Idiot Boxing, FX Edition: Legion, season 3 (2019); Archer, season 10 (2019)

No Spoilers for either show. Read away!!

Two great shows, one which seems to be nearing its long run, and the other coming to the pre-determined end of its short but amazing run.

The season poster gives you some idea of just how trippy this
show, and particularly this season, can be. 

Legion, season 3 (2019)

One of the most amazing TV shows I've seen in years, and easily the very best show or movie inspired by comic book "superhero" characters.

At this point, virtually every human on earth is aware of Marvel Studio's total domination of the box office, via the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and, until recently, the X-Men series. Even smaller properties like Deadpool have raked in cash. When it's come to their TV shows, however, there hasn't been nearly as much success. The handful of shows on Netflix, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, have been mixed bags. They've also focused a few shows on even lesser-known characters, such as Cloak and Dagger and Runaways. But no greater leap was taken than when they greenlit a show about a somewhat obscure character from the X-Men comic books of the 1980s and '90s: David Haller. David, also known as "Legion," was the son of immensely powerful telepath Charles "Professor X" Xavier. David was also an incredibly powerful telepath, as well as being a telekinetic of such strength that he could essentially alter nearly all of reality. The terrifying part of all of this is that, in addition to his awesome powers, David was also wildly schizophrenic.

David Haller is hardly the type of character around whom Marvel Studios had built commercial success, so it seemed like an odd longshot to be any sort of winning show. But when the show was given to Noah Hawley and the FX network, magic happened. Hawley, who had won over my massive skepticism with the dazzling work on the TV show Fargo, has done something with Legion that will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for other "comic book" shows to equal or top. He has utilized so many aspects of the audio-visual medium of television and crafted a dazzling, poetic, and often beautifully artistic story that is as touching as it is fantastic.

Amahl "The Shadow King" Farouk returns, though whether
he is an ally or arch-enemy to humanity remains unclear
right up until the final moments of the entire series.

With this third and final season of Legion, we get the completion of the bold and emotionally powerful tale of David, as imagined by Hawley. Through the first two seasons, we see David learn of his immense powers, as well as the fact that he has been harboring the psychic manifestation of Amal Farhouk, an entity known as "The Shadow King" - another mutant with abilities on par with David's. We have also seen Farhouk's "exorcism" from David, and their race for Farhouk's long-buried body. This final season follows David's erratic and reality-bending attempts to undo the damage which he and Farhouk's battles have caused, all while Farhouk constantly turns the tables and plays multiple sides against each other to aims uncertain to everyone, including us viewers. The primary addition to this season was that of the character Switch - a time traveler whom David recruits to help him in his quest to right past wrongs. As you can imagine, this begins to further complicate matters, and it all comes to a complex resolution.

This being a spoiler-free review, I will not get into any details. It would be a great disservice to this show to give anything away, as I felt that one of the great joys of it was waiting to see how its many enigmas and knots revealed and untangled themselves. And make no mistake - this show demands patience and close attention; probably more than nearly any prime-time show out there, and definitely far more than any comic book show has every dared. Certain images appear and actions take place which will leave one baffled; that is, until one, two, or several episodes later when the connections are made clear. And there are more than a few visual and cinematic flights of fancy that are part of the proceedings. These include vibrant, psychedelic dream sequences and even a couple of song-and-dance numbers. I'm normally not one for the latter, but my musical sensibilities seem to align with Noah Hawley well enough, so I was happy to drink in these sequences.

Like previous seasons, this one shows dazzling creativity in terms of narrative structure and horror concepts. Without giving anything away, I can simply say that the Time Eaters are some of the most visually creative, terrifying things I've seen on a TV show in ages. And while using time travel is a tired sci-fi plot device in nearly every case at this point, Legion actually does more than a few wonderfully novel things with it. Things that actually make artistic use of the audio-visual medium of television in ways that I've never seen before.

But the thing that put the show completely over the top for me - the thing that had me getting choked up multiple times during the final episode - is the resolution and how daring it was. Again, no spoilers here, but I cannot think of any comic book-inspired film or TV show, or many TV dramas for that matter, which have shown the guts and heart that Legion did in its finale. Far too many shows take the easy route of offering resolutions that don't challenge us viewers with something different and thought-provoking. Legion does just that, and it is an infinitely greater show for it.

