Did the Loki finale live up to its glorious purpose?
Loki may be over (for now), but we still have some thoughts on the series’ goals, and its many Lokis
TV Features Loki
In its finale, Disney+’s Loki pulled back the curtain to reveal who’s playing with everyone else’s fates. The episode, “For All Time. Always.”, stylishly provided answers to some questions, but, as is always the case with these things, left several of them unanswered. But that’s okay, because a second season of variants, jet skis, skinny ties, and mischief has already been ordered, and, as we learned this week, there are so many other timelines to consider. Mobius may not remember what happened throughout this spirited, occasionally moving series, but The A.V. Club does. Before we close the file on Loki season one, a few staffers shared their thoughts on the show, that finale, and which Loki variant deserves to have a statue built in their honor.
William Hughes
Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the last two Disney+ Marvel shows, which felt satisfyingly complete, or maybe it’s just a consequence of Loki’s skimpy six-episode run, but that felt a little… abrupt, didn’t it? (To say nothing of “weirdly reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes.”) Don’t get me wrong: Jonathan Majors gave a strong, if somewhat predictable “I’m omnipotent and isn’t that quirky” performance as timeline master Kang/Immortus/Whoever. (And kudos to Marvel for having the courage to tackle a character with one of the most absurdly convoluted timelines in all of comicdom.) But the cliffhanger ending of “For All Time. Always” offers so little self-contained resolution that it threatens to render Loki little more than a prologue to either its own second season, or maybe just to that Multiverse Of Madness we’ve been hearing so much about.
Which is a shame, because I loved Loki in a way I haven’t loved either of its predecessors; the sheer energy of watching Tom Hiddleston bounce his way from apocalypse to apocalypse made this easy appointment viewing, week in and week out. I just wish the show had ended up having more of its own story to tell in the process, rather than feeling like a chunk of extremely charming connective tissue. (Also, less time-incest, please.) As to my favorite variant, I could go with the obvious, reptilian answer, but seriously: God bless this show for giving us Richard E. Grant, somehow managing to make prancing around in a bright green onesie feel simultaneously tragic, hilarious, and inspiring. Old Loki for the win.
Sam Barsanti
Both WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier lost me at certain points. The resolution to the former’s mysteries was unsatisfying, and I will go to my grave believing the rumors that the latter cut a virus storyline that would’ve been uncomfortable during COVID-19 (but also would’ve made way more sense than the absolute nothing storyline the show ended up with). Ahead of Loki, I was ready to argue that MCU stories just don’t work for me when stretched out to TV length, but that darn trickster went and tricked me. I never saw it coming! Loki is easily my favorite Marvel Studios thing since, oh, April of 2019, and it’s almost entirely because the show actually knew what story it wanted to tell and how it wanted to tell it—even if it did end up being built around setting up hooks for future Marvel stories (call me a sucker, but I love that shit).
As for which Loki is my favorite, there’s only one choice: He’s green, he’s got horns, and… oh, that doesn’t narrow it down at all. It’s Alligator Loki, and if there’s any justice in this world, Disney will merchandise him as thoroughly as it has that overrated baby from the other Disney+ show. Alligator Loki aside, I loved the gag with President Loki, who shows up to help one of the Lokis betray the other Lokis, betrays him, and then gets betrayed by his silly Mad Max goons (who also might’ve been Lokis?). Truly fantastic.
Shanicka Anderson
WandaVision is still way at the top for me, but Loki didn’t leave me feeling as letdown as The Falcon And The Winter Soldier did, so I’m considering this a win. However, I think that, at times, it fell into a similar TFTWS trap in terms of pacing. Like William, to me the series (especially the first few episodes) felt a lot like a prologue as well. Though I understand this was mainly due to Marvel delicately laying the Multiverse foundation, I think Loki would have benefited from starting a little bit closer to the action. For me, the highlight of the series came from the last two episodes. The meeting of the Lokis and their brawl was so funny and well-done. Since I’m not well-versed in the comics, I tend to approach most of Marvel’s on-screen offerings with a “no theorizing just vibes” attitude, so the He Who Remains/Kang reveal was a satisfying enough pay-off for me. Jonathan Majors was a delight to watch onscreen and since Sylvie made the “wrong decision,” I’m approaching the promise of some ramped up, time-wimey chaos in season two with cautious optimism.
As for my favorite variant, I’ll have to go with Sylvie. She was taken by the TVA at such a young age and then she was forced to fend for herself, jumping from apocalypse to apocalypse, for decades. I would watch a show (or at least one very special episode of Loki season 2) that highlights the kinds of adventures she got up to and the kind of people and/or variants she met along the way.
Saloni Gajjar
For the most part, I found Loki to be a total delight. It was certainly a step up from The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. I know that it’s essentially a setup for MCU’s big Phase 4 plans, but I’m thrilled we got six episodes of Tom Hiddleston acing Loki’s transformation from the 2012 cocky Avengers’ villain (who was delightful, don’t get me wrong) to a full-fledged hero who is inclined to see the bigger picture. The show was quite literally an immersive journey for the character. Both Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino mined Loki’s emotional depth in different but solid ways. I do wish we’d gotten more of Hiddleston and Owen Wilson together beyond the first couple of episodes.
