Critical response
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 90% approval rating for the first season, with an average rating of 8.45/10 based on 239 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bold, intelligent, and visually arresting, Legion is a masterfully surreal and brilliantly daring departure from traditional superhero conceits." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 82 out of 100 based on 40 reviews for the season, indicating what the website considers to be "universal acclaim".
Ben Travers from IndieWire called the first season "the most intricate, intimate superhero story to date." Travers praised the relatability and uniqueness of the show and how it never lost his interest. He wrote that "David's story is one quickly identifiable to anyone who's questioned themselves, and yet wholly unique to his one-of-a-kind point of view. The combination of character and presentation makes for constantly fascinating television." Travers was especially impressed with the quality of Legion's set pieces and the performances of the main cast. He writes "the sets could be admired independent of the show if they didn't add so much to it, and the entire production raises its artistry to a level atypical of superhero stories (and at least on par with the best design on TV)" and "toss in dynamite performances (Jean Smart, we owe you a rave) matched by sizzling editing most Marvel movies would envy, and boom — 'Legion' is top-tier TV, right off the bat." His final grade of the first season was an A.
A 91% approval rating for the second season was reported by Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.75/10 based on 160 reviews, and a critical consensus reading, "Legion returns with a smart, strange second season that settles into a straighter narrative without sacrificing its unique sensibilities." Metacritic assigned a score of 85 out of 100 based on 10 reviews for the season, indicating "universal acclaim".
David Fear from Rolling Stone called Legion "the most mindblowing show on TV right now." He wrote that the show as a whole "keeps pushing the boundaries of the genre - then obliterates them entirely." Fear has heavy praise for season 2's uniqueness, and specifically praises a key scene in the first episode where the titular character Legion and his archnemesis the Shadow King have a dance battle and relates it back to how he enjoys the show as a whole. He writes "Since Legion's sophomore season started airing in April, I have watched this Bob-Fosse-meets-Maori-tribal-dance scene several dozen times. Every time I see it, I think: It makes no sense. It makes complete sense. It is self-indulgent, and utterly insane, and 19 different kinds of perfect. It inspires a total and utter sense of bliss. It's familiar, riddled with pastiche and shout-outs, and totally sui generis. It is, in a way, exactly how I feel about Legion as a whole."
Allison Shoemaker from Consequence has a less positive review of the show. Shoemaker wrote that season 2 "looks great and not much else" and that it "ends on a note that's hollow and hard to accept." Shoemaker also criticizes the character development of some of the side characters, and thought that they were very underdeveloped. She wrote "when you fall in love with a show, you sometimes make excuses for awhile and hope it gets its shit together. 'Well, Lenny is fascinating,' you say, justifying the paper-thin characterizations (and not just of women; Ptonomy, Oliver, and Clark are also all underdeveloped.)." Shoemaker's overall verdict of the season was that "There's so much mess and emptiness. Looks great. Less filling." She gave the finale a D+ grade and the overall season a C+.
Rotten Tomatoes reported a 93% approval rating for the third season, with an average rating of 7.9/10 based on 71 reviews. and a critical consensus reading, "In its final season, Legion remains a singular piece of visually arresting, mind-bending television that never fails to surprise." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 72 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Tim Goodman from The Hollywood Reporter called the third season "weirdly told and wonderfully acted" but also cautioned viewers to not "get hung up on the plot." He gives this warning because he believes that viewers tend to get disappointed when TV shows do not line up with their exact expectations for the plot and writes that "if you were expecting something predictable or literal, well, you weren't paying attention from the very first frame." Goodman reviewed the first four episodes of the third season and wrote that he was "loving the direction the third and final season of Legion is going in because it has been less about Marvel and more about Hawley and, given the television track record of each, I'll take the latter every time." His main thoughts on the first half of season 3 are that "Hawley is once again having a blast reimagining a Marvel superhero show and that "he is tripling down on the visual gymnastics and mind-altering aspects."
In a less favorable review with a similar critique to Shoemaker's review of season 2, David Sims from The Atlantic called the third season "visually dazzling, but little else." He writes that "The set design is striking, and Hawley's direction even more so: The pilot is rife with elaborately choreographed shots in which not a detail is out of place. It's truly cinematic stuff that deserves to be taken in on the biggest screen possible." However, he critiques the show for not being able to stick to one main message and having messily delivered themes, which makes the overall story weaker. He wrote that the show "isn't sure if it wants to be a show about David's abilities, or about mental illness" and that "it tries so hard to dazzle that it forgets to tell a meaningful story."
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