Marshall Bell is "The Judge" - The first incarnation of what we have become to understand as "Legion" - A recurring evil in the Millennium Mythos.
This is no Lucy Butler - Here, "The Judge," seems genuinely interested and intrigued by Frank Black. Knows all about him, knows his deep concerns. Knows "The Group" which it will later infest in the form of "Mabius" in S3.
We can almost even applaud what "The Judge" does, as a form of "Vigilante Justice" - He seems to be genuinely righting wrongs that have been the result of manipulations of The Justice System.
So. Why does Frank get a Huge Red Flag? On one hand, The Judge is finding these people who have used Legal Loopholes and using these as nooses to deliver Justice to those people who have performed these manipulations, but The Judge himself uses the same legal maneuverings to tie Frank and "Blech" in knots! If This guy is ultimately doing good, why shouldn't Frank work for him? "Here is My Thing" - The Judge is not really doing anything good.
This is the first time Legion offers Frank a Job, a Job that will "Alleviate his family problems?" We must assume, Legion then is the source of the problems.
On one hand, the guy does good, hes a superhero right? But people are becoming irreversibly mangled if not killed in horrible ways.
What is really truly frightening, is that THERE WILL BE PEOPLE who cannot see that what The Judge is doing is wrong, very wrong.
Throw the word "Justice" into a sentence, and it seems to validate some of the most horrific acts imaginable.
This is not the last or the least we see of this thing which names itself "Legion" in this 'sode - It is merely the first incarnation. In the end, it takes a joint effort of Jordan and Frank to ward off an attack by this thing. All through the series, we want to know the motivation of Legion/The Judge/Mabius/Lucy Butler/Al Pepper/etc - Each incarnation has an agenda of it's own, but in the long run they all want one thing: Frank Black!
In the end, it becomes a contest between Legion and Frank, and the only way Frank can win such a contest is to not compete.
The Judge in this form, showed that he can hold all the cards and Kick Frank's Ass in any Legal Arena. Frank is initially frustrated, he's legally blocked at all avenues, until he realises there is a Hole card The Judge knows not wot of - In the form of recent former Prisoner Mike Bardale (John Hawkes) - Who, in a way, sees through The Judge's Facade and performs a little Vigilante Justice of his own,
Bardale, has no aspirations of being "free in the world" - He explains to Frank the difference between a Convict and an Inmate. We can give Bardale a better character reference than we can The Judge - Because, although Bardale was a Prisoner, a Convict and a Murderer, he never represents himself to be anything other than that. That is what he is, and by being what he is, can do one good thing: Rid the world of The Judge.
The Judge said: Don't make the conventional assumptions. Meaning, that the Job Offer is Closed simply because The Judge is Pig Fodder: No, it snot. But did we understand this at the time the Episode was Broadcast? I sure as hell didn't! We all needed to have Lucy Butler kick us in the Tenderloin District and scare us to death before we really started realising this.
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