And so ends what may go down as the very best comic book show in history. If any show or movie manages to top it, I only hope that I'm around to see it.

Archer, season 10 (2019)

Another amusing "fantasy" season of Archer, though one that I'm happy to say seems to be the last in the "Archer Coma Dream" arc of seasons.

At the end of season 7, Archer was sent into a coma, thus kicking off a series of seasons which take place completely inside Sterling Archer's coma-imprisoned brain. Season 8 saw all of the characters placed in a world of film and literature noir of the 1940s and '50s, and season 9 took its setting and plot elements from the exotic action/adventure tales popular in the 1920s and '30s. In this season, the gang is sent into a completely different genre - that of science-fiction. Dubbed "Archer 1999," it uses many of the elements seen in popular sci-fi action movies, most obviously Alien, but also including tons from other well-known and lesser-well-known sci-fi TV shows and films such as Battlestar Galactica, The Herculoids, Forbidden Planet, and tons of others. A bit more in keeping with the earlier, "real" seasons, this season doesn't have a single plot thread that runs through all episodes, being rather a collection of self-contained episodes.

This season was pretty fun. Moreso, I found, than the previous "Danger Island" or "Dreamland" seasons. Those was were amusing, to be sure, but I found 1999 to be a bit more consistently funny and even more creative from episode to episode. These "coma" seasons have always had fun in taking regular cast members and thrusting them into new roles of varying zaniness, but 1999 probably had the most entertaining and spot-on re-imaginings of everyone, whether it was Ray Gillette taking on the "courtesan" role as inspired by Firefly or the mad scientist Krieger as an android obviously inspired by Ian Holmes's deranged synthetic in Alien, the writers set themselves up to have a blast.

Mr. Deadly - the title character from my favorite episode. With
a combination of great comedy writing and hilarious voice
acting by Matt Berry, this was one of the best Archer episodes
I had seen in several seasons.

The individual stories, while rarely living up to the best episodes of the first several seasons of the show, are solid. My particular favorite was episode 5, "Mr. Deadly Goes to Town," in which the crew discover a robot which is actually a walking, talking doomsday device voiced brilliantly by Matt Berry, whom I know and love from the What We Do in the Shadows TV series. This was the standout episode for me, but nearly all of the others gave me some good laughs, even if some of the standard gags in the Archer series have long since been a tad played out.

The show has been renewed for an 11th season, beginning this September, which I'm glad to see. But not as glad as knowing that it is finally, after over three years, returning to the "reality" of having Sterling and his cohorts back in the real world, being humans and presumably getting back to their cartoonish approach to being some sort of spy organization. 

Idiot Boxing, FX Edition: Legion, season 2 (2018); Archer, season 9 (2018)

Legion, season 2 (2018)

If you watched season 1 of Legion and thought, "Wow, a superhero TV show can't get any trippier than that!", you were wrong. Season 2 brings it all to a whole new level.

Season 1 of Legion unfolded the tale of David Haller (Dan Stevens), an immensely powerful mutant with both telepathic and telekinetic abilities that give him nearly godlike powers. The problem was that David has severe mental distress, exacerbated by drug and alcohol use. As the season unfolds, however, we learn that much (or perhaps all) of David's schizophrenia is the result of a parasitic entity - Amahl "The Shadow King" Farouk (Navid Negahban) - an incredibly powerful psychic whose consciousness has entrenched itself into David's mind. By season's end, Farouk has been chased out of David's mind, but he latches onto another and begins to search for his long-lost physical body, with which he can completely regain his old, terrifying powers. Season two is essentially a race between Farouk, David, and David's friends and colleagues to get to The Shadow King's body first.

Admiral Fukuyama - one of the many bizarre and captivating
characters within the vibrant and disorienting world that
David and his friends inhabit.