As for the finale, I agree it seemed abrupt. I was bummed they followed TFTWS’s “let’s exposition our way out of this” route. Then again, after the hubbub about Mephisto in WandaVision, I was pleasantly surprised they actually brought in Jonathan Majors. At least he had fun doing all the talking. He was incredible, and I’m excited to see what he brings to Loki season two and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. Side note for Loki season two: Mobius needs to get a freaking jet-ski, okay? My favorite Loki, besides Hiddleston’s ,was obviously Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki. It was perfect casting. The scene of him joyously screaming “glorious purpose” at the end of episode five will be burned in my head forever.
Baraka Kaseko
Let me start off by saying how much I adore the music in Loki. “Loki Green Theme” has been stuck in my head for the past six weeks. Composer Natalie Holt absolutely knocked it out of the park, perfectly blending classical orchestral composition with futuristic sci-fi accents to create one of the MCU’s most memorable scores. On the topic of the finale, I’m more mixed. Obviously, it’s exciting to see Marvel set up future stories, but I wish it wasn’t at the expense of the characters on the show that is currently airing. Loki and Sylvie felt sidelined for much of this episode, and their resolution felt rushed, almost perfunctory. That being said, if Marvel insists on episode-long exposition dumps, Jonathan Majors is a worthy delivery vehicle. He’s clearly having the time of his life playing the Wizard Of Oz-esque “Man Behind The TVA Curtain.” I know virtually nothing about Kang The Conqueror, but I get the impression many different versions of him will be popping up throughout the MCU over the next few years, which is an exciting prospect. (Put Jonathan Majors in more things, please.) But the show is called Loki after all, so it’s a bit weird to see Kang steal so much narrative spotlight.
As far as my favorite Loki variant is concerned, I’ll go with the obvious but correct choice: Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Hiddleston was already one of the most consistently strong performers of the MCU, but he has completely blown me away with his work here, infusing the God Of Mischief with so much heart and humor.
Danette Chavez
I’ve made peace with each MCU story being a piece of a bigger puzzle, though I do agree with most everyone else that series creators and writers like Michael Waldron should still try to make the most of their part of that larger narrative. Loki is certainly well made, from its gorgeously off-kilter score—complete with theremin—to the anamorphic shots that captured the expanse of the TVA. The series was more consistent in its thrills and tone than TFTWS, but to quote a different Asgardian, I just think it could have been more. I never connected to the Loki/Sylvie relationship, which shifted from an interesting take on self-love into something much more prosaic by the end. The trouble might have been with Sylvie, who always felt more like a complication than a character. Or maybe, after watching Loki connect with his brother after losing their mother in the movies, I wanted him to find more of that kind of family, which is where I thought the show was going with Mobius. When Loki began to move away from Loki and Mobius’ relationship—mentorship or friendship, because Marvel would never actually give us Lokius—it began to lose me. But kudos to Jonathan Majors for his take on a great and weary Oz; if Loki had to set off a bunch of new stories, at least there’s a good chance he’ll feature prominently in them, whether as Kang, He Who Remains, or someone else.
When I first posed the question of “who’s your favorite Loki variant” to the group, I felt sure my answer would be Alligator Loki, with his toothy grin and taste for other Lokis. But even with a possibly infinite number of Gods Of Mischief, Hiddleston’s Loki remains my favorite. I may not have bought the journey he went on wholesale, but there’s no denying the growth.
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Given that a second season is coming, and it ended on something of a cliffhanger, I’m more inclined to treat it as an individual episode rather than a “finale” (even if it is, technically, the season finale). And while Majors was great, I was also disappointed (as others have said) that Loki and Sylvie got so little to do for most of it. He Who Remains’s monologues were very well-executed but also felt a little long and repetitive; and the show never really seemed to present the possibility that he was wrong or lying (about the inevitability of the multiversal war and the corollary necessity of the TVA) as a serious option, so the outcome seemed fairly obvious.It also occurred to me that it’s basically the Neo/Architect scene from The Matrix: “Rule the current system in the way I want, or blow up the system and it’ll restart and I’ll win anyway.” Only HWR is not obviously malevolent/sinister the way the Architect was.
A common failing of a lot of shows these days (especially streaming shows) is that what they call the first season is really just the first half season. They end on a “cliffhanger” that lets you know that everything you have been watching was just set up for the story they really mean to tell.
this. I mean I know british series are shorter or one-offs and we are getting more used to that, but this really did feel like a half-season. I’m just concerned that it might be a very long time before season 2 is completed
He Who Remains really intrigued me with just how malevolent he’s meant to be. His goal to stop a multiversal war is obviously worthy, but it’s hard to know what the consequences of that action really is, and Majors’ performance suggests that HWR may very well be hiding something with regards to that.Speaking of his performance, I think Majors really sells the moment of “crossing the threshold” where he no longer knows everything that’ll happen. There’s a sense of real panic mixed with, maybe, a hint of giddiness that feels real for a being who’s been omniscient for all this time finally knowing uncertainty again.
it’s basically the Neo/Architect scene from The Matrix Yup, precisely this.
But I’d say it is much more fun because it opens possibilities and future stories as opposed to offering a solution that ends the story.
Am I the only one who found the editing/pacing weirdly slow throughout this show?Not that I need or want everything to be at a breakneck pace, but it felt like there were an awful lot of interminably long reaction shots, where nothing was changing, we were just left waiting to see what comes next.
I enjoyed the show overall. I didn’t love the finale. It was a lot of exposition basically restating the exposition of the first episode, only with Majors’ character in the place of the Time Keepers. Thankfully Majors gave a good performance of it. It’s all setup anyway for Spider-man and Ant-man and Dr. Strange and Loki Season 2, and hopefully all those titles will do more interesting things. And my favorite Loki remains the original, dead Loki.
