I dont see it that way. David clearly has a better grip on his powers. Farouk thinks hes better than everyone else. Hence him calling himself something more than a god. And his absolute disregard for human life.
I think he means that Farouk knows and controls the full extent of his powers, whereas David still doesn't know much about what he can do.
Anyway, these past two episodes were about the power of ideas and delusions. I forgot what scene it was in the second ep but David walked into his room and there was the trail of the "delusion" (the black oily baby bird) which means a delusion is setting in his mind.
I acknowledged that, but that clearly wasnt the point of his posts. He meant his intentions. Which were malevelont not teacherly aka the point he was trying to get across (imo)
Legion show so far breakdown. I'll put theories/guesses on what anything the audience doesn't know yet in tags, so there won't be even possible spoilers in the breakdown, but skip this if you're not up to date:
I'll try to do this kind of chronologically for this season.
Off the Shadow King's first scene in this latest episode, you got to see part of the moment that kicked everything off, where they smartly flashed back the chalkboard scene from last year in Farouk's shades. Professor X & Shadow King battled in the astral plane in the show's prehistory, Xavier won, Farouk's body fell out but it didn't die (the monk even makes reference to them trying to kill it once it started driving them mad) so they tried to hide it among the Migo Order (raindrop, drop top), who David mentions have shields against telepathy.
Now, as he's buried under their temple, he obviously can't inhabit his body like he has David/Lenny/Oliver for whatever reason, but there's obviously still a part of him in there as he tries to break out (notice the parallel to the coffin he buried David in inside his mind SSN 1) and starts slowly driving the monks insane over the years. (Remember, that montage of David living out the monk's history happens over David's lifespan so far, as David was only born after Prof X banished SK to the astral plane) although the madness & driving them to suicide might only have happened once Farouk really started being able to tap into David's abilities last season.) The last remaining monk leaves and seeks out a weapon to destroy SK which he was told was at Division 3. When it looks like they might not have it & David intervenes, the monk kills himself rather than, as he sees it, assist SK.
This season started with David coming back from a year gap from when he got picked up from the orb. We know he's experienced stuff in that year but the only flash we get is David following the monk to the club where the Summerland/Division 3 team-up found him and we saw the battle on the astral plane as a dance-off. The results left David alone in the club in its wake and the people there affected by the monk with the chattering people which we learn this episode the monk infects people with. Remember David's first words and match them with what we learned tonight about the chatterers: ""Help them. They're in the maze."
While we know the monk infects people with this chattering, I suspect that the Shadow King is probably still the origin of this malady. There's a reason for those Jon Hamm pieces and the entire intro this week is on contagions that only exist because you believe they do. If part of driving all the monks mad was getting that one monk to pass on the psychic suggestion of the chatter that he passed on to others, that'd fit with SK's MO especially since the chatter psychicly takes people to their own fondest desire.
Once the band is back together, you have Summerland crew operating out of Division 3 and have been searching for David and The Shadow King/Oliver & trying to cure what they thought was SK's chatter disease for the past year, Melanie's a lovelorn addict after getting her husband back & losing him again, Syd's withdrawn a bit after David's year away & spends much of her time in a cat, Ptolemy is suspect of David's lack of memory from the past year & Kerry/Cary are good until SK gets them out of sync making it dangerous to re-merge . Division 3 has child soldiers because children seem to be immune to the chatter. Admiral Fukyuma, who leads Div 3 got messed up when they tried to put a computer in his brain when he was a kid so he hides his disfigured face behind the basket and speaks through his androids, the Vermilion. Crispy Crimson & the Admiral are playing this fine line of not knowing if they can trust David's free of the Shadow King's but kind of needing him because no one else can defeat him.
So basic plot is have David find & kill Farouk. Farouk is inside Oliver, so David wants to try to save Oliver if he can. Wrinkle 1. Then, future Syd shows up. Wrinkle 2.
