If you’re watching FX’s new series Legion then you, like me, may be hella confused. The show hails from Fargo creator Noah Hawley and is technically an adaptation of an X-Men comics character—Professor X’s troubled son who hears a lot of voices and has serious telepathic powers—but Hawley has really made this show his own by eschewing pretty much all storytelling conventions. Indeed, this isn’t really a superhero show at all but is really more of a psychological thriller/drama about someone suffering from mental illness who also may happen to have mutant powers.

We’re now halfway through the show’s first season, and there are still a lot of unanswered questions (although my esteemed colleague Chris Cabin has been doing a great job of breaking down each episode in his full recaps). But after the events of “Chapter 5,” it’s clear there are likely three possibilities as to what, exactly, is going on in this show. So let’s break down why each may be right, and what that would mean for the series as a whole.

Theory #1: Everything Is Happening in David’s Head

This theory gained a lot more credence in “Chapter Five,” as the closing moments of the episode transported us back to Clockworks Hospital where we saw Dan Stevens’ David sitting in group therapy with fellow patients Sydney, Loudermilks, Ptonomy, and Melanie as Aubrey Plaza’s Lenny led the group as some sort of doctor or therapist. Now, this came after the revelation that “Lenny” is one of many faces this entity inside David wears, alongside King the dog, the man with yellow eyes, and The World’s Angriest Boy. So it’s possible this is a trip inside a trip, with Lenny trapping everyone’s minds in this made-up world.

But, this could also signal our first actual glimpse at the real world, positing that everything we’ve seen previously—the hospital breakout, the events at Summerland—have all been fantasy manifestations in David’s head as he works out his issues. Again, at heart Legion is a show about mental illness and memory, not superheroes, so it wouldn’t be a stretch if these events were all illusory manifestations of David’s issues, using fellow patients as the basis for the characters in his head. If that’s the case, the show may be headed for one hell of a twist and something of a reboot, as we discover the show we’ve been watching isn’t actually what Legion is at all.

While this twist could certainly rub people the wrong way, if Hawley has been conceiving of the series this way the entire time it could simply paint the previous actions in a new light as opposed to wiping them away entirely. Even if what we saw didn’t actually happen, it enlightened us as to David’s issues and headspace and provided shading and context to his mental illness. So it’s not like a big “it was all a dream” reveal where nothing mattered—in Legion everything matters, but not everything is real.

Theory #2: Everything Is Actually Happening in Reality

The second theory about Legion is that everything we’ve been presented with in the show is actually real. Meaning David was in a psychiatric hospital, got broken out, joined a band of mutants, and saved his sister with the help of some nefarious entity inside him. This would be a fairly straightforward “comic book” reading, where strange things happen in this grounded yet trippy world. The problem with this theory is that David is unstable, so while all of the action could be taken as happening in real life, we still have sequences like where David visits the Astral Plane. Given his powers, David is constantly blending reality with fiction, and Hawley has established a visual language that wavers between the two without warning.

This almost feels too simple though, especially for Hawley. The end of the pilot had David asking, “Is this real?” and that doesn’t seem like a coincidence. I think we’re meant to question how much of what we’re seeing is actually happening, and how much is David’s mind playing tricks on him. Which brings us to Theory #3…

Theory #3: The Show Is a Mix of Reality and Illusion

This could be the likeliest of the three scenarios: What we’ve seen thus far is somewhat true, but all colored by the illusory nature of David’s mind. So perhaps the bones of the story are true—David was in a mental hospital, got out, and found friends—but the details may be colored. In “Chapter Five” we were introduced to the idea that David has an evil, ancient entity inside his brain that may be another mutant. But if we’re blending fact with fiction, perhaps the truth is that David doesn’t have another mutant inside his mind—maybe he’s just schizophrenic, and “Lenny” is an alternate personality.

In preparing for the series Hawley had his writers bone up on the work of Oliver Sacks and psychiatric research, not Marvel comics. So it’s clear his interests in the show lie not with telling a superhero story, but telling a story about someone with mental illness. What better protagonist than David Haller, a mutant who hears voices, to explore the issues related to schizophrenia? So maybe David does have mutant powers but is also schizophrenic, so what we’ve been seeing is some blend of what’s actually happening and the mental illness battle going on in David’s head.

Or maybe I’m completely, totally off base. This show has not offered easy answers, but it’s always compelling and is consistently one of the most visually interesting series on TV right now. Hawley has promised that the audience will be enlightened as to what’s going on by the season’s end, so we’ll likely have an answer as to which of these theories is correct in a matter of weeks. Right now, I’m leaning towards #1. There’s just no way everything we’ve been presented with is 100% fact, right? Especially with such an unreliable narrator.

What do you think folks? Do you have a different theory? Let’s hear it. Sound off in the comments below.