…
Legion airs Wednesdays at 10 PM on FX.