It left us wanting more. I am a little skeptical of the introduction of Kang here, because he has to be re-introduced elsewhere (possibly multiple times) and I can’t tell if he is going to be a Thanos grade villain or a Baron Zemo recurring villain (because the MCU has learned to keep its villains alive finally), and I wonder how long before season 2 or if the Lokis are popping up in Ant-Man. I kind of like the idea of a good Kang joining the good guys to fight some of the bad Kangs (“Well, it’s what I’d do”)Anyway the biggest mistake this season made was not giving Sylvie her own episode. She just isn’t fleshed out enough, we still don’t even know what her divergent event was, it was a very good debut performance that sort of wasted its potential, especially if her choice has big repercussions for the entire MCU and isn’t cabined to just Ant-Man and Loki Season 2, shouldn’t we have known more about the character who made that choice? I think saying Hiddleston is your favorite Loki is a cheat (especially because this is not the original MCU Loki, remember?), who is your favorite variant variant? I love reptile-boi, but Richard E. Grant was so fucking glorious in his dissipated majesty that I can see myself going back to this episode for years to come, at least directly after introducing somebody to How to Get Ahead in Advertising or Withnail. Emmys TAKE NOTE. (also the review noted this, but I thought having President Loki be a one-off despite using him in all the ads was incredibly clever)
I loved Richard Grant’s version. He almost reminded me of a Terry Gilliam character, this kind of quirky, 80s villain like Evil Genius from Time Bandits.
I don’t imagine we’ll get any answers from the MCU films coming out this year outside of a post-credit scene or something.
A lot of talking in the dark….
I’m guessing there would have been a “Sylvie Episode” as well as a couple more “Time Travel Monster of the Week” episodes sans COVID changes.
If I remember correctly, the episode order was always set at 6, so I think we were always going to get what we got, to an extent.
I’m going to introduce a couple of somebodies to “Withnail & I” a week from Monday, as a result of all of us having seen Richard E Grant as Classic Loki, and I’m super-excited.
I got the impression that Sylvie didn’t actually have a divergent event. Kang simply lied about it to set her on the path of eventually confronting him.
That’s a fun theory, but seems like a great emotional beat to not reveal in a finale slightly lacking in personal stakes.“I spent my whole life, thousands of years, wondering what I’d done wrong and you’re telling me I didn’t do anything wrong?”
we still don’t even know what her divergent event was,The TVA’s problem with Sylvie is that she was too heroic at heart, and thus unsuited to play the role of a villain.
Someone pointed out that when playing with her toys as a child, she was acting out Ragnarok, but played her own role as a hero who saves Asgard. Immediately afterwards the TVA whisks her away. Since Lokis are supposed to play the villain (or die immediately after deciding to do something heroic), that was the divergence. Choosing to be a good person as a child would have violated her life’s purpose of being a heel.
They already showed her divergent event — the pretend play with the dragon and Valkyrie. By supporting the “good guys” in her pretend play, that foreshadowed her being good in that timeline, which was not okay with the TVA.In the Sacred Timeline, Loki is supposed to be a villain and elevate those around him (The Avengers) to be their best. Loki being good would directly result in the original Avengers not being created.
Am I the only person who rolled my eyes through the whole last episode? Half an hour of “Iron Man 2″-style place-setting, all in the laziest tell-don’t-show way possible (though Majors did what he could with it). I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to see him – or a Variant, presumably – in Quantumania.I will give someone kudos for a sly piece of set design. The three big circular windows behind Remains’s desk are placed in such a way that if you were to enlarge them until they overlapped a bit, you get the Mickey logo as backdrop to the office of the ultimate overlord.
Then you’re dumb.
Then you’re dumb.Well, I know when I’m beat. The floor is yours, Professor ncbo.
i mean… you did say ‘chomping’ as if that is the correct word. sorry champ. that is incorrect.
Never apologise for correcting someone. That one’s definitely on me, a native English speaker who should read his submissions properly, and you were right to call it out.
This post has been flagged for unnecessary humility and violating multiple core rules of the internet.
Both “chomping” and “champing” are acceptable in that idiom
I started rolling my eyes after I realized “Oh, they’re just…sitting there while a brand-new character dumps out exposition.” I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was like finally seeing the first “Friday the 13th” and expecting that Mrs. Voorhees was going to be a character throughout the movie who was revealed at the end to be a killer with a big story, and then having her just…there she is! With her story!
There’s four circular windows, and they form an hourglass. Very strong Time Lord vibes.
It really didn’t stick the landing for me, being more concerned with setting up future movies than providing a conclusive narrative for its own show. Yes, it gets a second season, but seeing the timeline reset so that Mobius and Loki don’t know each other was such an incredible bummer. As was Loki’s incestuous/mastubatory romance with Sylvie, which made me and everyone I was watching with with extremely uncomfortable. It’s not funny, it’s not introspective; it’s gross. I didn’t know how emotionally involved I was in the season’s storylines and characters until they all got jettisoned in the season finale.
I’m honestly baffled by how often I see the “incest” criticism. They’re fictional characters that don’t even have the same hair colour or any physical resemblance really. Yet people were puking in their seats at the kiss? Why?
