The Legion season one finale — airing tonight on FX — adds shocking new layers to Summerland’s future; so there’s no better time to revisit the pond where its ripples first spread.
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Co-Executive Producer Michael Uppendahl will return to direct the finale after previously putting his touches on chapters two and three. The earlier episodes establish the Summerland setting where David Haller — Professor X’s apparently abandoned son, played by Dan Stevens — forms his first bonds with the specialists who help him develop his mutant powers.
A stand-out scene for the series has been where David describes what it was like to switch bodies — for the first time in his case but only the most recent occasion for Sydney Barrett, David’s centering presence (Rachel Keller in the star-turn role).
Uppendahl called the memorable scene “a trial by fire” for the two actors just beginning to create their confounding characters. Though the conversation comes in chapter three, it was (due to scheduling constraints) surprisingly the first scene filmed on the first day of production for the new series’ episodes.
That means when Stevens and Keller began revealing the most personal side of their characters, it was their first time seeing the pond and dock where it takes place.
“In a way that was good for us because we got to just get down to the root of the script,” Uppendahl told ComicBook.com. “When you’re investigating [the script] even in a circumstance that’s so foreign from that which you’re going to shoot it, it’s still a rich treasure trove to dig around in.”
Uppendahl knew vaguely of the physical setting when Stevens and Keller rehearsed the scene indoors, but the goal was to keep things as free as possible.
“When we applied it to the physical location, it became even better which is one of the great joys of directing… you want it to be at least as good as you imagine it,” he said. “If you’re really doing your job well, it’s much better than you imagined because of contributions of the actors and the crew.”
[MORE LEGION: Season 2 Will NOT Follow The Comic Storylines]
A highly sought-after director, Uppendahl earned his reputation going back to early seasons of Mad Men for taking charge of critical or challenging episodes — for cast and audience alike.
The finale (10 PM/9 Central on FX) also sees the return of showrunner and creator Noah Hawley to writing duties after penning chapters one and two.
“Noah has fantastic belief. I think he has complete belief in his instincts and he follows through with them,” Uppendahl said. “He’s shockingly and infuriatingly quick to arrive at the correct decision.”
The head-spinning pilot episode directed by Hawley (months before the series order and Summerland setting were established) was only the creator’s second outing in the director’s chair. Hawley’s first directorial effort came in the second year of his other FX creation, Fargo.
Directing three of Fargo‘s first four season two hours — including the quietly revolutionary opener “Waiting for Dutch” — while Hawley helmed the second episode gave Uppendahl a truly unique insight into the mind of an emerging filmmaker whose philosophy is just beginning to spread through the vast X-Men universe.
“In all the various capacities of people watching Noah [run Legion, we were] just sort of like, ‘Well, what else have we got?’,” he said. “There’s no real right answer to any of these questions as a director or as a writer. It’s just what you feel is best and what is in service to things you believe. I think he was able to easily extend that into directing. He’s able to just reach into that and quickly and authoritatively make the right move.
“That’s how we all tried to operate. We took that lead in all of the departments from acting to costumes, lighting… We all have no time as is the case in most television shows. You just have to say, ‘Well, we’ve got this terrific script!’… The touchstone is the script and we’re all hired because we’re a good a match for it. We all believe, very much, in the show and are aware that it’s a special show.
“We all have learned from Noah to try and trust our instincts,” Uppendahl continued. “I think Noah gravitates to people who are able to do that. Then he challenges us.”
That trust is abundantly clear in the performances of the two stars throughout the series.
In the conversation on the dock, Dan Stevens already brings the awkward, lived-in persona of David Haller to life in a way that is distinctly unique among comic book stories on screen.
For Rachel Keller, her earlier experience with Uppendahl and Hawley allows her to trampoline to the next level as Sydney Barrett (the still enigmatic figure named for Pink Floyd’s founding bandleader).
In directing Fargo episodes “The Myth of Sisyphus” and “Fear and Trembling”, Uppendahl had the fortune of helping manifest Keller’s earliest performances that made her an actress to watch.
“She just has terrific instincts. I think almost everyone’s nervous who’s cast in Fargo because of living up to the movie, the accent, the other tremendous actors they’re surrounded by. She was also pretty freshly out of college at that point, she’s just a natural,” he said. “Any kind of nervousness was because it was the sort that anyone would experience in a new environment.
“Those instincts have just become sharper and keener and her trust has become stronger, as it should be, because they really are terrific instincts. Noah tends to write demandingly for his actors and trusts them to be able to pull it off.”
The craft in creating such a scene on the first production day obviously extends through all the crew navigating the environment for the first time.
Shot in scenic British Columbia (about 40 miles/60 kilometers north of Vancouver), Legion uses its surroundings in a variety of surprising ways.
The water in particular provides a striking contrast to the Summerland interiors.
Uppendahl noted the curious “blue-ish” color, which blends strikingly with the surrounding foliage and casts a notably different appearance when revisited in different lighting.
“I [had never] seen that natural phenomenon,” he said. “In addition to making the crew wade around, they had to do it in slow motion so that they wouldn’t disturb the silt underneath and contaminate the look of the water.”
Without such extensive coordination happening rapidly at a new location, Legion would not be able to produce its extensively varied chapters that challenge all involved in a different way each week.
“We had various boats and barges around the actors and to supply our camera equipment and to hold the cameras in some of the shots. We had an expert team that was working together incredibly well right of the bat,” Uppendahl said.
“That happened right away and put us all in a great mindset with which we tackled the rest of the season. We all wanted to come out of the gate strong.”
Though tonight’s eighth chapter closes that gate on Legion‘s first season, the finale will have fans buzzing about the possibilities for David and his friends for season two. Come back to ComicBook.com for the final recap and for coverage of both Legion seasons throughout the whole calendar.
— Zach Ellin has provided coverage Legion coverage for ComicBook.com throughout the entire season of the show. Follow him on Twitter for more of his insights.
EPISODE RECAPS: Episode One | Episode Two | Episode Three |Episode Four | Episode Five | Episode Six | Episode Seven
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