This article contains spoilers for Legion Season 2 and discussion of sexual violence.

Legion has always been mind-bending, but the season two finale may have turned the show on its head. David, the seeming protagonist of the first two seasons, is shown to be a villain, controlling and violating his girlfriend, Syd. David flees Division 3 at the end of the episode, promising a chilling confrontation in season 3.

While David's plan is able to incapacitate Farouk, Syd stops David from killing the Shadow King. In the last episode, Farouk (disguised as Melanie) showed Syd David's dark side, and so Syd confronts David, afraid of who he is and who he will become. She tries to shoot him, but Lenny intervenes with her sniper rifle. As a result, Farouk is captured, but not killed when Division 3 sweeps in. In the confusion, David alters Syd's memory.

Personifications of David's other personalities appear, arguing in his head and revealing the delusion that he has been clinging to all season: that he is a good person who is deserving of love. Through the episode, three different personalities argue within David's mind — a view of David that has hinted at, but never shown to the viewer through the season. Desperately trying to win her back, David visits Syd as a projection and has sex with her.

Farouk's trial, as it turns out, is actually a trap to incapacitate David. At first, David is horrified at the betrayal of his friends. Syd tells him that the truth is that he both has superpowers and is suffering from mental illness. He is put on trial for "future crimes" and is told that he will need to go to therapy and take medication — or else he will be killed. When David demands that Syd be the one who tells him he will be killed if he doesn't cooperate, and she responds, "You drugged me and had sex with me," a condemnation that he wasn't prepared to hear. David, however, will not be constrained — not by the forcefield that is supposed to contain him and not by Syd's accusation. He easily escapes Division 3, leaving the rest of the characters wondering what the future holds.

David's Plan Explained

Dan Stevens as David In Legion Season 2

The episode begins with David confronting Farouk while singing The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes". The two face off mentally in a variety of forms, and while Farouk seems to have the upper hand, Lenny is revealed with her sniper rifle. It turns out that Lenny's job wasn't to shoot someone, but instead, shoot the giant tuning fork that Farouk threw at a distance. The reverberation of the tuning fork disables both David and Farouk's powers, and David beats Farouk unconscious.

The action cuts away to Oliver and Melanie Bird, living together three years later in the astral plane ice cube where Oliver was initially trapped. While the two seem happy, they've begun to forget the meanings of words and names of their friends, a side effect of spending too much time in the astral plane. Trying to remember what happened, Oliver asks Melanie why David "turned", she responds "because she [Syd] showed him his future."

More: Legion Season 2's Biggest Mysteries So Far

David and Sydney's Confrontation

Syd arrives, holding the head of a minotaur, as David beats Farouk to the point of death. To his surprise, she points her gun at him, telling him that they "need to talk." David tries to reason with her and tell her that she's been tricked, claiming that he is "the good guy", but Syd stands her ground. She ponders whether or not David even realizes that he's been lying to her this whole time. David doesn't understand, but Syd reveals to him that her future self used him to save Farouk because David himself would be the villain who ends the world. David is mortified, and pleads with her:

David: "You know me."

Syd: "Yeah, I do. And guess what? You're not the hero."

David: "Then who is?"

Syd: "Me."

With that, Syd pulls the trigger.

Page 2 of 2: David Is The Villain Of Legion

David's Multiple Personalities... and Delusion

David awakens in a wood-paneled bedroom, with the star-lamp casting lights around the room and the television playing the original delusion sequence: "A delusion starts like any other idea. As an egg." Another David greets him, laughing.

This isn't the first time that David has had different versions of himself talking to himself. At the end of Season 1, his rational mind appeared, speaking in a British voice. Throughout the second season, too, David has been shown talking to himself (or someone else out of view). But this season, it seems that the voices in David's head are his own, rather than the Shadow King.

More: How is Lenny Back on Legion?

In the comics, Legion has dissociative identity disorder, sometimes referred to as multiple personality disorder in popular culture. This episode, then, shows an incarnation of David that is closest to the comic version of his character.

The orange-shirted David appears to be the "normal" David, speaking to a green-shirted David, who is trying to convince him that he's delusional. A yellow-shirted David also appears, who encourages David to think of himself as a god and ignore what everyone else tells him. Green-shirted David tells him that there is a delusion that David has been holding onto all along. They enter an egg and hear yet-another-David repeat over and over again: "I am a good person. I deserve love."

Suddenly, the delusions begin to pile up: David believes that he is a hero, that he is saving people, that he is fighting for love, that Syd's love saved him, that God loves the sinners best... arguing with his green-shirted self who believes he's delusional and his yellow-shirted god-complex, it seems more and more like Syd might be right: David isn't a hero.

David is a Villain

Dan Stevens as David Haller in Legion

As it turns out, Lenny saw that Syd was about to shoot David and tried to kill Syd with her sniper rifle; Lenny misses but shoots Syd's bullet out of the sky, knocking both David and Syd over. Division 3 comes to the rescue, and the Shadow King is taken into custody. Meanwhile, David, urged by his two other personalities, says, "I know what I have to do." He crawls over to an incapacitated Syd, places his hand at her mind, and when she awakes, he tells her, "You had a bad dream."

When they return to Division 3, David argues with his other personalities, saying that he can save his relationship with Syd. Then, he uses projection to visit Syd in her room, having sex with her. David also projects to visit Farouk to "say goodbye," but Farouk shoots back, "It's really sick, what you're doing to her, don't you think?" Farouk saw David control Syd's memory. He confides in David saying that if you try to force someone to love, as Farouk tried to make David love him, they will only hate you for it. David tells Farouk that he makes him sick, and Farouk retorts, "Good, remember that feeling, because soon you will see it in her eyes when she looks at you."

Farouk isn't the only one who realizes what David has done. Cary, re-examining the scene, realizes that David has committed "treachery". Farouk, too, passes the message along to Syd using a mouse. When David arrives to testify against Farouk, he discovers that he is actually on trial for the future crimes he will commit. He becomes furious as Cary and Syd tell him that they believe he is mentally unstable. Cary explains to David that "Your mind can't reconcile the person we see with the person you think you are." When Admiral Fukuyama tells David that he will have to return to medication and therapy — or be killed — David demands that Syd repeat his sentencing. She responds, harrowingly: "David, you drugged me and had sex with me."

David can't face what Syd is telling him, the ramifications of his actions or how his violation of her makes him no better than Farouk. At first, he whispers desperately, "I need you," to Syd — or maybe to what she represents for him — before repeating over and over again: "I'm a good person. I deserve love." Finally, David becomes angry, "You know what? I'm done."  He breaks out of the field containing him, and runs, taking Lenny along with him. Lenny asks him about "blondie" or Syd, and he retorts, "There is no blondie now." Together, they disappear — David is leaving behind his relationship with Syd, presumably building a new delusion that will justify his actions. "What do we do now?" Syd asks. Clark responds, "Now we pray."

Next: What to Expect from Legion Season 3