Time travel and multiverse storylines are a writer’s greatest crutch. Marvel seems far more interested in ticking quota boxes than characters and plot at this point. The slow steady decline has 100% begun. If I was Hiddleston I’d be pissed. He went from being one of the greatest and most powerful Marvel villains to a hero willing to sacrifice his life for the greater good and now he’s been reduced to a sideline buffoon subservient at every step to a gender swap morally ambiguous woman who makes him look like a weak fool at every step. And this is in his show, what be a should be a showcase to the character treats him like an idiot throughout.
It hit me last night what Feige and Marvel may be going for with Kang. All of the D+ shows have touched on the concept of free will, and if you look at the depiction of “He Who Remains/Kang/Immortus,” it’s basically an evil version of Tony Stark from the future.The arrogance and sarcasm by which Johnathan Majors dances around the room feels like it’s channeling Iron Man 1/2 and Age of Ultron Tony Stark who tells the US Senate to screw off and rationalizes Ultron as being for the security of putting the world in suit of armor.And Miss Minutes is evil Jarvis!
An evil version of Tony Stark from the future sounds pretty apt, and also sounds like a very possible prediction. We don’t know Reed Richards here, after all, and AoU changed Ultron’s inventor because Hank Pym wasn’t yet incorporated. A descendant of Stark would be very much in the DNA of the MCU.
It also would work out nicely due to the heroic teenage Kang variant being Iron Lad in the Young Avengers original 2005 comic run.
A descendant of the daughter Tony Stark worked so hard to save in Endgame ending up becoming Kang the Conqueror would also add to evidence for the possibility that everyone from Thanos to Doctor Strange to all the other Avengers were *all* being played.
“Kang Skywalker”
I really liked sinister Miss Minutes in the last episode. Turning that folksy sweetness into menace worked very nicely.
Honestly, if I’m being really honest with myself, the final episode made me like the show less. It was all well done, and I thought the cast/crew/etc. all did amazing jobs.
Still, and I -know- this is silly, I would have preferred a self contained story with a beginning, middle, and end instead of what (in retrospect) a story that turned out to be all beginning.
I like the show overall, and I liked the final episode overall. I just liked it less than I expected to. Ultimately, that’s probably on me.
Did Mobius “not remember” Loki, or was Loki sent to an alternate universe/timeline where that version of Mobius hadn’t yet encountered Loki … or not encountered Loki in that recognizable form?
I think it’s closer to latter. The giant statue wasn’t there before, so it might be an altered timeline or an alternate universe.
The TVA (at least as described by themselves) stands outside of the normal multiverse, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have an alternate of any kind. Meanwhile, since He Who Remains is the one whole built the place, it stands to reason that once he was killed, whichever of his variants popped up first took control of it and changed its purpose, in the process altering all lives (and memories) of the employees.
It’s hard to tease out how much of the contradictions and logic problems are the result of bullshit mythmaking by the characters and how much of it is the basic difficulty of telling stories without our concept of time and space, but there are clearly two different versions of the TVA by the end, even if one has been destroyed: the one Loki remembers and the one with a Kang statue in its lobby. So they’re evidently subject to the creation of variations, as well as some of the normal rules of time — if you go back and change their history, their present/future changes.
The multiverse itself doesn’t make a ton of sense as presented here. Almost all the visuals and rhetoric suggest a “make a wrong decision and it creates a new branch reality off the main one,” but the existence of versions of yourself with different DNA and even from different species suggest universes that must have had different rules from the jump, or at least way before the variants existed. If the TVA is warping in and pruning everything within minutes, there’s no way a whole alligator society should have had time to evolve, for example. The whole idea that there is some clock on pruning after which the damage is permanent makes no sense from the perspective of beings that exist “outside” of time, and HWR must have destroyed several fully developed universes with eons of history already.
(Yes, I know this is extremely nerdy and I should just go with it.)
What’s the semantic difference between having two TVAs but one has been destroyed, and one TVA that has been changed due to time travel? Or more fundamentally, what does it change about the story if Loki has been put in an alternate version of the TVA instead of simply one where the circumstances of its formation were changed? The problem as I see it with having an alternate TVA is which alternate is he in? It’s clear that there’s more than one Kang, perhaps very many more Kangs, and if they’re all similarly minded, then maybe there are now very many more TVAs. Aside from the logistical nightmare of keeping track of thousands of Mobii et al., instead of merely presented with the problem of a war between Kangs, we would probably have a war between TVAs. The semantic difference there is instead of a war to establish the one true Kang, you have however many TVAs tripping over themselves and the timelines doing who knows what.
This is going to be a logistical nightmare either way, but if we’re wading into this …
Endgame suggests that time travel merely creates alternate paths that exist alongside the original, not overwrite it, which also seems to be the version most aggressively suggested here.
If we presume He Who Remains was roughly telling the truth, then at the moment of his death, we had one unified timeline that was being maintained by the TVA. His death itself should not have affected the past history of the TVA, except now no one is steering the ship. Theoretically, the danger of this that he seems to describe is that now a bunch of branches would form and escape detection, many of which would be populated by more malevolent versions of himself. At some point, one of two things must have happened: one of those bad versions of himself also had the idea to form a TVA, or one of them went back and altered the formation of the original, one true TVA.
The second version, in addition to contradicting the version of time travel the MCU has gone with so far, creates a lot of your standard time travel paradoxes (if the TVA we know never existed and the new version doesn’t recognize Loki, then the whole story we just saw couldn’t have happened, so 1.) Loki shouldn’t remember any of it, either, and 2.) Sylvie wouldn’t have had his help, so she wouldn’t have killed HWR, so the event that triggered the change wouldn’t have happened and the original TVA would still exist.)