Any viewer who prefers clear, straightforward narratives and visual storytelling styles needs to stay well away from this show. Even beyond the wonderfully creative and fantastic plot and character elements, the narrative absolutely refuses to go in a straight line. There are frequent uses of flashbacks, allusive flash forwards, and curious instructional breaks in which an unknown narrator teaches us about various forms of delusion and insanity. I get the sense that show runner and co-writer Noah Hawley (also behind the brilliant Fargo TV show) is having a blast in using unconventional storytelling, and the show is all the better for it. It can be baffling at times, but if you have some serious patience and faith in the tale-tellers, then it is highly rewarding.

At the center of everything is still David Haller, his fractured mind, and his effect on those around him. It's a bold story that reflects the perspective of a protagonist who: (A) is is schizophrenic, and (B) has supernatural powers that allow him to alter reality itself. These were illustrated brilliantly in the first season, and they are on even more vibrant display in season two, as the characters and scenes are whisked between imposing buildings in the U.S., wide open deserts in the Eastern Hemisphere, alternate realities, and various other wonderfully imaginative mindscapes. And beyond the large-scale settings, this a show that really rewards close, careful viewing of small details. Brief images, props, and even costume details go uncommented upon, but can offer even more depth to an already rich narrative landscape.

This review is very vague, I must admit, but Legion is a show which defies easy description. Even in a movie and TV show landscape which is ever more overloaded with superhero stories, Legion is head and shoulders above the others in nearly every way. It goes light years beyond the popcorn fantasy/adventure appeal of 99% of the other shows in its genre, and it exhibits many of the best features of the highest-quality imaginative, surreal fiction in any medium. Anyone who enjoys having their minds bent in fun and clever ways needs to give this show a serious try.

As a bit of a side-note, I felt a combination of joy and sadness when learning that the currently-airing third season if Legion will be its last. This is, apparently, exactly as Noah Hawley has always wanted it, as he has a clear, complete vision for the entire primary story arc. While it will be unfortunate to lose such a great show, I applaud FX's willingness to tell a limited, compact tale of high quality, as opposed to milking a successful show well beyond its narrative limits.

In yet another "dream" season, the creative team decided to
thrust Sterling and his crew into a world that combines
elements of Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other
action/adventure movies from the 1930s and '40s.

Archer, season 9 (2018)

Continuing in the show's recent tradition of centering its seasons around particular themes, season 9 of Archer uses as its foundation the classic "Indiana Jones" style of 1930s action/adventure tales of North America. Sterling is an alcoholic pilot of a ramshackle seaplane, with Pam as his burly assistant; his mother runs a swanky hotel and casino, a la Rick's in Casablanca, on a remote island in the Pacific. Also inspired by the famous Bogart/Bergman classic, Ray Gillette is a corrupt and indolent French constable. Not as inspired by Casablanca are roles by other Archer regulars, such as Lana as a local power-grabbing princess, Cyril as a German Nazi treasure-hunter, and "Crackers" - a wise-cracking parrot whose voice sounds suspiciously like the warped Dr. Krieger from earlier seasons of the show.

I've read that many fans of Archer have been frustrated with these last couple of seasons of the show, given how they take place not in the "reality" of the show's long-running continuity but rather in Sterling Archer's mind, as the boorish superspy and man of action languishes in a coma since the end of season 7. While I understand the frustration, I've actually found these alternative "Archerverses" mostly fun, if not quite as consistently hilarious as the first several seasons of the show. If I were to gripe about anything, it's how the show has been trimmed down from the 13-episode seasons of its first five seasons to now being a rather brisk 8 episodes. I suppose that it does allow for a more streamlined, focused story, free of any tangential one-episode tales that populated earlier seasons. But those episodes were often some of the very best, typically focusing on one of the secondary characters like Ray or Pam, who could carry a single episode as well as Archer himself.

Though I enjoyed this season, I'm sensing that the show is running out of steam to an extent. Given the shorter seasons, the "alternate" universes, and the fact that the gags aren't quite as fresh as they were in the first several seasons, I wonder if the writing isn't on the wall for this classic adult cartoon series. Whatever the case, it still offers enough laughs for me to tune in, and it's always fun to accidentally surf across an episode on TV. 

