LEGION
SEASON 2

A RENEWAL, A MOVE AND ELEVEN EPISODES

HOW THE SECOND SEASON CAME TOGETHER

FX renewed Legion on 15 March 2017, a little over a month after Season 1 began, and the order grew to eleven episodes. Filming began on 28 September 2017. Production moved from Vancouver to California, helped by more than $11 million in tax incentives from the California Film Commission, and the season includes desert filming.

Hawley and Nathaniel Halpern wrote most episodes, with directors including Tim Mielants, Ana Lily Amirpour, Ellen Kuras and Charlie McDowell, and Hawley directed Chapter 17. Composer Jeff Russo’s score album came out on 25 May 2018, and a second album of reimagined classic songs, It’s Always Blue: Songs from Legion, followed on 17 August with Hawley on lead vocals.

A RECAST VILLAIN WHO BECOMES THE FOCUS

WHY THE SHADOW KING GOT A FACE

By 5 January 2018 Navid Negahban had replaced Saïd Taghmaoui as Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King. Taghmaoui had been announced at the show’s Comic-Con panel the previous summer and left the series in November, and Hawley announced the new casting at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

In an interview, Hawley said the season was a chance to “reinvent the show on some level” and to “invest in him as a character.” He described the villain’s view of himself:

“From his point of view, he’s the good guy and that’s always more interesting.”

Noah Hawley, on the Shadow King

THE SAME TEAM, A NARRATOR AND A NEW FOE

WHO IS IN THE SECOND SEASON

The cast includes Dan Stevens as David Haller, Rachel Keller as Syd Barrett, Aubrey Plaza as Lenny Busker, Bill Irwin as Cary Loudermilk, Jeremie Harris as Ptonomy Wallace, Amber Midthunder as Kerry Loudermilk, Hamish Linklater as Clark Debussy, Jemaine Clement as Oliver Bird, Jean Smart as Melanie Bird and Negahban as Farouk. Jon Hamm narrates the educational segments, and the season picks up a year after Season 1, with Farouk searching for his original body.

STYLE STILL ON SHOW, WITH A STORY UNDER IT

WHAT CRITICS SAID, AND HOW THE RATINGS FELL

Den of Geek’s Nick Harley gave the premiere 3.5 stars out of 5 on 4 April 2018, calling it “a delightfully confounding and visually stimulating trip” while saying parts felt like “the work of a writer getting high on his own supply.” Rotten Tomatoes lists a 91% critics’ score from 160 reviews and a 78% audience score, and its consensus calls it “a smart, strange second season that settles into a straighter narrative.” Metacritic gives it 85 from 10 critics. Dana Gonzales’s cinematography on Chapter 9 earned a Creative Arts Emmy nomination.

Viewing was modest. The premiere drew 0.669 million viewers initially and 1.501 million with DVR and other measures, and the finale drew 0.315 million.

THE REWATCH

A THIRD SEASON AND A PLANNED ENDING

FX ordered a third season on 1 June 2018, before the second finale aired on 12 June. Hawley said on 5 February 2019 that he always saw the story as having three acts: “I think endings are what give stories meaning.” Season 3 arrived on 24 June 2019.

In the Marvel Marathon it is classed as an X-Men series. It sits in the X-Men movies in order guide between The Gifted Season 1 and Deadpool 2, and in the Marvel TV shows in order guide between Jessica Jones Season 2 and Cloak & Dagger Season 1. It is not in the MCU guides.