It’s possible that there are multiple TVAs, but it’s also possible that one of the new branches created a badass Kang 2.0 who is wiping out the other Kangs before they get a chance to form competing agencies. And I suppose a third possibility is that Loki has been thrown backwards in time and this is the original timeline, operating on a closed loop. In that case, the statue is of HWR at a younger, more militant stage of his operation before he wipes everybody’s memory and takes a more hands-off approach, which is arguably what HWR is hinting at when presenting the options.
Definitely the latter.
I’ll see how it does on rewatch but the first 2 D+ shows had me in the limited series mindset which is why its probably 3rd out of the 3 for me. But I liked a lot of it. Immortus was great, I’m onboard if Kang variants become the new arc for the MCU, he has the potential to be a completely different adversary from Thanos which is a tough act to follow.
Personally, I enjoyed it, but I’m getting fed up with these 6-8 episode seasons being obviously too short. Remember when 6 episodes was called a mini-series?
PLEASE FIX THE NOTIFICATIONS!I know it’s nothing you or any of the AV Club people can do personally but of all the ways Kinja is broken this is the worst!
Or at least can you let us know if anything is being done about it? Is there even any programmer working on this site or is just left alone to rot and fall apart?
Sorry for going off-topic but it breaks the whole commenting system.
It’d be nice to at least get an acknowledgement that they’re aware of the problem and have someone working on it. Like a closeable banner at the top of the homepage.
Don’t be sorry, I and a large number of other commenters have been complain for months with no response from anyone. I don’t wish to take it out on the editors or writers — this is certainly an owner/management issue — but its very irritating I have yet to see a single one even acknowledge the problem. They need to keep hearing this from readers.The last time I remember Kinja working was during the Falcon and Winter Soldier recaps.
This one has been going on for a few weeks. Show Pending has been broken for years – almost form the beginning of the new scrolling version fo the site. The links stopped working about a 1-2 years ago. But as annoying both of these are you could still have a discussions with people. This one brakes whatever usability Kinja has left.
But, yes it would’ve helped if everyone wasn’t ignoring us completely. I wonder if they are not allowed to say anything about the site functionality?
I wonder if they are not allowed to say anything about the site functionality?
They still respond to all kinds of other comments, so I’m presuming there is a reason for their seeming silence, corporate restriction doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Kinja clearly doesn’t care.I suspect they’d prefer to just get rid of commenting, as many other sites have done.
There is clearly someone programming in this place. Mostly to make it worse and break functionality but they did give io9 a tiny latest section so maybe there’s hope.
The thing with software development is that adding or fixing anything, is liable to break something else. Combine that with how certain kinds of manager will budget no time to maintenance, which doesn’t “add anything”, only to new features; and you have a system that gets steadily more and more broken.
I can’t express how much I love that this comment got double-posted.
The thing with software development is that adding or fixing anything, is liable to break something else. Combine that with how certain kinds of manager will budget no time to maintenance, which doesn’t “add anything”, only to new features; and you have a system that gets steadily more and more broken.
I’ve heard rumours that this family of sites already has one with no comments. A site that just sticks to sports? Probably just a myth, though. This place doesn’t have any blogs that only cover sports.
It existed, once. I remember. Then it got killed. But it had comments then.
Kinja clearly doesn’t care.
That is actually a good thing. As bad as the situation is, the last thing the world needs is a commenting system that is self aware.
For me it would be hard to say. Every episode felt like a totally different animal. I don’t think any kind of conclusion would have been “satisfying.” I liked what we got for the most part (I’m thinking maybe COVID has something to do with its structure, because it was a LOT of people sitting and talking) and the cliffhangers I want to know more about (though season 2 won’t come until 2023, right?)
Now for the on topic comment.I think this is my favourite so far (although WandaVision is very close). I like the journey of Loki into becoming a better person by taking a look at himself – his flaws, his mistake and his selfishness. Of course most of it come through interacting with other characters (Mobius and Sylvie and other Lokis but also facing memories like Sif one) which is nicely on the theme since all this faults made him alone. Of course this is mostly done by talks with those other people which apparently bothered a lot of people but I loved that show took the time to do it so it all can be set up right. Including the final conflict.
Loki gets better by connecting with others. By remembering that his life in Asgard wasn’t just loneliness. He was loved by his mother and, as he realises too late, by his brother (and even his father). And he learns to make friends. But Sylvie didn’t go through the same development and she still is the hurt kid who believes that killing the man responsible for all the hurt will make it better.
As Tom Hiddleston said
“The confession in Episode 6 reveals how much he’s evolved. Sylvie
believes Loki’s position comes from the same old motivation to sit on a
throne. But it doesn’t. It comes from genuine care for another being
outside of himself. It speaks to a theme that was very close to all of
our hearts as filmmakers, which was about self-confrontation, and
self-awareness, and self-forgiveness, and self-acceptance in some way.
That the only way of moving forward is to acknowledge who you are. And
then change can begin.”
And I loved all Lokis – Classic, Alligator, Sylvie, the main one. But there is special place for Kid Loki for me because in the end he is left with only Alligator Loki in a Land of Monsters at the End of Time. I hope he finds his way to Young Avengers.
