Loki – 1893 Review

Well, that was a bit of a mixed bag of an episode. On the one hand, we finally got a better idea of just what Miss Minutes has been up to (and, as many guessed, she was indeed up to no good), along with how Ravonna Renslayer fits into the story after a couple episodes away. On the other, well, we had the return of Jonathan Majors as a variant of He Who Remains (Victor Timely), which is a tricky situation to write about these days in light of the various pending legal charges against him.

Let’s tackle the Vincent Timely side of the story before getting into the Miss Minutes/He Who Remains complexities – which turned out to be pretty interesting and present some fun possibilities for the story moving forward. So, He Who Remains had a contingency plan in place in the event that Sylvie opted for a permanent solution to the paradox he presented her at the end of last season. He would have Miss Minutes, aided by Ravonna, time hop and present a variant of his with the means to learn the secrets of the TVA to possibly grow up and save it (at least that’s what it looks like at this stage of the game – I, and I suspect you, are not naive enough to think that Victor would be content with simply saving the TVA when he could rule over the organization as well). So, off to 1893 Chicago* and the World’s Fair to see what Victor has come up with. While I found Major’s performance unsettling as He Who Remains in season one, I found his performance as Victor Timely, frankly, annoying. Yes, you can see the threads of instability running through the character – elements that make the various Kang variants so troubling and worrisome in terms of just what they are capable of in the greater universe – but I found myself incredibly frustrated that Sylvie didn’t run him through with her sword early on so we wouldn’t have to deal with his stilted delivery and affected performance. But yet, we will have to endure it for several more episodes at least.

*As a Chicagoan, I particularly liked the joke that Victor lives up in Wisconsin for the tax breaks. I know several folks who do that, despite the fact it means you have to live in Wisconsin. Which doesn’t seem like a great trade-off to me.

What made He Who Remains frightening was that he was so calm in the face of potential death. He was ten steps ahead of Loki and Sylvie. He knew that he was not long for the world and had put failsafes in. No matter what they did, he knew he had a plan. That is scary. That is impressive. That is the makings of a strong villain. But this time around, Victor Timely was more the annoying coworker you have who refuses help when he needs it, insists that he knows best, and then takes off from work two hours early because he deserves to for all the work he’s already done. You know the guy. Perhaps that’s by design. But man, was that a frustrating performance and a frustrating character. And Majors is, for everything else swirling around him, an intuitive and smart actor, so a part of me believes there must be more than meets the eye to this particular performance. But I’m not yet seeing it.

But speaking of frightening, boy was Miss Minutes (and voice actor Tara Strong) troubling this episode. We’ve all wondered just where Miss Minutes – a sentient AI with abilities I suspect we haven’t yet seen the full extent of – fit into the larger Loki picture, and this week we got our answer. And yeah, it’s not all unicorns and rainbows there. Miss Minutes is not only working with He Who Remains, she is also in love with him – and not thrilled that Victor Timely seems a bit taken with Ravonna.* I wonder who is more scary: a scorned sentient AI or Victor Timely when he sees the potential power he could wield at the TVA? I’m betting if the duo meet up, they could be a true force to be reckoned with – and I don’t think Loki and Mobius are taking the Miss Minutes threat seriously at all (although I guess they don’t really know what her true goals are yet). But if we get that team up (and I cannot imagine it not happening at this point), that might be enough to turn the tables on Victor and make him more than just a disappointing variant and turn him into a true threat. And that I would be excited about.

*In the comics, Ravonna is the true love of Kang, which I suspect is the direction the series is going as well. And if Miss Minutes is in love with him as well, I’m seeing a means for Ravonna to team back up with Mobius, Loki, and potentially Sylvie in a quest to stop Victor/Kang/He Who Remains from taking over the TVA. After all, we need a way to get Kang positioned to be a threat to the greater MCU after this series, and perhaps Ravonna sacrificing herself to go with Kang might do it? We’ll see.

What is clear is that the threads of the story are starting to come together. We have a Kang in the TVA who can stop the Loom from overheating and destroying all timelines. We have Miss Minutes steaming mad and ready to do whatever it takes to save him. And we have a general idea of what is likely going to happen moving forward: Victor wants control of the TVA. Miss Minutes wants to help him get it. Ravonna is caught in the middle, trying to figure out who to trust. And Mobius and Loki are still thinking too short term to understand that they just brought a wolf into the hen house. I’m still not sold on Victor as an interesting character, but if the writer play this out just right, it could all work.