Idiot Boxing: Fargo, seasons 1 and 2 (2014, 2015)

After being blown away by the recent FX series Legion (see my review here), I had to know what creative mind was responsible for it. Turns out that mind belongs to Noah Hawley, whose surprisingly short writing resume included the FX television series Fargo - a show that I had heard rave reviews about but hadn't gotten around to watching. However, with my desire for more of Hawley's work well and truly stoked, I snapped up the series and watched them in fairly short order. My thoughts:

And so it begins. Lester (left) inadvertently meets Lorne Malvo
and somewhat unwittingly sends him along a brutal path that
doesn't end until dozens are dead.

Season 1 (2014)


An amazing and surprising series that seems to do the impossible: take an iconic, singular film and adapt it into an original story that both emulates the spirit and some elements of the original movie and uses the TV mini-series format to perfectly tell a longer and deeper tale.

The story mostly takes place in and around Bimidji, Minnesota, where impotent insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) somewhat unintentionally kicks off a spree of violence and murder which belies the otherwise sleepy little town. After the middle-aged Lester is bullied by an old high school nemesis, he meets a mysterious drifter in the hospital - Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) - who decides to exact murderous revenge on Nygaard's tormentor. This leads to several unintended murders which eventually pull into their vortex local police officers, including Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman). Though rather quiet and unassuming, Solverson has an excellent mind for police work, as well as a staunch willingness to do what is right. Unfortunately, she is taken none to seriously by most of her fellow officers. Although she often penetrates through the murky layers covering up the dark deeds in her town, she is fighting a constant uphill battle to track down Malvo and the other people involved in the carnage.

Firstly, the story itself is the stuff of outstanding noir cinema. The murders are dark and disturbing, cutting into not only the obviously repugnant violence inherent in them, but also the shadowy human desires and weaknesses that cause them. And true to classic noir, there are more twists and turns than could possibly exist in reality. When handled correctly though, as they are in Fargo, these complexities create an engaging portrait of good people attempting to reckon with horrendous villains and atrocities. Elements to the story which may at first seem superfluous or included for mere shock value almost always have a place in the larger tale, and these places are revealed as the episodes unfold.

A few more of the oddball and compelling hardcases running
around the Minnesota countryside in this story.

On top of the framework of the ripping crime story is the characters. True to the film which inspired it, Fargo includes an eminently memorable cast of characters. While there are several ways in which this first TV show season draws from the film, perhaps the deftest way is the creation and handling of these characters. Lester Nygaard is a clear echo of Jerry Lundegaard, both being weak-willed sad sacks whose selfish and foolish decisions unleash hell upon those around them. Deputy Solverson is also another version of Marge Gunderson, the deceptively expert female police officer who ultimately tracks down the vicious criminals in the center of the story. There is also Lorne Malvo, who is arguably a darker, more fleshed-out and frighteningly intelligent version of the stoic, homicidal maniac Gaear Grimsrud. Malvo in particular is quite something, played with award-winning intensity by Billy Bob Thornton. Not unlike Heath Ledger's Joker character in The Dark Knight, Malvo is a self-avowed agent of chaos whose entire existence is predicated upon ignoring the rules of empathetic society. He sees himself as a predator who is well within his rights to take whatever he wants from whomever he wants, including life itself. He even delights in sowing little seeds of discord, simply to break people out of what he sees as idiotic patterns of socially prescribed behavior. It's a character and performance that keeps you itching for him to show up again, just to see exactly what he's going to do, even if some of those things are unspeakably horrible.

One other aspect of the film absorbed into this show was the pace and tone. Making no bones about mimicking the Coen brothers' knack for such things, writer and director Noah Hawley decided not to mess with a good and unique thing, giving us plenty of slow and careful scenes displaying the lonely winter landscapes of Minnesota. The show even uses parts of the original soundtrack, with its eerie, lonely strings moaning along, occasionally punctuated with short, quirky percussive instruments. It creates an oddly playful sense, which actually fits the entire show, as dark as it often gets.

Obviously, I found this first season tremendous. Tremendous enough to dive right into the second season...