Also I liked how Loki and Sylvie went through distrust then coming together against common enemy to end up falling apart over disagreement over principles. Their own personal Civil War. Which is appropriate since CW Mark 2 was also all about predestination vs free will.
Well said, agreed on all points. The point of these shows is to take the time to breathe and I honestly and wholeheartedly believe Loki has been the best at this so far.
I have to say, I have no idea why a common thread of complaints about these Marvel shows seems to be “Why can’t every episode be at the Fireworks Factory?” The shows are designed to function as full narratives, not monster of the week adventures. Whether they succeed or fail is debatable, of course, but the fact that the last two episodes are your favorite is not an accident. No shit, buddy, it’s the third act.It makes me think that these people prefer Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to Pride and Prejudice.
that’s the mother of false equivalencies for describing a comic book show.
Well, I sure prefer P+P+Z. Lily James was fantastic and Sam Riley is the all-time best Mr. Darcy.
I can accept that you prefer a a dopey parody to a classic piece of literature, but there is no way I’m going to stand here and let you act like Colin Firth isn’t the only Mr. Darcy that ever mattered. Every other Darcy is like Jared Leto’s Joker compared to Firth (and coincidentally Sam Riley is a clown). Colin Firth is the gold standard Darcy. What you have said is foolish.
I’m still sticking to the conclusion I came to after about the third episode: The writing was weak, but the fantastic cast and production hid that.An info-dump episode is weak writing, even if Jonathan Majors was freaking amazing and Kang’s citadel was kickass.Mobius being Loki’s therapist to help him work out his fee-fees was just fan service, even if the Hiddleston and Wilson utterly sold it and the TVA’s visual introduction was simultaneously fantastic.
Loki being DB Cooper as a one-off joke rather than anything plot related was weak writing. Loki and Sylvie having a heart-to-heart about their tragic pasts was more unneeded fan service. And so on.
I was all ready to fangirl this show, and lots of it was awesome, but every single episode was a mild disappointment despite the awesome parts, because all that surface quality was wobbling atop a slow, amateurish script.
I ask you, have any of us lived up to our glorious purpose?
Speaking only for myself, my attack on New York city was a real disappointment. I’m not sure anyone even noticed it was happening.
“Did the Loki finale live up to its glorious purpose?”Uh, no, definitely not. I didn’t have high expectations after WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and I still feel completely robbed of my time and interest after that incredibly boring anti-climactic sisyphean reset ending.I truly enjoyed the series, but this isn’t just a cliffhanger, it the football being pulled away just before the kick. Usually a cliffhanger to a series, or even in a episode, will tie up or resolve the over arch of the season, or the episode plot, and THEN end with the jolt of the next beat. Season one of Loki just ended without a hint of satisfaction, climax or resolution, and it did so with the very weakest episode of the six. Lame. Very, very lame.
How very Netflix-ian of Disney+, though in this case we know we can count on another season.
This take is a bit much. I thought portions of the show were distressingly amateurish (running around at the end of the third episode was like watching a high school play with a moving background) but the ending here is more or less Twin Peaks: The Return.
“Story ended, questions answered, but OH NO we could only see a piece of a larger puzzle and we’ve created quite a mess.” This is an old story, especially with serialized media.
For me, it absolutely did. I am okay with the cliffhanger-style ending, which did indeed feel very Planet of the Apes, and which I don’t find anticlimactic at all. The central plot problem of the series, “Find out who or what the Timekeepers are and destroy them to restore free will and a multiverse” is exactly what happened. That this resolution caused an even bigger problem is perfectly sound storytelling when you are writing long form narratives (I may be sensitive to this since I am currently writing the second novel in what looks to be a series of novels because every solution just ends up opening new doors, which is scary and exciting at the same time….)As for the episode itself, the appearance of Jonathan Majors was a revelation to me, since I haven’t had a chance to watch Lovecraft Country, and haven’t seen Da 5 Bloods, so as soon as he really started to ramp up I was like “Who is this guy???” He was astonishing in this. And I love a climax focused more on the cerebral rather than action. I am a huge fan of Doctor Strange for that reason, where they had a battle, but the ultimate resolution came from a conversation and a time-loop. As for Loki and Sylvie, all I can say is YES. I loved both characters, and thought the romantic angle completely worked, especially since you could see the entire time that he was all in and she always held something back. That something, of course, was “trust”, and to see Loki’s backfire on him so spectacularly was devastating. (And I truly don’t get the accusations of incest in this scenario. They are two beings from the same background in different timelines and completely different upbringings. They are entirely different people at this point. Pretty sure neither one shares very much DNA with Alligator Loki, either, ya know?)I was shrieking with delight and dismay at the end of the episode, and can’t wait to see what else comes our way.
It was a fantastic episode of a fantastic show, bizarre insufferable weirdo people.
can we just say this is possibly from one of the variant Lokis and Odins??
This is the most backdoor piloty of all the Marvel D+ series thus far. The season finale leads into several new projects viewers would’ve watched anyway, so the series could’ve focused more on the title character(s). There’s so much spinoff seeding that Loki feels like a supporting character in his own series.
