Well, that was unexpected. Although, after an episode that highlighted the various ouroboros instances that have occurred throughout the series thus far (OB creating the TVA manual from Victor’s notes while Victor created his notes from the TVA manual and Loki finding his past self to prune him so that his current self could continue to exist), perhaps it shouldn’t have been. After all, what better time to reset things and see if our characters can avoid falling prey to another ouroboros than right before the final two episodes of the season?
Because that’s where we are – with a mere two episodes left in the season, and what seems like an awfully large amount of plot to churn through to make this a satisfying ending (taking into account that in the land of the MCU, there never really are endings – just pauses in storytelling until such time as the characters and/or the dangling plot threads are needed for another story). And that troubles me. When its first season ended, Loki was the second most successful of the MCU television series at capturing the strengths of the legacy character involved and the television medium to weave a complex and compelling story that not only allowed its various characters to gain depth and development along the way, but also added to the Marvel cannon in ways you just couldn’t in a single film. But this time around, I’m not entirely sure just what kind of story the series is telling here. There’s the Kang of it all, which links this to the greater MCU narrative of the moment – which is fine, but the series seems to have forgotten that it’s meant to be telling us more about Loki as a character, not simply serving as a placeholder to explain more about timelines, variants, and just how Kang might be able to really mess things up in the greater MCU.
Anyone who came to this series hoping for another round of Loki and Mobius traveling through time was likely happy last week – as that installment provided us that fun buddy energy that has been missing as our heroes have struggled to understand the timeline shenanigans of this season. But this week we were back to more of the same, albeit with a perfect 100% body count (at least one presumes that the crew watching the Time Loom explode didn’t make it out). How will they get out of this one? Well, the series is called Loki, so I’m guessing he’s gonna be back in some form next week. And I’m betting the rest of the crew are there as well, some way, some how. But the question is why did this happen, why did we have to go through it, and will it be able to give us some more character time and less plot device mechanics time in these remaining two episodes?
We’ve had precious little time with our characters simply being – trying to solve problems through action and personal growth rather than a lot of technobabble as Mobius, Sylvie, and Loki rely on Team Nerd to save the day. And I say that as someone who really loves the interaction between OB and Casey (kudos to Eugene Cordero for absolutely holding his own amongst this crew and always making me laugh). So much of this episode – and several of the previous episodes – have felt more like quantum mechanics class than character-driven storytelling. It’s felt like homework for us to understand just what is coming in the MCU. And that’s the one thing season one of Loki rarely felt like. I was excited to watch season one because it allowed us a chance to see who Loki could grow to become without the toxicity of feeling like he was second best (or really, much further down the line) to his father on Asgaard. This version of Loki could become the hero because people needed him – not because Thor wasn’t there, but because Loki has the skill set needed to solve the problems facing the TVA. This time around, Loki has been less of the focal point, which is fine if the series continued its path of building up these characters as a band of misfits who learn they have what it takes to save the day. But that’s not what we’ve gotten this time around. Sure, they are working together to save the day, but the focus is not on characters. It’s not character-driven storytelling. The plot points are driving the story, pushing it to reach a necessary conclusion (presumably for the greater MCU story). And we’re losing a chance to see our characters grow as a result of this arc. And that’s a downright shame.
Telling these various Marvel stories via television was meant to be a means to provide character growth for characters who could then go on to thrive in the film side of the universe. Put in the time here to create these character, build them out, allow them to figure out how they want to be seen in the greater world, and then set them free. That’s the beauty of television as a medium: You can spend time developing characters on a deeper level than you can in a film. But here, we’ve wasted a chance to delve deeper into Loki, to find out more about Mobius, to help craft Kang into a more layered and complex villain. Yes, there are two more installments waiting. But what a waste of time trying to provide context for the greater TVA meltdown at the expense of character development. Season one was so wonderful at using Loki and all his fears as a jumping off point to show him what he needed to move beyond and who he could become. This time around, Loki is fully on the save the TVA, save the world train with very little movement possible to other options or opinions. If only the writers hadn’t made the collapse of the TVA so imminent, we could have had some time for conversations like the one between Loki and Sylvie in episode two, for debates, for a greater understanding of just why various characters feel the ways they do. Now that would have been something worth watching. But, here we are, being cute with the idea of an ouroboros, resetting the gameboard at the last minute. I guess we’ll see just where things will shake out in the final two episodes. Hopefully they can give us something better than what they have thus far.
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