Future Syd (who is probably from the future because Cary, on investigating the orb, thinks it's something he would build) used the orb to grab up David and get him to change the past. In her timeline, David kills Farouk but then something worse comes to pass that probably only Farouk could have prevented (plus she loses an arm and hints David is very altered in her future.) So, David decides he's going to run with Future Syd's plan but what they find is a fortune teller's booth with a memento from current Syd's past on it while SK is attacking Division 3. (We now know from the newest episode he was looking for the monk/the weapon/both.) David contacts Future Syd again on some "you sure about this?" and she spells out the doomed future. David seeks Farouk out again and makes him concede to not hurting anyone else after a brief astral tussle & David agrees to find the Monk in Div 3 after telling Syd about Future Syd.
Then in this episode you have the Monk storyline (mostly covered above) and the chatter-induced mindscapes themselves showing each person chattering is trapped in a mental maze that is kind of their deepest desire-ish wish fulfillment to keep them satiated. Ptolemy's was to escape remembering everything, Melanie's was controlling outcomes when she keeps losing Oliver so much as to become a computer program (the Minotaur popping back from her vape-fest in Ep 1 probably represents the unknown lurking around the corner to ruin everything maybe?) and cliffhanger was David jumping into Present Syd's maze.
The Shadow King has 4 components so far this season. There's his physical body last seen with the Migo Order (Skrrrrt!), there's Ahmal Farouk hisself, there's Oliver, whose physical body SK inhabits (but who can also pops up as his own consciousness in the astral plane controlled by SK or be the face Farouk's wearing in the astral plane as he did Lenny last season) and Lenny whose consciousness SK absorbed last season when she died and basically possessed her astral form. Now, as he's now outed as Farouk and has no need for the masks (except in the sense of Oliver's physical body as he couldn't survive w/o a host in the real world for long) Lenny is becoming her own character. Especially the last two episodes you're getting some really cool, dark and interesting stuff on this persona of the junkie girl in a mental institution that the Shadow King was manipulating David through and got in their psychic realm. Her real self was basically on mute all last year as SK inhabited her and now she's being kept around as this psychic pet as she's trapped in this limbo of Shadow King's astral space. She tries to beg, bargain, kills herself multiple times while David & Farouk speak this last episode, but it's to no avail because her consciousness doesn't really exist outside the Shadow King anymore. Really interesting to see how that develops and how Oliver interplays with this gestalt Shadow King.
The Jon Hamm interstitials:
The first one compares madness to a maze. (made literal in tonight's episode)
The second one speaks of ideas and delusions.
The third one is perceptions of reality and how they can be shaped.
The fourth is how the mind can create physical effects on the body.
(Am I missing one? b/c delusions is "chapter 3" & umwelt/perceptions is "chapter 4" when I double-checked)
These are all themes, ideas and concepts being played out within the plot and very key to what's going on and possibly what's to come (like how the maze/madness concept from Ep 1 manifested in this ep)
Also, things like the delusion piece involved 2 characters, one who thought he was an animal and one who cut off his own leg. Syd is a cat a whole bunch & has no arm in the future. But, if I'm reading that right, is that a hint of what might happen to Syd or a hint that Future Syd is Shadow King's delusion herself? SK also made a physical fortune teller booth with an item from Syd's past on it. There's a lot going on there. Fun to see how it plays out.
And I got no idea what the cow is yet, but they've been revealing these things pretty quick.
I think I'm pretty much on the same wavelengths as @BuddahMAC
One thing in this episode that was weird was the whole swaying left to right scene while farok and david were talking by the pool. It felt like it was supposed to be a hypnotism scene especially with the black and white chairs in the background, as if to say that Farouk is putting ideas in head that's gonna affect him later. It all kinda syncs up with the delusion piece they had set up in the last episode.
Also as weird as this show is I think the weirdest thing by far was the damn mustached androids. I'm so fukking happy they're dead. I couldn't stand them. It's just off putting looking at them.
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