Loki has brief flashes of cleverness but spends most of the time catching up to everyone else. It would’ve been more satisfying to watch him scheme & backstab his way up to the man behind the curtain. Since he’s too popular as an anti-hero now, the usurper who tried to genocide Jotunheim doesn’t do anything that might even be morally gray. Arguably Sylvie is the true protagonist, but even she could’ve been a better Loki. Her desire for free will is simply born out of standard revenge rather than a metanarrative on her own nature as later Loki comics explored. Her most ingenious moment, the multiple prune-bomb, ended up being unsuccessful as both a diversion & as a massive impediment to the TVA. She mostly attacks the TVA head-on. I was expecting the final duel between the doppelgängers to have more manipulation on both sides.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/is-loki-too-low-key/
I was much more forgiving of a lot of the problems you very fairly raise, but I think a lot of that is due to really liking what it seemed they were trying to do. A lot of it was rushed, but it was made with such apparent care for the world they were trying to build, and the characters, that I let a lot slide that I wouldn’t have in something more standard MCU. I’m surprised they let them do something so (theoretically) weird. I wish they’d committed more to looking at the legacy of villain Loki (even Ragnarok had that comment about not being welcome on Earth), but I suspect they drank their own Loki koolaid and had a hard time making him too much of a wild card.
Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the last two Disney+ Marvel shows, which felt satisfyingly complete, or maybe it’s just a consequence of Loki’s skimpy six-episode run, but that felt a little… abrupt, didn’t it? (To say nothing of “weirdly reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes.”)At the end, I turned to my wife and said “They’d better have a serious explanatory dump in the post-credits sequence and not just end on Planet of the Apes-ing this shit,” which they then did not.(Not that I wasn’t glad to see a season 2 confirmation.)
You mean that boring as fuck finale (after a great penultimate episode) where people just sat around and talked a bunch? No.
I enjoy a good cliffhanger, but this episode cased me to review the episode order because I really thought there must be one more and I was just one behind, somehow. I’m not a Kang scholar so this all felt pretty abrupt and incomplete to me. It was unsatisfying, and not in an “I want more” sort of way, but more like a knee to the groin.
I loved this show through and through, maybe I’m the only one but I wouldn’t change a single thing. Sylvie achieved her revenge, arc closure.Loki’s grown but locked outside of time, and I actually think now there’s a loose Hunter B-15 in 2018.I say the central character and mystery of the show was who is behind the TVA, which is why it actually didn’t feel like only an MCU set up to me. He Who Remains is supposedly the least evil variant to want control everything and we get that answer, and why the TVA actually exists.And his next introduction doesn’t have to rehash anything, because he could have a separate origin and ultimately a completely different character which He Who Remains is warning us of, not the origin for.I think Sylvie shared as much as she was comfortable, I think Loki was in a real tough spot, and was clearly immediately humbled in the first couple episodes(thankfully this article had nothing bad to say about his development). I NEVER cared for Loki, mostly owing to lack of consistency, mostly between Thor and Avengers. I like seeing different sides of characters and this show is literally my favorite thing out of the MCU.Sorry, not sorry.
So, casting suggestions for Loki variants in season 2? I’d personally like to see a couple more alternate Hiddlestons, but I also think it would be great to have a Loki played by Chris Hemsworth.
Eva Green was brought up during fancasting for Lady Loki. Why not still make her a variant? Let’s not turn Sylvie into the Smurfette of the Loki variants.
Eva Green would be great. I’d also enjoy Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who I think has a certain “Eva Green if she were a hot mess” energy.
Yeah Liam or the other one would be a hilarious Loki
Well, I liked 2/3 of the show? Episode 4 was surprisingly boring, and the end of the last episode was a letdown. Part of the fun of the MCU is the ending wink and nod to what’s coming next. I mean, I’m familiar enough with the different versions of Kang/Immortus that I was able to figure out who he was (even if I didn’t remember that particular moniker). But I think if the end statue had been more obviously the most famous version of the character, instead of just the current version’s head on the not entirely obvious costume (especially when done in stone monochrome), it would have been a lot more exciting and enticing for the future. It would have been a much better *tease*. As it, it’s just “oh, that guy instead of the three statues now. ‘kay…” Even adding the helmet/cowl instead of just his hair would have been better. (Although the face lines alone could have clinched it regardless of any of the rest of it.) It could have been “They’re brining in Kang!” instead of “Well, this seems to be the least interesting version of Kang they could have gone with…”
Hot take: the opening titles of “Loki” promise a darker, weirder, and frankly MUCH better show than one we got.
It really reignited my MCU love. Not that it was ever gone, but the end of the Infinity Saga and the increasingly growing toxic fandom were both really getting to me, to the point where I loathe talking about it online.
I’ll say this: I enjoyed Loki the best among three Marvel TV shows released so far. I thought WandaVision was quite amazing (before the slightly lackluster finale) before Loki blew me away with its premise and characters. Yeah, the finale wasn’t what I expected, but the potentials for next season AND throughout MCU is much more tantalizing than I expected and I wanted more of it.Although, the only criticism I have with this show is NOT giving everyone else beside original Loki their time for character developments that could contribute to already twisty plot. I feel that some episode could adds on maybe 5-10 additional minutes or have the first season gained additional episode. I dunno, I feel that Marvel rather have their plot move at constant momentum very much like their movies and that my suggestions wouldn’t works. Oh well, at least I am enjoying the hell out of their shows.Favorite Variant? Gator boi, no contest.
Yeah I’m mixed on Loki and the finale. The show as a whole really did feel like a prologue. I mean, sure, seasons can end on cliffhangers but I’m having a hard time articulating why this feels off compared to how a non-MCU show would end a season.