Season 2 (2015)

In an interesting and somewhat bold narrative move, season 2 takes us backwards in time to 27 years before the events depicted in season one. We go to 1979, when Molly Solverson's father and grandfather found themselves in the middle of a shocking outbreak of violence in their normally quiet little Minnesota town.

It's the end of the 1970s, and the United States is in a massive and violent transition period. The specter of the lost "conflict" in Vietnam hovers over many of the men and women who served in that horribly misguided war. Liberation movements abound, and large-scale corporatization is looming on the near horizon. Amid these larger forces, in Luverne, North Dakota, aspiring feminist and more-than-a-little delusional beautician Peggy Blumquist runs into a man stumbling out of a Waffle Hut. Rather than stop, Peggy continues to drive all the way home with the unconscious man on her hood. At home, her husband Ed, the local butcher, discovers the body and is attacked by the still-living hit-and-run victim. Ed kills the man in self-defense, but what neither he nor Peggy yet know is that the man is Rye Gerhadt - the youngest of the three Gerhardt brothers - key members of the most powerful crime family in the Fargo, North Dakota area. Rye's death sets in motion an ever-escalating sequence of violence and pursuit that pits the Gerhardts, local and state police, and an encroaching Kansas City crime syndicate all against each other in the otherwise quiet region of the American North.

This sophomore season is arguably better than the first, which is saying something. While there are a few general themes and character types that are similar to the first season, this prequel season is very much its own tale, with its own rhythms, beats, twists, and larger themes that stand very much on their own. Sure, knowing and seeing the little connections between this season and the previous one can provide some fun little Easter eggs for viewers, but they are far from essential to any of the relevant aspects of the tale. True to the Coen Brothers' cinema spirit, this season takes a mundane setting and sometime rather common and simple people and thrusts it all into a dark, twisted world of violence and brutality that somehow seems, at alternate moments, out of place and right at home. The sparse and frigid landscapes of the Dakotas and Minnesota convey the rugged individualist spirit required to survive in such regions, and this carries through to many of the characters, weak and strong alike. The linguistic and behavioral quirks are right in keeping with the original movie, though the ten-episode format allows for a larger exploration of those cultural oddities.

Mike Milligan and his eerily silent, twin hatchet men - the
Kitchen brothers. Bokeem Woodbine turns in one of several
excellent performances in this season. 

As with the first season, the storytelling is perfectly tight. In short order, we are introduced to several characters who are compelling for their strengths, weaknesses, grand ambitions, or lack thereof. Virtually everyone turns in excellent performances, though I found the standouts to be Patrick Wilson as Lou Solverson (father to season one's understated yet brilliant herione, Molly), Kirsten Dunst as Peggy, and Bokeem Woodbine as Kansas City crime syndicate enforcer Mike Milligan. Wilson in particular was a breath of fresh air in many ways. Up to the point, we hadn't really seen a completely assured, competent, and steady police officer character. While the character's daughter, Molly, would later become just as capable a detective and officer as her father, the Molly of season one is still fighting a massive uphill battle against patriarchal gender biases and her relative youth, leading to a bit of uncertainty and tentativeness. In season two, Lou is a seasoned police officer and combat veteran from Vietnam. He calls things as he sees them and doesn't balk at doing the right thing, even when it leads into the heart of danger. But he is merely the standout among many strong, fascinating characters whose interactions make so many scenes in this season thoroughly gripping.

One other note on this season - it became clear just how well creator Noah Hawley is integrating certain little homages to the Coen Brothers' work - not just the original Fargo, but even their other movies. Without ever feeling unoriginal or forced, each of the first two seasons has a handful of moments - they might be brief lines of dialogue, a general character type, the framing of certain shots, or some other aspect of the narrative - that are clearly tips of the cap to other films like Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, or other Coen masterpieces. It's far from the most important thing, but astute fans of their films will notice and appreciate them.

It's hard to watch these first two seasons and, when added to the number of fantastic TV shows released in the last decade, not agree with the notion that this truly is a "Golden Age" of television. I've already jumped into season 3, and expect equally amazing things from show runner Hawley.