Initially I thought Jonathan Majors’ Kang was a weird Grandmaster impression. But I came around when he showed off his multi-variant background and then his facade broke off when things did not go as he foresaw. Upcoming Kang variants are going to be distinct in personality, and possibly form for the non-Majors ones. And if he (or they) are the next Big Bad, I’d be fine with the main Kang having a twistedly mad and serious personality like the castle variant. It would better distinguish him from the mainly pensive and solemn Thanos.
The fifth episode is definitely my favorite – and Alligator Loki is admittedly my favorite variant. I hope Boastful Loki is still around for the second season. Or, given that Kid Loki could be joining the Young Avengers, Boastful Loki could be recruited by Valentina, but that’s a big leap from Point A (the Void) to Point B (Earth).
He Who Remains is a very old man in the comics. I would’ve preferred they cast an old man for this role too. Morgan Freeman or Denzel would’ve been incredible.Majors did the best he could with the material he was given, but I was getting too many Jared Leto Joker and Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luther vibes with his performance.
With the caveat that it’s possible that I’m the only one who finds Loki more annoying than charming, I kind of only really liked the show when we met the purple guy, whomever he is. I was entertained, but also not super intrigued by most of it. As a series and a finale, I’m of the mind that abrupt is way better than overstaying, so why I definitely feel they could’ve done more but I’m alright with it. I think that even just one more episode of pacesetting wouldn’t have felt like too much.I agree with Danette, that romance was a lot less weird than it should’ve been—to the point I think Sylvie may not be a Loki after all. Really? Only one female Loki in all these branches?Impressive as the design most of the show left me kind of bored. I don’t find Loki that interesting (similarily, I think Zemo being Eurotrash fun in Captain Falcon diminishes him and the stakes there…), but mainly, I find the whole he’s a needy little boy reductive and convenient to making him rootable. Wandavision’s style is feeding both audience nostalgia and as an expression of her grief, where this feels like it’s meant to be Dr. Who fun (which is fun!) but just that, and the character throughlines are spelled out too much in you can’t trust/ I can’t be trusted, etc. “We’re all villains here” is the best line because it’s the one that addresses complexity.Purple really is the color villainy, huh? Before I pieced the consensus guess I was running through the villains in purple and there are so many!
My theory on president Loki is that he came from a timeline where he’s telling the Germans to bow and Cap shows up and he’s like “fine I’ll play your election game”
I thought this was a pretty mediocre show throughout (the first episode was okay with at least a whiff of potential.)But, holy fucking shit, the finale was AWFUL!!!!!Hey, here’s an idea for a TV show? How about that character, Loki? He’s a villain, but he’s really charismatic. And he’s always lying, tricking people, creating illusions, using misdirection, etc. He’s literally the God of Mischief!
But, hey, in this show, how about he NEVER tricks anyone, EVER. He almost never lies. He just plays it totally straight and tamp down his charisma by 95%. We strip him of all his interesting and signature qualities and just make him, I dunno, a slightly mopey guy?Unbelievable how bad this show was. Hey, Marvel, next time, try hiring a writing with maybe more than one credit, who’s been working for more than 20 minutes. Just a thought.The finale of this show literally made me angry it was so god damn bad.
Here’s an awesome twist for a TV show. In the first episode, lay out a very convoluted backstory. Throughout the show, the characters are desperate to learn the truth about what is REALLY going on and fight back against an entrenched, mysterious power structure.And then in the finale, reveal that everything we learned in the beginning was 100% true! There is NO twist at all! Oh, wait, the twist is, instead of three guys, it’s one guy! Totally mind-blowing!Fuck this fucking shit show.
I like these posts because they double as great “Which AVclub Writer are You?” quizzes. Turns out, I’m a Danette! The pilot episode was my favorite and got me so excited, but the show went in a different direction than I expected so I was a pretty disappointed overall. But yeah, the score is really fantastic!
“call me a sucker, but I love that shit”Okay, you’re a sucker.
What bigger “glorious purpose” is there than making sure the multiverses don’t implode?
Started out strong but after the midway point lost a lot motivation to watch the rest….they should of just released the entire seaon at one time. I think I will skip watching the next season and just stick to watching the next seaon of The Boy’s.
I went into Loki with an open mind and after episode 1, I was fully onboard with Loki/Mobius visit different parts of the past to prune variants while hunting down variant Loki. Basically, a time-travelling buddy cop show (similar to Legends of Tomorrow, I am told). But then they went a different direction and it was interesting… but by the finale I felt that the show was a bit too far up its own ass. I got serious Matrix 2 vibes from the show that just seemed way too interested in indulging the writers to ask logic questions that did not have satisfying answers rather than enjoying the show. Was Kang’s conversation happening simultaneously in every multiverse with its own “sacred timeline?” What about the timelines where Kang didn’t care and branching paths were extending forever – do those ever intersect with the one we are in? When were all these Kang’s fighting, and where? Why was Loki of all people given the choice to take over or kill Kang? Why use variants for the TVA? Why *have* a TVA, if the issue isn’t time travelers, but dimension hoppers? What the fuck is the “end of time” anyway? What was the judge doing? Why were the Loki variants in particular deemed problematic?I really thought the show was going to end with HWR being… another Loki. Loki wanted to prune other versions of himself because he has trust issues. He used other variants at the TVA because he, ya know, deceives people as his MO. Instead we got what we got and while a lot of people seemed to enjoy it, it just made me start asking a million questions I wish I didn’t have and could just enjoy what I saw.Thank you for attending my TED talk.